Happy Holiday Weekend

We are going away for a long weekend in northern Wisconsin. So we will be away from the internet for a few days.

Enjoy the Memorial Day Weekend.

Marcia

Sorry I don't have a photo

as I understand Ty got a new buzzcut in the past few days.

As I have been writing letters (today was to a humanitarian organization in KZ), I am becoming more and more frustrated that we do not get formal updates on the boys by the parties that are supposedly working for us. This is not unusual as other families have told us that they have gone months (basically between Taraz trips) without receiving information on their children.

I appreciate the people who have kindly passed on information on the boys as I would go completely insane worrying about them.

Today is gardening day. I need to put in a few more vegetables and put in some weeds (ETA to "pull" some weeds. There are already enough there). Perhaps I should take out some of my frustration on the fieldstone and finish our garden paths.

Marcia

Politics

Remember the addage "Politics makes strange bedfellows".

Well that seems to be the case. Both we and the Philly family have found the politicians we were less likely to vote for are the ones who are following up for us.

I haven't heard back from Klobuchar's office but understand one of the staffers did call back one letter writer.

To those of you in my parent's Congressional District, a staffer from James Sensenbrenner's office called my Mom yesterday to let her know they received the letters and were very supportive of our situation. They will confirm our concerns with the State Department.

I forgot to mention, the translator who handled our court hearings, sought out Maxx for us to tell him we are thinking of him. She said he is doing well.

Marcia

Minor Progress

The State Department acknowledged a letter one of the Taraz families wrote. Granted they only asked more questions but at least someone listened enough to ask more questions.

Have a good weekend.

Marcia

Nothing Really Postworthy Today

The appeal has been filed so now we wait to hear from the Court.

Hell Have No Fury Part III

By this point I feel like Ace with a tennis ball - not ready to let go. I told Randy about my phonecall with the Klobuchar staffer. He reminded me that the average US Senator has approximately 70 staffers so I am not asking for a lot.

Most of this conversation is paraphrased:

Staffer: We are doing everything we can

Me: So you are telling me that it's okay that my children are rotting away (used that term) in an orphanage because the only thing that can be done is to e-mail the Consulate every few days.

Staffer: "You could look at it that way" (direct quote)

Me: You are saying it is too difficult for the Senator's Office to send letters to the State Department and the Congressional Coalition on Adoption in support of us as her constituents? (heaven forbid they come up with leads for us to follow).

Staffer: Well, we feel that working with the Consulate is best

Me: How many adoptions have you worked on?

Staffer: A lot, I don't know

Me: Five, Twenty, Fifty , Hundred?

Staffer: I've been here 2 1/2 years. I will be on vacation for the next few weeks and you have the contact information for XXXX who will monitor your case.

By this time I was livid and cut the call short. I knew this was going nowhere.

This is not the attitude I expect from the office of an elected official.

I guess I know who I won't be voting for the next time around.

Feel free to post your disatisfaction at: http://klobuchar.senate.gov/emailamy.cfm The more comments on our case - the better.

I need to thank Sara and Amy for having the discussion with me yesterday that prompted a lot of my verbage for the letter and Becky, I decided to take your lead and be a bit more direct when it comes to protecting Ty & Maxx.

Marcia

Hell Have No Fury Part II

I did not feel this was acceptable as I had already sent the referred letter so I wrote the following response:

Dear XXXX:

Yesterday I was talking to a few of my neighbors and they expressed their deep disappointment by the lack of support we have received from Senator Klobuchar's office. One comment is Senator Klobuchar really "Working for the People of Minnesota" when we have been effectively dismissed by her office?

As I had already contacted the Embassy, provided you with that contact information and a letter they wrote on our behalf, I feel sending a general inquiry and doing nothing else is unacceptable. While your office has effectively done nothing, my family and friends, many of which are Senator Klobuchar's constituents, were working on finding governmental contacts such as the Congressional Coalitition of Adoption and The Office of Children's Issues at the US State Department.

We would appreciate the Senator's office reaching out to those agencies on our behalf. According to the Senator's website, Minnesotans can request "Help with Federal Agencies" through the Senator's office.

I do not know if you are a parent but understand Senator Klobuchar has a daughter. As a mother, she should understand the anguish we are going through being separated from Ty and Maxx. It is more difficult for us as Ty andMaxx are not thriving as they should living in an institutional setting. The last time we saw them in Kazakhstan we were asked to buy medicines for them as the Baby House could not afford to. Because they are not required to do so, the Baby House does not provide us with updates on them. We feel blessed that the other American families, who are suffering the same fate, give us updates if they see Ty or Maxx. Nonetheless, it breaks our hearts that they are thousands of miles away waiting for their parents to return to them.

On the Senator's website is a very eloquent letter written on behalf of the Haitian orphans and how they need to be reunited with their families. I want to know why my family (and the other families in Kazakhstan) does not warrant the same humanitarian compassion?


In the time it took me to get this posted, I got a call from the staffer requesting I call to get an update on our case. I returned her call and nothing was resolved. Luckily she will be on vacation for a few weeks and a higher level person will be "monitoring" our case. By "monitoring", she will send an e-mail to the Consulate every few days to see what changed. I asked the staffer if it was beyond the ability of the Senator to send letters to the State Department and CCAI supporting us and she was skeptical.


Marcia

Hell Have No Fury Part I

Hell Have No Fury like an angry mother (not mine of course). This morning I received the following response from Senator Klobuchar's office:

"Dear Marcia:

I recently received the following information from the Consulate:

Thank for your email. Please be informed that the consular section is aware of this case. Our office sent the letter to the Chairman of the court, which handled the case, and to the regional court, which has authority over the city court. We have not yet received the reply from either of the courts. At this point in time, there is nothing else the Consular Section can do. However, we’ll continue to monitor this case. The family has 15 days after the court decision was issued to file an appeal to the regional court.

I am sorry I could not provide a more concrete or favorable response. If you have additional questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me.

Best,"

I am running out of things to write

I decided to plagerize from another Taraz's family's blog today.

Thanks, everyone, for all you are doing to help us. We really can’t adequately express all the gratitude we feel.

If you’ve got the wherewithal to send another letter, you can target it to the Intercountry Adoption office, within the Office of Children’s Issues in the US Department of State. They list two email addresses; might as well copy them both on anything you send: AskCI@state.gov, and AdoptionUSCA@state.gov. You can use the same letter that you sent to Senator Landrieu.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I have sent out several letters in the past few days and am starting to look for children's advocacy organizations to assist us. I found one such group and shamelessly included the above photo.

We found another group and our least favorite Congresswoman is an active member of that group's Board. We joked about how funny it would be if she helped us and Ty & Maxx would be featured in her re-election commercials.

Our formal appeal has been written. The basis is the Baby House was unable to find Kazakh parents who could/would adequately care for Ty & Maxx based upon the requirements of Kazakh Marriage and Family laws. Our understanding is the court has 10 days to decide if they will hear our appeal. If they choose to do so, a court hearing needs to be scheduled. Best guess (and you know our history with those) is a hearing would be in late June.

Both boys were seen outside today and appear to be doing well.

Marcia

Questions about Letters

We are truly touched by the number of people who have contacted us about writing letters on our behalf.

After answering a lot of questions, I think I have narrowed down what should be included in a letter as they should be relatively short. The point is for the staffers to see a volume of inquiries on the issue and pass on the information to their bosses.

1) You are aware of the problems faced by Marcia & Randy Newton and their adoption in the Zhambyl region of Kazakhstan. There are many families facing the same issues. The Newtons have formally requested that Senator Amy Klobuchar's office intercede.

2) These families followed the laws of Kazakhstan while the Taraz Municipal court did not. Examples include: delaying court date assignments past the legal requirement, seeking out "witnesses" to undermine cases and illegally sharing confidential file information.

3) All the cases have been rejected on a technicality (based upon info from the US Embassy in Almaty KZ). Kazakhstan has a requirement that children must be in the babyhouse for 6 months and during that time, only Kazakh families can meet the children for adoption. There is not a legal requirement stating how many families need to meet and reject a child before the child is eligible for foreign adoption. In many of the rejected cases, the babyhouse provided documentation that local families met and rejected the children. There is a logbook that is signed when parents meet children. The court ignored that testimony and chose to accept questionable testimony from their "witnesses".

4) The children are the ones who are suffering. The court requires parents to bond with the children as part of the adoption process and then undermine the bonding by unneeded delays. Parents and children are suffering extended absences as most parents need to be at home to work or care for other family members. These children will be US citizens and should be protected as such.

If you are in Klobuchar's district, just post that we have contacted them and you would appreciate them making a stronger effort in assisting us. (All they have done so far was send a "inquiry" to the US Embassy even though I provided them contact information for the person at the Embassy who is most familiar with our case).

Feel free to send letters to your elected officials and organizations you know that take an active role in children's rights. For example I found an organization that specializes in the rights of international children and adoption (jcics).


Marcia

Letters

After I wrote my 3 page draft of my letter to the Kazakh President, Randy and I were advised not to send it. Basically, we have been directed to work on our contacts on the US side of the process. So if anyone knows anyone who may be able to help, let us know.

So now I have a good written (often emotional) outline of our adoption process. It was good for me to write it out.

For those of you who are interested in helping us by sending letters, send me an e-mail (newtonmarcia@yahoo.com) and I can send you a draft of the letter and the 22 talking points which outline the issues we (all the Taraz familes) are facing.

Thank you to those of you who took the time to send an e-mail or pick up the phone on our behalf.

Marcia

Now it's our turn to write

To date there are 4 families who have had their adoption appeals rejected and 3 that are awaiting decisions. It is sad to say it, but those 3 cases will probably be rejected for the same reasons.

The families in Taraz are starting a letter campaign to Kazakh President Nazerbayev and copies will be sent to our respective Embassies. So we have been asked to write a letter with 22 talking points. I guess I know what we will be doing this weekend in addition to planting our garden.

Marcia

If you could help us

we'd greatly appreciate it.

When we were not getting a court date, I had contacted Senator Amy Klobuchar's Office. We didn't need help at that time as we got our court date the following week.

After the court decison, I had contacted her office for assistance. I had requested they reach out to any relevant US Federal contact or Kazakh Federal contact who could deliver our message for us. We had already been in contact with the US Embassy in Almaty and provided that contact information to Sen. Klobuchar's staffer.

Today (a week later) I e-mailed the staffer and learned the only thing she has done was contact the Embassy. Her response was she'd hear something in two weeks and let me know. I was greatly disappointed that she only repeated what I had already done and did nothing more. If you are in Sen. Klobuchar's district, we would appreciate your dropping her a note saying we'd like more to be done. (Please don't get her staffer in trouble as I am sure she's only following a protocal). Her web address is:

http://klobuchar.senate.gov/

We have already signed a waiver with her office to act for us.

If you live in a different district, you can send your local representative a letter on our behalf. They may need to contact us before proceeding.

The relevant contact information would be: newtonmarcia@yahoo.com and 612-210-5448

We are still pursuing several avenues for an appeal but help from our Federal Representatives may help us and other families who are also subject to this unfair process. Our current understanding is the Kazakh Federal government is supportive of international adoption and the Taraz region is the problem.

In the meantime, we are holding up the best we can.

Marcia

P.S. Senator Klobuchar's website does not accept attachments. I wanted to send her a photo of our family to show her that we'd be a well bonded happy family.

Out and About

I just received a message from the Chicago couple who are in Taraz for their court proceedings. They have seen Ty outside a few times and said he seems to be doing well.

Nothing has been reported back to me today regarding the appeal. We have until May 22nd to get it formally filed. I do not know the timeline after those papers are filed.

Marcia

A Dog's Life

We are starting to get documents from the court in Taraz to work on our appeal.

So in the meantime, I thought I'd share some information on dogs in Taraz.

There are a lot of stray dogs in the city. Often they would travel in small groups. The largest pack I saw was 7 dogs. They often would hang out in front of businesses until shoo'ed away. This little guy got a leftover cheese stick from us at an outdoor restaurant.

The dogs are usually friendly and most appeared to be relatively healthy. Unfortunately, we saw a few that didn't survive the hard life in Taraz. We also saw the dog catcher's truck full of canine prisoners.

We always tease Ace about what a good life he has and he does compared to these guys.

Marcia

A Little Progress

Randy received a much needed update from Kazakhstan. We were able to get more information on what probably went wrong with our case. We also started to layout the strategy for how we want to proceed.

I won't bore you with details but wanted to let everyone know we are feeling more positive than we have been for quite a while. It's strange that we usually trade off between who is the more positive vs. negative spouse. Lately, I have been the latter.

There are still a lot of questions to be answered (such as when the appeal will be heard) and we'll share as appropriate.

Marcia

Our Trip to the Beach

Since I don't have anything new to report on the appeal, I thought I would write about our visit to the "beach" in Taraz.

The trip started innocently enough. We saw water and an area marked "plage" on our Taraz map. "Plage" is the French word for "beach" and we thought we should check it out.

When we were walking towards the "beach" we encountered the translator that handled our court hearing and her husband. They stopped us on the street to see if we needed a ride as we were far from the hotel. We mentioned we were walking to the "beach" and we got a surprised look from them. They offered to drive us closer but we declined.

We saw varying neighborhoods on our walk and saw a large school prior to finding the "beach".

In the horizon we saw blue so knew we were near and we found a large mudhole. There was a dam to hold back water which was painted blue but the dam was open. We were highly amused by the boat up on the blocks and the "no diving" sign.

The beach was a bit disappointing but we found an excellent little restaurant for kabobs on the way back to the hotel.

Technology is Great

Yesterday we received via e-mail a power of attorney form that was written in Russian. It needs to be tranlated, notarized and apostilled. Thanks to Google Language we were able to get a good English translation that we could cut and paste to Microsoft word.

I found out on the State of MN website where and when I can go to have the documents apostilled. Our bank notary automatically grabs her stamp whenever she sees both Randy and me walk into the bank.

I will probably use my GPS to guide me to St. Paul. All the locals know that those of us that live nearer to Minneapolis don't know St. Paul very well.

We'll take the documents in on Monday so we can scan and e-mail them to KZ. Originals can be FEDEXed.

It amazes me that how quickly this could all be done. Can you imagine all the phone calls that would have been made to do this 15 years ago? Or how we would be able to do this and meet a short deadline?

I don't think much will happen until early next week so I won't post for a few days.

For all you Mothers and Grandmothers, have a Happy Mothers Day.

Marcia

Not much new

We learned a little bit more about the denial. The Babyhouse documented a certain number of Kazakh families who met the boys and someone on the court said the real number was lower. So far there is nothing to substantiate the lower number. We know the Babyhouse keeps a registry as we had to sign off that we met 3 sets of children when we went through the baby selection process.

We have somewhere between 10 and 15 business days to appeal. We are not sure whose number is correct but we are in the process of getting the Power of Attorney in order.

Marcia

Thank you

to everyone who has kept us in their thoughts and prayers these past few days. We really appreciate it.

Yesterday was "pity party" day and now we need to focus on what can be done. We all know the decision was unfair and beyond our control. We need to work on getting the decision reversed.

We have contacted our friends in Kazakhstan and they found another contact in the KZ federal government to review our case. The US Embassy faxed a letter to our judge regarding his decision. If necessary, the Embassy will send a representative to Taraz to meet with the judge. Our adoption agency and our friend's agency have been in contact with each other regarding the situation.

I will continue to post frequently as I am surprised by how many people have been following our story and have been supportive to us and our families.

Hopefully we will be back to posting about bananas, balloons and bathrooms soon.

Marcia

Unreal

Late last night we learned our adoption petition was rejected by the court. The rationale was the boys were not presented to enough Kazakh families before being introduced to us.

This also happened to a Canadian family who was this judge's first case.

We are in the process of finding an attorney who can advise us how to proceed. I understand our adoption coordinators are in the process of sending letters to the US Embassy on our behalf.

We'll keep you posted.

Marcia

The Longest Day Ever

Randy called our KZ contact who had to call our Taraz contact. So we needed to wait 20 minutes before we even got any information about today's activities.

We will not miss the lack of communication between some of the parties in this process.

Everyone showed up for court today but a decision will not be made until 10:00PM our time. I told Randy that in the blogs I have read about Taraz adoptions, it is common that the decision is not announced at the end of the hearing. Why we were told otherwise - who knows.

So now we wait yet again.

Hopefully the weather stays nice so we can have a bonfire tonight while we wait.

Marcia

Photos, Photos & More Photos

I loaded all the photos from our second KZ visit to Winkflash. In the folder "KZ Trip 2" there are 3 subfolders containing photos from the Babyhouse, Taraz and Almaty.

Site information: www.winkflash.com
User Name: tymaxx
Password: newton

Someday I should do a better job of arranging the photos from our first trip to KZ.

Marcia