Semey, Kazakhstan

As you read my previous blog about Albania – did you wonder why I’m writing for a Kazakhstan adoption blog? That would lead me to the adoption journey to of our second child – Max – again I went through a few years of infertility treatments – my husband’s heart had to be in the right place for adoption and he wondered after Max’s adoption – why he had waited and I still think – we waited because “Max” wasn’t born and he was our child and life circumstance brought us to him.

Being “savvy” in international adoption – we had filed for independent adoption through Ukraine and were paper ready. But life again had another path for us to follow and we were guided through an online friend to an adoption agency’s website. I fell in love with Max’s face (and had looked through hundreds of on-line photo listing prior to this) and my husband thought he was cute too. So – we inquired and the rest is history! Larry and I traveled to Kazakhstan in April of 2001 and spent 33 days overseas for the adoption of Max. The Kazakhstan adoption process was you spend two weeks in the baby house – getting to know your child on his/her “turf” – which as hard as that was on us at times – we think it was a HUGE blessing for our son. He wasn’t sold on us at first and it took him time to warm up to us being his parents. We still remember another little boy in our son’s room who LOVED my husband and would “take over” anytime he could with Larry. Max loved the outside from day one – he would walk over to his cubby and take his coat and shoes out to let us know – come on – let’s go play! We stayed right in the room with the 8 other children during Max’s adoption. It was definitely an enriching but yet draining experience. We quickly realized that the floor had many layers of urine in the rug and the thought of laying on it to play took a little getting used to. Larry still jokes that Max marked his “territory” by peeing on him during one of their first meetings. Plus playing with 8 children instead of 1 was a lot. It was GREAT to see where he played, slept and ate though. One of my favorite memories is of Max sitting on his potty chair and scooting without getting off of it – to look into the room where we were waiting. I knew at that moment that he wanted to be with us – but had to follow the rules of the baby house staff. Max’s adoption city was Semey, Kazakhstan and we weren’t given the option to explore too much or with a coordinator who provided a lot of detailed information.

 

Max is 6.5 years old now and is still our outside boy – full of energy, compassion and just an overall joy to parent!

After adopting in Albania where hugs and kisses were the way of greeting – I can’t say that I embraced Kazakhstan after Max’s adoption – that came during our second son’s adoption – Logan from Taraz, Kazakhstan. Hope to see you soon – as I introduce Logan. http://kazakhstan.adoptionblogs.com/weblogs/taraz-kazakhstan-our-journey-to-logan

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