Back to Adoption and More Definite Maybes

Warm Christmas wishes to all who share our blog!

We would like to thank everyone so much for their kind comments and emails this week. Our house is strangely empty and quiet, though we will no doubt still find dog hair stuck to our clothes, in corners and under the furniture for months to come. At least our little one will get to experience that part of Charger! Since both of us work mostly from home in jobs that allow flexible time, Charger was very much a part of our daily (sometimes hourly) routines. On some days, the routines revolved solely around him and his walks, meals, tricks, games and treats. During these last few days we have become all too aware of how much extra time we now have on our hands. Too bad we got all of our Christmas preparations out of the way early just in case we got called to Kazakhstan! After a day or two of cocooning, we ventured out to the movies and have done so each day since. The inherent upheaval of the holidays has provided a nice distraction, though we are looking forward to getting back to work and adoption matters once the holidays are over.

Speaking of adoption, we met with our agency yesterday. What we now know is best summed up by paraphrasing Julian’s favourite American poet philosopher. There are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. The difficult part is determining which category our travel dates and ultimate destination belong in. Our January 10th or 14th travel dates that were pretty certain last week have become “hopefully by mid-January” and “hopefully to Almaty.”

We are still up against the registration anomaly alluded to in a previous blog entry. (Children in Almaty somehow fell through the requisite registration cracks recently. There is an ongoing delay while these children are re-registered.) Our agency is hopeful and has told us to pack our bags and be ready to travel on a moment’s notice as early as mid-January. At the same time, there are no guarantees and there is still a chance that we could be further delayed and/or moved to another region within Kazakhstan.

Frustrating? Perhaps. But we knew to expect the unexpected, particularly where delays were involved. We are confident that our agency is working hard on our behalf and that many elements are beyond their control. It’s all part of the adventure when one chooses the road less travelled!

There is a bit of good news amidst all of the grey areas. As of this week, Citizenship & Immigration Canada (CIC) have changed the rules regarding the citizenship of children adopted abroad by Canadian parents. Now such children will automatically receive Canadian citizenship without having to go through the immigration process (i.e. attaining permanent residence status before applying for citizenship, etc., etc.). The ruling is new enough that many procedural changes have yet to be explained. However, we anticipate that this will speed up and simplify our adoption process in Kazakhstan by relieving some of the previous processing requirements that involved files being couriered to Moscow and London. This is good.

So that is what we now know. Or not as the case may be.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!