Passing the Time, Part Deux

Something big is going down this weekend. No, it has nothing to do with Henry, specifically, although I wish it did. Erin's sister's husband (yes, that's my brother-in-law) will be working on remodeling our kitchen for us. As you can see from the pictures, it needs a lot of work. How does this tie into our adoption? Well, we are getting our house ready for our little bambino. He needs a nice clean kitchen to eat in, doesn't he? We have also cleared up the room formerly known as the guest bedroom and are going to make that into a nursery. We will paint the walls green and put up a little "rainforest" theme (we bought a fake palm tree last weekend. Seriously). I think that all of this work is something that we can focus on and put our efforts into as we bide our time for our newborn son to come home. As Tom Petty once famously sang, "The waiting is the hardest part."

We hope by next week to have some updated pictures and medical information on the baby formerly known as Josue Moises. The attorneys in Guatemala City send updates once a month, and it is getting to the point where we are thinking of emailing our adoption agency and asking what day the photos and information will come to us!

By the way, in the top picture, that is a yellow frisbee covering a hole in our kitchen ceiling. Don't ask me why.

Andy

Passing the Time

Buenos noches,

We've been away from blogging for a little while but we are back. Nothing new has happened on our case in the meantime, but we are still early in the process. Henry had his one-month birthday on August 12, and we miss him already! It's obvious that we are already devising activities to pass the time. For one thing, we bought 8 How to Learn Spanish cd's and have been listenting to them during car rides. We have gotten to cd #2 and feel that we are getting better and better. Yo quiero Henry! We also have been reading a small travel book on Guatemala; we have been learning interesting tidbits such as the name of Guatemala means "Land of Trees". We've ordered two more substantive books on Guatemala which will be arriving shortly. We also had the good chance to go to an adoption picnic in Duluth this weekend. We met a number of couples who have adopted from our agency, one boy from Russia, two fraternal twins (girls) from Ethiopia, and two energetic young boys from Korea. It is very reassuring to go to these gatherings just to know that parents adopt kids every day and that everything turns out all right.

Our agency gets monthly updates from the attorneys in Guatemala City, so in a little over a week we are expecting to get additional pictures and information on our little fellow. It would be a bonus to learn that Henry's and the birth mom's DNA have been tested, or the case has been submitted to a family court.

Next: How we pass the time by working on our house!

Timeline (for Type A people)

There are many chat rooms and blogs about Guatemala adoptions (we spend a good chunk of every night checking them out), and almost always when someone posts a message, they leave a timeline where their "signature" would be. This is a timeline of their adoption process, probably for others to see and compare themselves. Well, I've compiled a quick timeline of our process thus far, with blanks for what is to come next. At first glance the timeline probably isn't that understandable, but it will be exciting to fill in the entries as we go along!


Homestudy approval by Social Worker: 6-5-06
I-171H received (approval by U.S. govt.): 6-26-06
Josue Moises Morales born: 7-12-06
Guatemalan dossier completed: 7-17-06
REFERRAL OF JOSUE!!: 7-24-06
Referral paperwork completed: 7-28-06
Power of Attorney sent to Guatemala: 8-7-06
Birth mom & Josue DNA match:
Approval by Guatemala family court:
Approval by PGN:
Travel date:
Return home!:

The part of the process that we are currently in, the DNA testing, begins the first of three phases that could take a while. You just never know. We appreciate all the messages of support and thank God for all of you.

Andy

The Process

Our adoption process thus far has been very involved and we have expended a lot of time and effort (and $$) since last winter. Now, we are in sort of a homestretch, allbeit a homestretch that can last 3-8 months. What happens now? Well, to simplify things for myself, and to not get too overwhelmed, I have distilled it to four phases:

1. Authentication & DNA Testing

The first step is to send our dossier down to Guatemala and to have it translated and authenticated. We have signed a Power of Attorney for the attorneys in Guatemala City, which allows them to process the adoption on our behalf. The birth mother and Henry then undergo DNA tests to ensure that Henry is in fact the birth mother's birth son. It may be a bit of a process for the birth mother to get tested, as she has to leave work and make her way into the city. Henry will be brought by the foster mother to get tested, and both results will be sent to a lab in North Carolina for analysis. It could take a couple weeks to get the results.

2. Family Court

At this point, the adoption case is randomly assigned to a family court in Guatemala (there are around 9-10 family courts in the country). The main event in this phase is that the birth mother gets interviewed by a social worker. The social worker will ask questions as to why the birth mother is giving up the baby, what her life is like, etc. The social worker will then write a report that will get reviewed, and hopefully approved promptly, by the family court. The report is needed to conclude that the birth mother was not coerced to give up her child, but actually had weighty reasons for doing so. This process is somewhat unpredictable because it depends, again, on the availability of the birth mother as well as the caseload of the randomly selected family court. A couple months? Perhaps.

3. Procuraduria General de la Nacion (PGN)

The PGN department (equivalent to a section of our Attorney General's office) reviews all of the documents in the adoption case. A lot of attention has been paid to this step lately because there have been many delays in the PGN system. This has resulted from a combination of PGN's desire to more aggressively vet the adoption (due to fraudulent activity), and, on the other hand, to put obstacles in the way of the adoption. This has become a very political process, as the media in Guatemala have portrayed adoption as a lucrative business for birth mothers and attorneys, like a "baby selling" business. The administration in Guatemala is portrayed as opposing adoption, or at least wanting to slow down the numbers of children being adopted. Rumors abound. At any rate, it is common for a case to get "kicked out" of the PGN process (known as a previo) due to some discrepancy in the documents, such as an errant signature or a form of a name not matching up with the signature, etc. Some people think that PGN is being very nit-picky and looking for ways to kick people out of the process, while others cite it as a barrier against fraud. If a case gets a previo, the attorneys correct the issue and re-submit it to PGN. If PGN has more serious concerns, the case enters into the "Investigation" portion of PGN, and who knows when the case will rejoin the queue. I think we have almost an expectation of 1-2 previos, but we really want to avoid being investigated.

4. Final Adoption Decree ("Pink Slip")

Once the case gets out of PGN, I think we'll celebrate, because we should be traveling to Guatemala within one month. The birth mother will sign the final adoption decree and new birth certificates are issued, listing US as the parents! The issuance of the birth certificate may be delayed, depending on which civil registry office is used. Our attorney then submits all of our paperwork to the U.S. Embassy, and a visa will be authorized. This approval is on pink paper, hence the "pink slip". The pink slip lists an appointment time for us to arrive at the U.S. Embassy to officially finalize the adoption. Once we are notified of the pink slip, we will have about one week to make travel arrangements.

Kudos to you if you've read this entire post. At this point, we are at the beginning of Phase I, as our dossier is in Guatemala and the Power of Attorney just got mailed from Minnesota today. So, we have a 3-8 month wait! Again, I really only want to think of Phase I, which is the DNA testing. Bring on those cotton swabs!

Andy

Ode to a Foster Mother

Before I go to bed every night, and probably 100 times during the day, I think about what our little Henry is doing. Most likely, since he is only 3 weeks old, he is either eating or sleeping. But there is no doubt that he is under the care of a foster mother in Guatemala City. These women are truly superheros in my book. Think of every occurrence that happens for new parents, such as changing diapers, feeding, getting up at all hours of the night, clothing the child, etc. Well, instead of us doing all of this for Henry, a woman who we have never met is doing all of that on our behalf. Our son, who will we love and cherish for the rest of his life, is right now getting all of his basic needs met by a stranger. Even though we have been going through this adoption process for a long time, that isn't a thought that is easy to get used to.

It can't be easy to be a foster mother. Besides going through all of the things that new birth parents have to go to, the foster mother knows that the child she is caring for will be taken from her someday. It's not a stretch to believe that most foster moms become attached to the children they care for, but they have to say goodbye in some hotel in downtown Guatemala City, as they watch two emotional and sleep-deprived Americans swoop in and preen over the child. We will give a gift to the foster mother, of course, but material possessions and even words cannot express the debt of gratitude that we owe her.

Once we get to Guatemala and meet the foster mother, I'm sure we will have a list of 134 questions to ask her about what Henry likes and dislikes. And, even though he is our son and we will be so excited to finally meet him, I am convinced that at the moment the foster mother leaves, and we are alone with him, I will feel like I did when my parents left me in my college freshman dorm room: Excited, yes, but a little scared.

God bless Henry's foster mother, and God bless foster mothers everywhere.