Kazakhstan Update

We continue to receive many calls and emails about our Kazakhstan program. While there has been a lot of interest, we only have two families who are actively completing dossiers for Kazakhstan at this time. If you are interested in learning more adopting from Kazakhstan, please contact Joyce Thompson or Brent Yoder at 619-294-7772.

Congratulations!

We have two families who have recently returned with their adopted children! One family adopted a little 20 month boy from Orenburg, while the other family adopted a 4 year old boy from Apatity.

We have several more families who have referrals and will be going on their first trip soon!

Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan Holidays

Please be aware that Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan will be observing the "Russian" holidays the first half of January. This typically means that the entire country will not be working as all governmental offices and agencies will be closed for the holidays.

Upcoming Adoption Options' Holiday Schedule

With the upcoming holidays, we wanted to give everyone advanced notice the days our office will be closed:

Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008

Friday, December 26, 2008
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Thursday, January 1, 2009

Friday, January 2, 2009

We apologize for any inconvenience, and thank you for allowing our staff to take the time off to spend the holidays with their families. We will resume our normal office hours on Monday, January 5, 2009.

Hague Home Study Update

We are pleased to announce that we have received our third approval for a Hague convention country! While this may not be exciting news for some, for us it means that are home studies are being approved by the National Benefits Center. Based on these approvals and our work with other placement agencies, we have created our own Hague home study template. This will help reduce the "request for additional evidence" and also cut down on the approval wait time. It is the NBC's goal to reduce their processing time to 30 days, but to date, their processing time is still 90 days.

Newsletter Photos Needed

Adoption Options is in the process of completing our Winter Newsletter. Anyone interested in submitting photos of their family and/or children should email the photos to Natasha Oberg at natasha@adoption-options.org.