7 Down, more than a few to go.

Well now that we are past the "Shock and Awe" of yesterday's announcement, I thought I would write today about our experience thus far and attempt to outline the remainder of the process.

Shymkent is an industrial city in the southern part of Kazakhstan, just north of the Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan borders.  Within Kazakhstan it has a reputation for lawlessness and seems to enjoy a sort of renegade spirit despite being the third largest population center in the country.

As it is some 600 miles south of Astana (where we had been this time of year two years ago for Tougy's adoption) it has a far more pleasant winter.  As an example, the weather calls for a high of 83 here tomorrow vs. 51 in Astana and 69 vs. 30 the next day.  It may not be ideal in the summer, but we'll take it this time of year.

The Baby House here in Shymkent is currently undergoing renovations, we have found, and over the weekend before we arrived, the whole facility moved in to a temporary building.  As this temporary facility is all we have seen, I have no idea how it compares to the original, but I can tell you it is less than ideally set up for most every purpose it is being asked to perform these days.

How long this present building will serve as the Baby House seems unknown, though it seems likely to be many months if not more than a year, and I can say without reservation that this is unfortunate for all involved.  We hear that there are but three main rooms for the nearly 100 children, and the space that they have found for family visits is nothing short of prison-like.

On the plus side, the space affords a small amount of privacy.  The negatives list includes the fact that it contains no natural light, affords no place to allow us to place Nurai down, measures 4 feet by 6 feet, and is situated at the dead end of a narrow hallway made narrower by a small bench and table.

Partly on account of this marginal arrangement, and partly as a function of the Baby House's restrictive visitation schedule of just 1 hour a day, 5 days a week, we have decided to return home after court and for just one of us to return to bring Nurai home later in December.

Our 14-day bonding period wraps up on 10 Nov, and we expect to have court on or close to the 20th, such that we anticipate being back in Maine for Thanksgiving.  If this happens, we would expect to return for Nurai somewhere in the mid to late teens of December and to arrive back in Maine before Christmas.  It looks most likely that KJ and Tougy will remain home as I come back for the second trip.

It had certainly not been our plan, but given a limited amount of time off from work, it makes the most sense to spend our time away from work at home as a family of 4 rather than use a further month of time racking up 5 hours a week in a small closet together.  It will be hard to leave Nurai, but using our time this way is what we know will be best for her.

Additionally, getting Tougy back to a normal routine and back to a social network of friends will benefit all of us.  As the days pass we can see her looking longingly at other children and wishing that she could engage with them, but of course, given the language barrier, this proves difficult.  She is such a social child that we feel that this is a real priority for her right now.

Nurai continues to look better and better with each passing day, though as I mentioned previously, our primitive bonding space coupled with the requirement that we wear masks in her presence is more than a little counterproductive to the idea of bonding.

Our time here thus far stands in stark contrast to our experience with Tougy in Astana.  There the Baby House was well appointed with a large and bright, if unbearably hot, visitation room, a fairly generous visitation schedule (2hr/day, 6 day/week), and a host of other families with which to interact.  Another key difference is the physical and emotional level of our two children at the time of their respective adoptions.

Tougy at 7 months was crawling ably, was intrigued by everything, and was a very physical child.  Nurai on the other hand is much less developed at 10 months.  Her physical and emotional needs correspond to a child significantly younger and she will require a more concerted effort to catch up, something we can better do once we get home to Maine.

I know that there is so much more to expound upon, and I will do my best as time and energy allow, but at the moment KJ and I are pretty beat and so we will procrastinate a little longer.  I cannot begin to convey how much we truly appreciate the incredible support we have enjoyed over the years here on this blog.  How very different this experience would be without you.  Our sincere thanks to you all. Take Care.

P.S.  As some of you may have noticed, we have written our daughters name two different ways, and just wanted to say that her official spelling will be Nurai. As for the rest of her name, we are still working on that and probably won't announce it until we have to present it for court later this month.  Of course with Aitugan, we primarily call her Tougy, so time will tell if we will happen upon an abbreviated or variant form of Nurai's name, or whether we will simply use Nurai.  Knowing my family's penchant for nicknames, I should suspect we will stumble upon something before too long.