Day 8 "The "final" Final Countdown

You are a gold medalist to me...
We feel like we are in jail and cannot get out.

Thursday, August 17th “Our last full day, we think..”

Privet from Almaty, KA3ACTAHCKNN.

We have faith that today is the last full day we will be in Kazakhstan for a long time.
Not to sound like it has not been a wonderful experience, but it is past time to be back with you all. I must say we had another scare dropped on us today….more on that later.
As for the day, it was another groundhog day in Almaty. After the excitement of the mountain yesterday, we got back into the: apartment most of the morning, going to the mall for Rylee to ice skate, then ending the night with dinner in the apartment.

Luckily, we were here… You know what it is like trying to get out the door with an infant (well, most of you can relate), today was one of those days. We were planning to do some last minute site seeing of Almaty and end the tour at the mall for Rylee’s regional ice skating championship. Plans of leaving at 3pm were delayed by moving slow, being lazy, tired, mental exhaustion, etc…. so we were not loaded up and ready to walk out until 4:40pm or so. We had been on the computer loading yesterday’s blog until 4:30pm, and then I switched the phone line to our apartment phone. This is a task that I have forgotten on several occasions, but what a blessing that I did not forget today. Bob (Kim’s Dad) called around 4:40pm to say hello and make sure everything was going well. At the time of that call, it was going great. We had said our good byes to Bob and grabbed the stroller to go on the walk. As we were walking out of the door, the phone rang again. We love getting phone calls, so we had to see who it was….and it was Jenia. He started very bluntly…WE HAVE ANOTHER PROBLEM. Can you believe our luck? Jenia went on to advise us that the Embassy called him just minutes earlier and said they needed a “37 Cable Form” before we can meet with them tomorrow for the exit interview. With my bottom jaw on the floor, I was able to ask what a Cable 37 form is. Come to find out, this is the FBI fingerprint form that is given to the Embassy in Kazakhstan from the CIS office in Atlanta, GA. Jenia wanted us to call the US and see what we could find out and he would call back at 10pm tonight to find out the status. At this point, that was just not good enough. We asked what time the Embassy closed and he replied “5pm, I think”. Bar the doors at the Embassy, the Woodard’s are coming armed with a “spit bomb” (doing much better actually) and fire-breathing parents. We had 15 minutes until closing, just enough time to speak our mind. We grabbed our copy of the adoption paperwork and ran to the Embassy. We walked in at 4:55pm, where we were stopped by security and questioned as to our reason for entering. After a quick explanation, he called the 18th floor to speak with someone who handles adoptions. Luckily, he was successful and then gave Kim the phone to explain what was happening. The woman was aware of the issues already and gave us a more detailed explanation of the problem. They had the form, but it had an expiration date of 8/17/2006. We searched our copies while she was on the phone and found the form, but our “copy of confirmation” had 9/17/2006 expiration. This was explained and the woman said she needs the original form, not a copy like we have and it needed to be sent from the CIS in Atlanta. We were 10 minutes into the conversation and Kim repeatedly was turned down for our request to come upstairs to discuss this in person. The lady said they were closed, we questioned why they called us just 15 minutes before closing….she came back with- Your coordinator did not deliver the paperwork soon enough as they just got it yesterday. Actually…. Kim, Rylee and Jenia hand delivered the paperwork on Monday, since we were planning to travel on Wednesday morning. Kim reminded the woman of this and she did not have a come back. Kim, now on the offensive, asked what our options were since they just told us of the problem. The woman said we have two options: 1) Fly back to America without the child, get the fingerprints updated and fly back…..no comment on our thoughts. 2) Apply for the form here and wait the mandatory 7 to 10 days for it to be returned…..no comment on our thoughts. The woman, back up a little bit, said if they were to get the forms emailed from the US (and they were not expired), we could make the flights as scheduled…now we are talking. We got all of the information for the US CIS to contact the Embassy and left to start our calling. It was now 5:30pm, 7:30am in Atlanta. We had two plans in mind as we got on the phone. First, Bob was gracious enough say he would go directly to the CIS if needed. We agreed on this before the office opened, so we were hoping there would not be a need for this. We had to be this first call of the morning at the CIS office (8:00:01), as the woman working was ready to get the problem solved. This woman was actually the one in charge of all adoptions, so she was familiar with the forms. She did a quick check and then told Kim she had already sent the request. We are not sure if she got an email from the Embassy here or started when she first got on the phone, but it was good news. She confirmed again to Kim that it was re-sent and everything will be fine.

At this point, you would think “oh no, here we go”, but during the entire ordeal we never doubted our faith and had a calming ease about the situation.

We are again back on track…..As for tomorrow-
9:00am - we will go to the Embassy to confirm receipt of the Cable 37 form.
3:00pm - we have our exit interview with the Embassy.
9:00pm - we contact the Lufthansa office to confirm our flights (say a lot of prayers)
12:30am Saturday - we will be first in line at the Lufstansa counter if we are still wait- listed when we make the call at 9:00 nine pm
2:20am - boarding call.
2:30 pm Saturday(Georgia time) we arrive in HOTLANTA!!!!

Couple points of interest:
- This will hopefully be our last entry, until we arrive home. We will then post one last entry to share the “flight story.” Put it this way….if you check the blog and we have not posted….this is great news, because we got on our flight!!!
- We called to confirm what we could carry on - Only restriction is liquids - if you have a child, you may be asked to taste anything you carry on. Nothing else.

******************************NEWS FLASH*****************************
After writing the blog, we got a knock on the door…..it was Jenia. He handed over Landen’s passport!!! We have it in our hands! One more hurdle down, just a few more to go!
Our little Kazakh citizen...
A passport from Heaven