We are here! WARNING: THIS POST IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART! There is soooo much to tell everyone about, so I guess I will start from the beginning.
I recently posted an entry stating that we had been approved by USCIS for the adoption and received our I-797 as our notification. The 797 means that at any time we could receive a referral (which is the picture of OUR little baby!). However, we were told that our wait time for a referral would be approximately 4 weeks. Please note, this is what we were told the middle of this past week! In the midst of our jubilation over this new plateau that we had reached in the procecss, we received word that there are some political undercurrents that could cause some problems in the Guatemalan adoption system. These anxieties came to a climax thursday, September 28. I was sitting in my office at home checking email and getting ready to head out to our house in Madison, when my cell phone rang. There was a man on the other end of the line that said in a rather dreary tone of voice, "something has come up in Guatemala and the agency has requested a conference call with several families at noon." Immediately my heart sank. It was as if I was in process of loosing my daughter. I immediately called Holly to tell her of the conference. Noon comes, we call, and we cannot get patched through to the conversation. The problem was that there were too many people trying to get through at once. Holly and I were obviously getting nervous as we could not get through. I was on my cell phone, trying to get through to the agency and sending emails to Holly who was teaching in class, giving her updates of my unsuccessful attempts. Finally, emails began to circulate from our adoption agency to those families that had been notified of the conference call. The email simply said, "if you want to be ultra prepared go ahead and check on the next flight out of your city to Guatemala."
FINALLY, around 3:00 we were able to speak with someone at the agency regarding the events of the day. The man on the other end of the line began to tell Holly and I, "the president of Guatemala is issuing an executive decree on Saturday morning that will in essence stop all present adoptions, and make future process of adoptions virtually impossible." Again, my heart sank. "However," he continued, "there is a possible way around this. If you are in the Guatemalan family court system before the president makes his announcement, then you should be safe." If you have kept up with the adoption process to this point, you may be aware of a big problem that could develop at this point. You can't be in the family court system without a referral! In essence, what it means to be in the family court system is to have signed over POA (power of attorney) to a Guatemalan attorney that will proceed with your case in the court in your absence. We thought that traveling to Guatemala to sign POA would be a great idea, but remember, we are still 4 weeks out of having a referral! "Well," the guy from the agency said, "we think we have a referral waiting for you!" The phone call with the agency ended at 3:30. By 4:00, we had called the agency back and said, "book us a room in Guat. we're coming down!"
If you are asking yourself, "how can they go down there to sign POA without a referral?" then you are a quick study. You can't. We were told on the phone that if we agreed to go there would be a baby referral waiting on us! That's four weeks earlier than the time we were thinking! Knowing that we would have a referral, and had already committed ourselves to going to Guatemala, I began to pack a little before 4 and was on the road by 5! While in route to the airport in Birmingham, I received another phone call from our agency. "Chris," the woman said, "I have a little 4 pound 12 oz girl that was born two days ago waiting for you. How does that sound?" Needless to say, that sounds great! I continued on my way down to Birmingham to meet the 8:00 flight that Holly had booked for me. While I was on this flight, Holly enroute to pick me up from the airport in Tampa, stopped by Target in Tampa. This was our one chance to get everything that we would need to take care of a three day old baby girl! Holly picked me up at the airport in Tampa and we went back to our apartment in Lakeland. We packed the baby clothes, got about 3 hours of sleep, and at 4 am, headed off to the airport.
Our flight to Guatemala took us from Tampa, to Houston, and finally down to Guatemala City. The flight into the city was absolutely beautiful. The area is very mountainous. We could look out the window and see the tops of volcanoes peaking through the clouds. We landed in Guatemala and headed straight for the hotel, where we were told to wait in our room until we received a phone call telling us where to go to meet our new baby and to sign POA. 3:30 came and went and there was still no phone call. We were getting a little nervous because POA had to be signed by the close of business on Friday. Holly sent me around the hotel to find anyone that would have further information. Sure enough, on the adoption floor, I found a couple that were more than willing to introduce Holly and I to the lady in charge. Within half an hour of sitting in the hotel lobby, we had signed our POA form! We beat the deadline!
What happens next, is the most magical portion of the trip. Holly traveled down the hall with a new found friend named Amanda. As the two of them walked around the corner, Amanda saw the foster mother of her son. Sure enough, there was her son and foster mother standing in the hall. Who was standing next to Amanda's son and foster mother? I am glad you asked. It was a woman named Ruth carrying a little 4 pound 12 oz girl. Holly looked at the woman and immediately knew who she was and who she was holding. We kind of broke the rules and saw our baby for the first time in a public area, but we couldn't help it! How do you see your baby for the first time and then say, "well, we need to wait about ten minutes?" I apologize for breaking the rules (which are for privacy and protection of the foster mother and the adoptive parent). Our foster mother Ruth is one of the most amazing people that we have met. We had a great time talking with her, albeit through mine and Holly's broken Spanish. We are happy that she will be taking care of our little girl. We knew that she was a great person from the moment that we met her. We saw our little Isabella (pronounced "Esaveya" in Guatemala), Holly took her in her arms, and Ruth joined in our festivities with tears of joy. Thank you Ruth for taking care of our little bambino!
I guess I will close this post out for now. I will try to give more details in the following posts. We will be in Guatemala until Tuesday and I will return to Huntsville Wednesday afternoon. Please forgive us for not posting more pictures, but we have decided to not publicly post pictures of Isabella right now. We would however, love to send our friends and family pictures of her. So, send me (Chris) an email, and you too can behold the most beautiful little girl ever! Thanks for taking time out of your day to read this! We appreciate everyone's love and support.
Shalom,
Chris
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