Day 15 of 15 Day Waiting Period

Well that is behind us now. It feels good to at least be able to check off something. We actually now have several things to check off. As of this evening we have not only applied for court, but we have been assigned to a judge and have our court date.

We go to court to petition to adopt Aitugan on Monday 26 November at 10am. With that date set, we now expect to be able to take her out of the Baby House 16 days later on the morning of 12 December.

It is there that we begin to run into slight delays as we have roughly 5 days worth of things to do here in Astana before going to Almaty, and 16 Dec is the Kazakhstan Independence Day.

Sunday the 16th is the day, but we are told the holiday, falling as it does on a weekend, may mean that offices are closed Monday and Tuesday as well. That means that we may not get down to Almaty until the early twenties of December.

We then have three days of medical clearances and other officialdom to complete through the US embassy in Almaty and fully expect that we will encounter further delays because of the Christmas holidays.

Even if we don't get held up because of Holiday delays, the likelihood that we will be able to find flights on short notice from Kaz, to Amsterdam, and then Boston seems unlikely and so I fully expect that we will find ourselves traveling on our original return tickets we scheduled for the morning of Friday 28 Dec and arriving late that afternoon into BOS.

Enough of that. So how is Aitugan you ask. She is doing fantastically.

We have been so proud these last few days as she regularly displays her latest great discovery - that her finger fits inside her nose. Apart from that, she is also growing and changing in so many wonderful ways.

She spent today's visit desperate to pull herself to a stand at any chance she could. She is an avid climber and grunts and moans as she attempts to solve the dilemma of how to get her feet under her. Getting to her knees is now rather routine, but pulling up to a stand is temporarily beyond her grip strength.

Once in a standing position, she actively shifts and rocks to maintain her balance with just a clenched fist around a steady finger of two. It is exciting - both for her and for us.

She crawls quite efficiently at this point, though her singleminded determination often dictates that she take a rather Tonka truck approach to getting around. She thinks nothing of crawling up and over anything that may present an obstacle whether that be a parents leg, a toy, or another child.

Aitugan was so active in the first hour of the visit today that she got tired and cranky earlier than usual and we were concerned that we would spend much of the second hour trying to placate our tempestuous daughter, but as good fortune would have it, somehow she tapped into a bit of reserve and pulled herself together for the last half hour.

She definitely seemed to react well to, and find comfort in, being rocked, rubbed and 'shooshed', and for a few minutes rested calmly in my shoulder looking around and sucking her thumb. We continue to get closer and closer to a child that might actually fall asleep in our arms - oh what a moment that will be for all of us. Let us hope that we get there before we have to fly home.

I keep forgetting to mention how great it has been to be capable of carrying out live video chats using Apple's iChat program. Thankfully most everyone in our immediate world uses a Mac these day and so we make free calls to friends and family nearly everyday. We are certainly grateful for that. Take Care.



Day 15 Crawling to Stand



Day 15 Wanting to Walk