Big Day!

Today is our last day of required visitation! It's also Daniel's 10 month Birthday!

Yesterday was the first day that when we went to pick Daniel up from his room, we were greeted with a HUGE Smile! He also gave us that same smile when we picked him up for our afternoon visit! I was staring to worry if it would ever happen but it finally did!

Today was also an exciting day! As soon as he saw us come through the door, his whole face lite up! We grabbed him and headed down to the visiting room. After about 15 minutes, our translator came to us and told us to bring Daniel back to his room and that we had to go to the Ministry of Education for our interview!!

There are several other families in our hotel who are a few days ahead of us in the process and they were told that they would probably be going on Friday (and have court on Monday). We were hoping to have our interview on Friday but thought that we may be pushed back until next week since they are ahead of us. We were pleasantly surprised to have it so quickly. We were also glad that we had only a 45 minute notice. Patti was very nervous and said she probably would not have been able to sleep if she knew last night (me either).

The interview itself was much more formal that I was expecting. There were 3 people who were representing the Kazakhstan government who were sitting at a table accross from us. They were all very intimidating (especially the "Big Cheese")! They all asked us questions and we answered through our translator. Our translator told us to smile and act confident and she would take care of the rest. Some of the questions we were asked were; How long have we been married? Was this our first marriage? Do we have any other children? Are we prepared for the changes that a child will bring to older people who have never had children? What our professions were? How much did we make each year? What kind of house we live in? How much do we pay for monthy mortgage? Why did we choose to adopt from Kazakhstan? Do we have any diseases (they think that some people will adopt and use the adopted child for organ transplants)? If we were looking to adopt a boy or girl? How does the child respond to us as he sees us each day? What feelings do we have for the child?

The entire interview took about 6 or 7 minutes so it wasn't so bad. I think because there were about 8 - 10 families all lined up in the hallway, they wanted to get through us quick (before lunch)! The Ministry Of Education interview is a big step toward finalizing the adoption. The next big step is to petition the court to legally become Daniel's parents. We are still not sure when that will be but our translator told us that she may have the date as soon as this afternoon. We are really hoping to go to court on Monday. This would give us a day to fly to Alamty and then catch our scdeduled flight to Germany on Wednesday morning at 4AM.

On our way to Kazakhstan, if you remember, I was shocked that I had to pay $24 for 2 Filet-O-Fish, a large order of cold fries and a box of water at the McDonald's in the Frankfurt Airport! Just over 2 weeks later, that seems like such a small price to pay; I guess it's just a matter of perspective!

Well, It appears that my spell check is not working but I don't have time to play with it. Lets see what hapens when I try to post this to the blog today!

PS - Sonya, I did run into your translator and she was very happy to hear from you and that things were going well. She told me that she would give me her email address and she would be very excited to hear from you. I haven't run into her again to get it but I'm sure I will see her in the next few days.