Back to the Beginning

Now that we have done when and where, it seems like time to do who, what and why. Most of the following will be known to most of those whom we presume are reading this, but because I took great interest (and comfort) in the websites of other about-to-be-parents, and I assume parents-to-follow will find this website, here goes.....

David and I live in Brooklyn, NY with our much beloved Jack Russell, Bruno. (His picture is below.) We are deeply committed to the maintenance of a large set of overlapping circles of family, friends, and professional and civic colleagues. David works as an administrator in a law firm, as a sort of litigation process project manager. I am a partner in a consulting firm, focusing on issues of urban real estate and economic development. Our marriage is rooted in a shared belief in the importance of conversation, laughter, curiosity, and friendship. We share passions for the written word, for good food and drink, and for cities generally and New York City in particular.

We are adopting a baby because we want to parent (although, with the departure date now just five days off, the whole concept seems at least as terrifying as it does exciting). David and I began trying to have a biological child immediately after we got married. After several years of no success, we underwent a variety of fertility treatments, as well as what ended up being several years of conversation about which and how many procedures we wanted to try. Eventually, we began talking about adoption. Trying to imagine parenting some of our friends' children helped a lot with the decision to move forward.

So, why Kazakhstan? What began as a process of elimination has deepened into a strong, affirmative interest in the country. We began by deciding to work with a particular agency, Spence-Chapin, because it came highly recommended by friends and acquaintances. Choosing an agency implies choosing from among the set of countries with which it works. David and I wanted to adopt a baby. Many of the countries with which Spence-Chapin works, and this is probably true of most other countries with which it does not work, have problems with either our ages (45 and 49) vis vis the possibility of adopting a baby or our weight (heavy). (Weight prejudice is much more explicit in other parts of the world.)

So Kazakhstan began to emerge as a real possibility. Then we learned that Kazakhstan has a relatively high ratio of caregivers to children in its orphanages, making it more likely that our child would have developed a healthy attachment to one or more caregivers. (I have now read enough about reactive attachment disorder to be nervous but much more confident than if we were adopting from some other countries.) Over and over again, adoptive parents, on their websites, testified to the love and attention that Kazakhstani caregivers give to the children (within the limits imposed by scarce resources). It is an ethnically diverse country where ethnic Kazakhs and Russians predominate, but the kids may also be of mixed, Korean, German, or other minority backgrounds. The history of how the Kazakh and Russian people have interacted for more than 300 years is fascinating. The Soviet Olympic skaters trained in Kazakhstan (actually, very close to where we will be). The Soviet space program was headquartered in Kazakhstan (and the joint U.S.-Russia program continues to launch from there). Tremendous mineral resources present both enormous opportunities and challenges for Kazakhstan moving forward...... So we were hooked.