In which we reflect on friends old and new.
A small black band of mourning today. Our friends and mentors the Strelos left for Almaty today. What the heck do we do with ourselves now?
Write speeches, apparently.
Inna popped in during today's visit with Owen (which went a fun thirty minutes longer thanks to a late arrival of Kokshetau Air-- Oleg had to stay with the Strelos at the airport). She reviewed the court proceedings with us.
It sounds as though the room will be packed-- the head of the maternity hospital (a nice man we met for approximately two minutes), Dr. Natalia, Owen's pediatrician, the nice woman from the Ministry of Education, Inna, a prosecutor(!), a court reporter, us and the judge.
There will be some brief officiating and then I'll be asked if I have anything to say to the court. The answer, obviously, is "absolutely" and what follows needs to be a heartfelt explanation of why the people of Kazakhstan should entrust one of their own to a couple of lunatics from the other side of the planet.
Inna told me to write a speech-- she'll look at it ahead of time and give me pointers-- that includes a discussion of the nature of Robin's and my marriage. ("Uh, what do you mean by that," I asked. "You should tell the court that you love her.") I'll talk about my job and our home, how much we want a family, why we want to adopt, why we chose Kazakhstan (she gave us a little pop quiz about that-- we passed), and what it was like the first time we saw Owen. She said to talk about friends and family back home and to explain what we think their reaction will be.
Thanks to all your nice notes and comments in the guest book, we think we have that last part covered.
Interestingly, money issues are very sensitive. Inna asked me if we received any adoption financial aid, either through work or through government grants. When I told her that my company actually had a very generous adoption assistance program, she suggested that I not mention it.
"We look at these things very differently than you do in the States," she said. "We don't want to give the wrong impression." Apparently there have been some misunderstandings and people have thought Americans adopt just to get the grants.
Yikes! The benefits ain't that generous.
Robin may (or may not) be asked to make some additional comments and then there will be a few questions before we'll be dismissed and the court deliberates.
"It's not for sure," Inna tells us, "But I think it is very likely you will be allowed to adopt Owen." The purpose for the hearing, she said, is to prove that we love him.
There's already been homework to prep. Today we had to turn in handwritten statements saying that we had heard and understood the doctors' assessments of all Owen's ailments and that we wanted to adopt him anyway. Tomorrow we need to show Inna a photo album of pictures from home. That will be taken to court and given to the judge as well.
We'll also need to have some pictures for the album printed from our visits. You may have noticed that they all have a date stamp on them. This is the latest requirement and the judge wants it to prove that we actually had a 15-day visiting period and to show our interactions over time.
I guess no one's told the court that you can change the date on these cameras...
Anyhow, Robin and I will have lots of peace and quiet to perfect our speeches now that we're rattling around in the cottage by ourselves. Did I mention that we miss the Strelos? (But, I have to admit, the afternoon naps today were AWESOME.)
Speaking of families that we miss, we had a tremendous treat this morning: My mom, with her fancy new digital camera, managed to snap a few shots of our furry babies and e-mail them to us. It was big fun to see them. We've been telling Owen about his two "sebaccas" (dogs) and two "koshkos" (cats). Russian cats say "meow," but apparently a Russian bark is "guff-guff."
We have a Who Loves Baby? photo album-- a soft little number that you can put pictures in and hand over to the boy to gnaw on. So far he's gnoshed on both grandmothers and his grandfather. He likely won't know them to see them, but he may recognize them after he gets a good taste.
We also spent some time today telling Owen about his Abuelito Paul and he learned about all things Carrigan. You can see the photos at left.
Owen has not yet heard about Uncle "Larry" Isenhour because we don't want to scare him. Click the link to see what Uncle Larry is sending to Owen's poor daddy. Uncle Larry is mean but, of course, quite funny.
