Post Court Update from Home

It is my 4th day home since arriving back home from Kazakhstan and I am finally forcing myself to update my blog. My challenge was my plethora of emotions running through my brain and I am not even sure I can do justice to my thoughts even now, days later.

Perhaps a list will help me.

1. First and foremost, I am *thrilled* to have been granted permission legally to adopt our son. It is an amazing rush of emotions that stem from a few powerful feelings.
A. love and care of our little boy and the life we will share together and looking forward to being his Mommy and the person who will love him the most for all of his days
B. my amazing gratitude to my husband for getting on board and allowing us to get to this place and his unbelievable turn around
C. pride in myself when I think how far I have come personally in this journey. Years back, I was faced with so many emotional and “societal” challenges in my quest to adopt. I couldn’t feel more proud of myself for staying my own course and not letting others (including my originally waffling husband;-) get in my way.

Though we are not yet home all together with the reality that daily life will bring, I am still amazed at how far we have come. After court, with a positive declaration by the Judge behind us, Gary and I walked the already familiar city streets of Almaty and I said “Can you believe we are at this place now?” Even Gary couldn’t believe it that here we are – parents to a little boy through the amazing blessing of adoption. Just as I know the exact moment that my daughters were born, I made sure to look at my watch at the moment the Judge granted us the approval to adopt our son. We began our court appointment on February 3rd at 11:45 am and it was at 12:43 pm, after a 1 minute “decision making process” that the Judge called up back in, told us to rise, and said YES.

I want to hug and kiss Gary more than ever now because of how proud I am of *him.* To listen to him talk to people about the process – whether talking about our son and how cute he is, or telling funny stories about having eaten horse meat, or our trek through the Green Bazaar seeing the dangling pigs heads or our unique line of questioning during Court to Gary’s agreeing to come with me for Trip #3 (FYI, both spouses only need to come to Kazakhstan for the first two trips and the take home trip can be done with just one parent.) Long ago, Gary had even suggested we use an escort to bring our child to America for us, but now, with an understanding of the process and what our son will go through to leave his country and travel all those hours, it is not even a question in his mind that both of us should not be there for him.

Gary, originally not very demonstrative and emotional about our adoption, to say the least, hugged me numerous times on our day of court and said to me “Steph, we have a son.” It was a declaration of simultaneous pride and happiness and joyous disbelief. Surely this adventure has brought us closer. And though I do think we are a complete Family of 5, I actually asked Gary if we were to have one more child in what manner he would want to expand our family. Long before this, he thought pregnancy was the way to go. After this experience Gary actually said “I’m not sure” and that he would not be opposed to adopting again. Like I said, I think we have a complete family but the fact that Gary has been changed so much is miraculous to me. He feels the greatness in what we have given and in what we have received from this journey to our son.

Our Son’s Name:
As I sit here pouring over the Restoration Hardware Baby web site for pretty room decor and wooden letters for his wall, I think about his name — Major Jonathan Karp. A unique name and one that surely won’t be forgotten. To give a little background about his first name — it has been a favorite of Gary’s for about 8.5 years, since I was pregnant with Emma and we didn’t know if she’d be a boy or girl. I remember looking in baby name books, and we were originally searching for “M” names as Gary’s father was called Mac, a derivative of Max, which means Greatest. Gary’s father passed away when Gary was only 15 years old. When Gary saw Major, meaning Greater, he thought that would be a wonderful and unique name with which to honor his father, and in this manner, Gary now has a son to carry on his father’s name. I have also always loved the name Jonathan which means “God’s Gift” or “Given by God”, and surely I feel that Major Jonathan, joining his family of two sisters, is one of our *three* greatest gifts from God.

Disappointment:
In the weeks leading up to our court trip, I had gathered more clothing and toys for our son to play with. Days before we left, I packed them carefully along with our sheet for the floor. I packed for him Gerber Puffs and Wafer cookies because I thought there’d be some memory there with foods. I also packed my Calyx perfume as that is what I was wearing last time. I had such visions in my head of how our reunion would be — as any parent knows on this trip back to visit their child. The 5 weeks couldn’t come soon enough. It was very hard for me in the first few weeks and as the Court Date loomed ahead, I began to feel the excitement of anticipation. Gary and I spoke ad nauseam about how we thought Major (!! 😉 would greet us. I knew from our translator Bolat, who kindly took photos for us, that he remembered him. Surely he would remember us at that time. My excitement grew daily. I packed a tape measure to measure his feet for shoes that I’d buy him for when we took him home. I also packed an Ergo carrier to get him used to being carried in this manner so close to me. I passed the time on my 12 hour layover in Astana thinking of our visits and kissing his pudgy cheeks again … and again … and again… and again.

But, “Go with the flow!” is the name of the adoption game, and it was only once we arrived in our hotel after traveling for 40 hours, that we were told we would not be visiting him. That the Baby House director does not or will not allow it due to our son’s age and the hardship on him from the time we spent and then for us to leave again after a short time.

Back in our hotel room, with my jaw still on the floor and suffering exhaustion and jet lag, I had not yet let the severity of my disappointment register fully. I was extremely short-tempered to Gary as we began to unpack our bags. He recognized why and I finally allowed myself a good cry and began to see this for just a minor blip in the screen. I had to mentally get in the game for Court Day the next day.

I had not been told of this new non-visiting Court Trip in advance because our American team did not know this was now the case for BH#3, or perhaps for our specific circumstance. Though it was known in advance by our Belgian friends who were also at BH#3, it was a complete shock to me as everyone in America that I have known about has gotten to visit with their children during their court trip. And to visit the Baby House in general to bring the celebratory cakes and chocolates to the caregivers and director is a known thing that happens on the Court trip usually. But in our case, this was not going to happen. Though I contacted our agency in the US to gather more information about this new plan, we were told they had not known this would be our circumstance. And though it was offered as a slight suggestion to press on after court, I did not rock the boat even after court. Though I personally feel that any one on one attention with our son could only benefit him, I did not want to upset the system while he is in their care and perhaps make it worse for others after my case. I already know how Americans can often be viewed in international adoption. I did not want to add to this. I kept my eye on the prize and knew that the only way to get to the other side was to just get past this. As we had booked our trip for more days than needed to visit our son a few more times, without this visit, we changed our plans to come home the day after Court.

Court day came and dressed in our formal attire we drove with Timur, our driver, to pick up Jamila, one of our favorite caregivers, from the Baby House as she would be acting as our Baby House representative. While waiting behind the closed gates of the orphanage, I decided to snap a photo of at least the building on the day we became a family. With my camera already in hand and one photo snapped already, I noticed a group of children and caregivers rounding the corner of the property from their morning walk. Before I could even think through the sentence “Imagine if we see Batyrhan’s group!” I saw a little boy holding the hand of a caregiver wearing the jacket he always wore with us. He raised his face to look up at his caregiver and there was the beautiful little face of our little boy. Imagine being in a car with closed windows behind the fence of the orphanage when you haven’t seen your son for 5 weeks and will not for another 5 weeks. You can not call out to him and cause the stress the Baby House director was trying to avoid. You can only freak out next to your husband in the back seat of the car. When Timur did open the window for me, I managed a shot of the children’s retreating backs. Through sheer luck, the shot was clear and Major was centered.

We received two photos from Bolat last night taken on February 3rd, the day he did become our son. He has two more teeth and a little bruise under his eye. His hair looks longer. He looks happy but also older. It will be at least 10 weeks total until we will have seen him again. I am fairly certain now that he will not remember us or at the least will show some trepidation upon seeing us. I know we will have taken many steps backward but I also know that, God willing, we have the rest of our long lives ahead of us to make up for lost time. Time passes so quickly and I just want him to be my little baby before he grows so quickly.