END OF JOURNEY!

We have decided that this is the end of our adoption journey. Our agency finally received word from the MFA that they are not accepting our dossier due to the fact that the documents are more than 6 months old. They told our agency back in October that all we had to do was update our POA, which we did and now they've changed their minds. This is the final straw for us emotionally.

We greatly appreciate all the prayers friends and family have said for us in this journey and we will continue to pray for those who are still in the process.

Thanks,
The Meenach's
Chad, Michelle, & Cody

Spoke with Coordinator!

We spoke with our coordinator last night. Her name is Lana and she is from Kazakhstan, but she lives in D.C. She told us there are two reasons the MFA is extremely slow right now…..#1 They just had an election, so the new officials are learning the ropes at the MFA right now….#2 Things slow down in Kazakhstan this time of year with officials & judges going on vacation, etc., etc. She said the in country coordinator, Svetlana, is checking with the MOE on a weekly basis & as soon as they know something they will let us know.
She also told us about 3 of the regions they work in, so I thought I would tell you what she told me about them.

Almaty - Capital in Kazakhstan. This region is requiring 3 trips right now which doesn’t sit to well with me, since I’m scared to death of flying. I’ve only flown 1 time when I was 14 years old & that was only 1 way….home from Florida. She said the 3 trip requirement isn’t that bad considering we wouldn’t have to be in Kazakhstan for very long on the 2nd & 3rd trip, so we wouldn’t have to miss as much work.

Uralsk - We know a family that lives in our school district (River Valley) that adopted from this region at the beginning of 2007. This regiona would be my choice going by what we know right now. It only requires 1 trip that last’s about 30 days and the children available seem to be younger than some of the other regions. The Hypes Family adopted a 9 month old and the coordinator said she just finished up two adoptions from there and the baby’s were 9 months & 11 months. We requested a child as young as possible, but we are willing to go up to 2 years old. This region is also called a blind region….this means that you do not get any information on the children that are available, but they will make sure there are more than just a couple of children available within our specifications. At this point I think we are both completely ok with flying blind…it doesn’t matter to us the sex of the child or children as long as they are healthy as possible. We would love to bring home two children, but we aren’t sure if we will be allowed to do so.

Ust Kamenogorsk - Ust is where we were going to travel with our previous agency. She mentioned that they are not currently working in Ust, but that if things change Ust would be an option. We were told that when our dossier gets to the MOE they would check and see if our referral from our first agency is still available. We aren’t holding our breathe for this one…knowing what we know now about our first agency, she was probably never available…that was part of their bait and switch tactics that we fell for.

If all goes well, we should get our LOI sometime this month, which means we should be flying in January. We are hoping for this anyway. It could just be wishful thinking, I’ll just continue to pray that we hear something soon and we can finally start preparing to travel. I can’t take much more of this waiting and not knowing anything. Our dossier has been at the MFA since May with our old agency and since the end of October with our new agency.
We hope everyone has a wonderful CHRISTmas and Happy New Year! Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.
Chad, Michelle, & Cody Meenach
November - 2007

Nothing New!

Our agency hasn't received any new info from the MFA. We are still waiting. It is very frustrating for us. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Pray we hear something soon.

Michelle

Nothing New

I stated in my last post that we would know something in about 2 weeks. Well here we are 4 weeks later and still nothing to report. I wish I had something new to post, but we are still waiting to hear from our adoption coordinator. Our new documents have been at the MFA going on 3 weeks now. We should hear something within the next week or two.

I look forward to posting some good news real soon. We will keep everyone posted.

Hugs,
Michelle

New Agency

We have decided to go with a new agency all together. Our new agency is God's Waiting Children. We mailed out some necessary documents Friday and it will probably be about 2 weeks before we will know anything official on the adoption to report. As for now, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Michelle

Adoption Agency Closed

Here is a link to a news report that was aired 9/10/07 about our agency.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news&id=4870939

I thought some of you would like to view it so you can see first hand how corrupt our agency was. It's a heart breaking story about adoption.


Our adoption agency is finally shut down. They are working out a contract with Heritage Adoption Agency to finalize adoptions for clients that are stuck. That's about all we know for now. Our adoption coordinator, Kevin has told other clients that he's expecting things to be finalized early this week. I have heard some good things about Heritage and they have been in business for more than 16 years, but their Kazakhstan Adoption program is NEW. It is our understanding that AIP clients will be the first to experience their Kaz program. We're not sure what we are going to do at this point. We know if we go with another agency it will be another 6 months before we fly at the earliest. The thought of waiting another 6 months is abolutely killing me, but it may be our only SAFE option. We'll let eveyone know what we decide to do.

Hugs,
Michelle

Still Nothing to Report!

Still no new information to report. Just waiting! We will let everyone know the minute we get any new information. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Nothing New to Tell

Quick Update.......Haven't heard anything new from our agency Adoption International Program (AIP). They were out of the office last week and should be back tomorrow. We have requested our money back from them, because it looks like they may not be able to help us proceed with our adoption. We're not sure what our next step will be at this point. We will hopefully know something before the end of the week. We will post an update as soon as we know something.

Keep us in your thought and prayers.

Still Waiting

Just wanted to give an update.......I spoke with our adoption agency tonight. He doesn't know what the delay is with our LOI. Our dossier was received in Kazakhstan in the early part of May. We should of received our LOI over a week ago, but he says he should get it any day now. They say this is the hardest part of the whole process, sitting and waiting. They call these labor pains. I never really felt labor pains with Cody, so I can truely say this is more painful than labor. LOL

I'll post again as soon as we hear something. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Love,

Michelle

Next Step in Process

We were instructed to send our visa applications out last Thursday. It can take up to 2 weeks to get our visa's. Since the visa is only good for 90 days, we are expecting to travel before the end of June. Once our agency receives our letter of invitation (LOI), they will let us know to get our flights scheduled and off we'll go. We hopefully will hear from them sometime within the next 10 days. We'll let everyone know as soon as we know something.

Love,
Michelle

Done with 2nd Home Study

We are now done with our second home study. Thank you to BBAS (Building Blocks Adoption Services) for completing our home study as quick as you did and for understanding our frustrations.

We are anticipating on flying by the end of May. This has been a very long journey that some times seems as though it will never end, but we know when we see our daughter/son for the first time it will all be well worth it.

Our son Cody has been so patient and understanding during all of this and is celebrating his 11th Birthday today. Happy Birthday! CODY. We love you more than you'll ever know.

We will get a better idea of our flying dates when we receive our LOI (Letter of Invitation) from Kazakhstan. We'll let everyone know then.

Michelle Meenach

Beginings

Where we are in our Adoption Process! We have officially completed our paperwork. Our Dossier was shipped out yesterday.

This is where the waiting begins. We are hoping to receive our Letter of Invitation (LOI) in about 8 weeks, so were anticipating on flying sometime in April.

Since we started this process over 8 months ago (June-2006), we can handle waiting two more months to see our daughter/son or daughter's/son's.

As most of you know, we are wanting two children under the age of 1 year old. At this time Kazakhstan is not allowing more than one child unless they are related, so unless by chance we find twins (this would be awesome) we will more than likely bring home only one child at this time.

Well that is the end of my first entry. I look forward to hearing everyone's comments as our journey unfolds.

Love,
Michelle