As I am woefully behind, allow me to write a bit about some of what has transpired in the last several weeks, and then to come back in a few days and try to get some photos together.

I guess it has been nearly a month since we last updated our journey and as I look back, I see we left off with more talk of Kyrgyzstan so let’s begin there.

No more Kyrgyzstan. Literally within hours of finishing the last post, KJ, Tougy, and I were off on another long drive and we got to talking about the process and the short of it is – we’re going back to Kaz with the Agency that brought us to Tougy, MAPS.

After a quick call to Libby (the Kaz Coordinator for MAPS) to talk over a few details followed by a call to our Kyrg agency, Adoption Options, to make sure we could get our program fee refunded, our minds were made up. What followed was a sense of calm that assured us that we were on the right path to Tougy’s sibling.

Since then, we’ve completed our new Home Study, and begun to get our paperwork together.

Tomorrow morning we meet with a psychologist to fulfill the requisite professional blessing of ‘fit to parent’, then go straight to the MAPS office to sign the paperwork that officially puts us in their Kaz program, and turn in the 55 documents we have already had notarized and apostiled.

By weeks end we should have applied for our I-600 and by months end we hope to have our dossier completed. With luck, we will be back in Astana by next spring.

So what led us to switch programs.

On the Kaz end, news that MAPS was again sending families to Astana, combined with our knowing that the children there tend to be well looked after and healthy, was a real plus. We are familiar with the program and routine there, and we like that the children are typically 7-12 months old when you meet them.

So what about Kyrg? Scuttlebutt on the message boards suggests that in addition to having grown at an alarming rate recently, the Kyrg program has been all but closed for the last several months with very few families receiving referrals.

Additionally a number of families who have made the initial bonding trip have now been waiting months for the court decisions that clear the way for their return trip. The future of the program in Kyrg - as well as in Kaz for that matter – is uncertain, but Kyrg’s looked somewhat more treacherous.

Sure there were more factors that played in to our decision - this is but the Cliff Notes version - but we are confident that we are now upon the right path for our family.

So now we have to figure out what to call the new blog. Of course before Tougy was Tougy, she was Kazmo, and so we had decided that Kyrgmo made sense for a child from Kyrgystan. Building consensus is that Kazmor makes a fine followup. Will we eventually see a Kazmost - time will tell. Take Care.