Hello Guatemala!!

A few of you have already heard the GREAT news, but we officially got the call this morning to come get Henry! We will be flying to Guatemala City (via Houston) from the Cities on Sunday afternoon. We will get in about 10pm, so I'm assuming we'll meet Henry for the first time sometime on Monday. Our appointment at the U.S. Embassy is on Wednesday sometime. We have been advised to stay after the appointment in case there are any snags, so we will leave Guatemala on Friday afternoon and get into the Cities around 10pm. Then the next day will be our first drive as a complete family (dog included) to Duluth.

We have so much to do in the meantime so I have to make this short for now. I had just brought Rosita home from the vet (she was spayed yesterday) and we were trying to soothe her from that experience when the phone rang from our agency, so we were both there to hear it. How blessed we are with our fast timeline! Thank you to all for your thoughts and prayers.

Current temp. in Guatemala City: 79
Current temp. in Duluth: 18

The Last Days???

Buenas noches everyone, we hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Obviously, a bit of excitement was injected into our Thanksgiving with the news that Henry will probably be with us soon. In the days after this news Erin was on a mission to spruce up the nursery, and she did a fantastic job. I wish I could have helped more! She painted the room a beautiful blue and set up Henry's dresser, changing table, palm tree, curtain, and other decorations. I "assisted" in assembling the crib.

At the end of this post are some pictures of the nursery. The "before" picture below is from last fall, when the nursery used to be the guest room. Then we have three "after" pictures. The nursery is now a cozy place for our son to sleep and play! We are very happy with it.

Andy was busy getting the final documents in order to bring down to Guatemala, and that seems to be done, except for the final act of requesting a 2005 W-2 from the State of Minnesota. We know, kind of inane. Last week hopefully Henry (currently Josue, which I accidentially typed in the last post as Joise, my pathetic mistake) had a birth certificate ordered with the last name of "Pratt" on it. Then, our case may be submitted to the U.S. Embassy for a "pink slip", which sets the date of the Embassy appointment in Guatemala City that we need to be at!! The best news of all would be that this week we receive that appointment date, which would probably only give us a week's notice to travel, which will set off a frantic search for airplane and hotel tickets (and you know we've already been researching those items).

To reflect, we are so lucky and blessed that we got out of PGN when we did. We have scoured many websites and found that other couples are stuck in PGN for way longer than the month and three days that we were there. Some couples can be in PGN for 9 months or more, maybe even over a year. Usually to be stuck in PGN for that long there is something, in the opinion of the PGN attorneys, that is suspicious with the adoption that requires further investigation. Or, perhaps the most tragic result, there are some typos or technical errors in the case that constantly have to be fixed, and that delays the review time. The increased wait time due to these non-substantive minor glitches really hurt the waiting kids the most, as they are in limbo to join their forever family. Thanks to God that we flew through PGN, but we also think of those couples who weren't so lucky.

Also, I can't help but wonder how Henry is inexplicably tied to the success of the Minnesota Twins. We first were notified of Henry in mid-July, when the Twins were beginning the midst of their incredible hot streak. Our case progressed with the Twins success and is now peaking with the news of Johan Santana winning the Cy Young, and Justin Morneau the MVP. Given that Henry is growing up in our house, it is almost certain he will be a huge Twins fan, and he can always share his birth year with their magical season.

Adios for now. Let's hope that we'll have more news posted up here this week!

The Pratts

He'll be Home . . . for Christmas

Yes everyone, we got the first out of two calls that we have really been waiting for. Erin was actually the one who got the call, at about 1:30 this afternoon. Someone from our agency informed us that we are out of PGN and that we are expected to travel to Guatemala in 2-3 weeks. Erin called me and I blurted out "What?!!" quite loudly that I'm sure I startled some in my office. Needless to say, neither of us got any work done for the rest of the day as thousands of thoughts, questions and emotions whirled around our heads. We came home and left again for baby shopping (big ticket item: camcorder) and a little dinner celebration at a Mexican resturant in Duluth. I'm sure you all can think of a time where you were on a real emotional high. The common tangent with those highs? You crash, and we're both definitely crashing right now.

So what's next? Well, Josue will get a birth certificate that will change his name to Josue Moises Pratt. Kind of a nice ring to it, eh? The civil registry office in his hometown of Santa Catarina Pinula will issue a final adoption decree with the new birth certificate. Erin has been checking websites to see how long it takes for this action to occur (there are three examples of cases passing through the Santa Catarina Pinula office) and each time it has taken ONE DAY!!! If that holds true for us, I would expect us to be traveling in two weeks. We expect someone to be calling us in the next 1-2 weeks to tell us that we have an appointment in the U.S. Embassy, and a specific date and time will be listed. So, it will be our responsibility to rush to get plane tickets and hotel reservations for that date! Sometimes people only get a 48-hour notice.

It was truly amazing and shocking to us that we got out of PGN so quickly. We got in on October 17th and out on November 20th. We were told by our agency to expect a wait time of 1-3 months, but we have both read so many horror stories on the Internet about this waiting time that it would not have been surprising (although it would have been heartbreaking) to wait for 6 months or more. The great thing about this quick timing is that Josue/Henry will be around 5 months old when we get him, and babies start to have attachment issues usually around 6 months. Also, he's home by Christmas!! That is truly a God-given miracle in my opinion.

So, in the meantime, there is lots to do and even more paperwork to fill out (with notarization). The major thing to do is to paint and decorate the nursery, which right now is just an empty room. Soon we will have a little boy in that very room...amazing. We are still trying to make sense of it all. My legs have finally stopped shaking! We aren't hosting Thanksgiving like originally scheduled because of everything going on, but there is no doubt that we are so thankful that we will soon cradle small, precious Henry in our arms....more to post later.

A&E

Major Announcement Coming

Hi folks, stay tuned for a major announcement from the Pratts. We definitely have a lot to be thankful for this year!!

First Adoption Completed!

Last Thursday we officially became adoptive "parents"...of a dog. She is a mutt, with a mix of a lot of things, like pug, shepherd, lab, and who knows what else. We named her Rosita. She is between 1 to 3 years old, and we got her from a humane society outside of Superior. We took her home as soon as we saw her. She is very timid but sweet and wants to learn. She also likes to get attention from our one niece and four nephews. She has even had her own babies in the past. We have attached some pictures of her. When we first got her she was scared of common house items, such as the toilet and the stairs. Now she's better, but she is still terrified of music coming from the piano! We have no idea why. Her favorite thing in the world is the dog bed that we got for her on the way home. She spends 2/3 of her day on that thing.

We think Rosita has some attachment issues, though. She gets fairly nervous whenever we leave her and vocalizes her concerns (instead of barking, however, she does sort of a high hum). I suppose that is similar to what Henry might do when we get him, as he will probably have some attachment to his foster family. All in all, it seems like Rosita is a good way for us to take on some responsibility while getting ready for even more responsibility. We can't wait for her to meet Henry and for us to become even more of a family.

Speaking of our little dude, we got another medical update on him today. He was evaluated on November 7th. He is 12 pounds, 14 ounces (up from 11 pounds, 8 ounces on Oct. 5), 54 centimeters long (up a whopping 2 cm's from October), with a cephalic circumference of 38 centimeters (up one cm). He was given a third dose of polio vaccine, meningitis and Hepatitis B. According to the report, Henry presents a normal physical and mental development and a good nutritional and nuerological state. Additionally, he moves his head in the directions of sounds and colors. His favorite sound is the sound of a basketball swishing through the net. I wonder what his favorite color is?

Now we have to wait for a few weeks to get another case update and pictures. In the meantime, we will have a happy Thanksgiving and will save some pumpkin pie for our little pumpkin. To everyone who is reading and commenting, we can't thank you enough for your support. It truly feels like there is an army of people urging us on.

The Pratts

Mr. Eyes

Hello all, this will have to be a short post, but we got some new pictures of Henry yesterday. Look at how big his eyes are! These are the first pictures where he is totally awake. Do you see the blanket behind him? We sent that blanket down to him shortly after we first saw him, so it is very nice to see that he's using it. He is also wearing pajamas that were bought and sent down. The overriding theme for these pictures is how much his face has changed. He looks so much more grown up than a month ago! We can still tell that it's him, but his look has definitely changed. Now we want him to get up here so we can see the changes for ourself!

We learned today that our case was submitted to PGN on October 17, and that the wait in this phase has typically been 1 to 3 months. It won't be shorter than a month (which were almost at already) but it could be a lot longer than 3 months. Our agency will call us once we are out of PGN, and we should get the OK to travel at the latest a month after that. So that is exciting news. Here is our updated case timeline:

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: 8-8-06
Birth mom & Henry DNA test: 8-25-06
DNA Match: 9-11-06
Approval by Guatemala family court (estimated): 10-1-06
U.S. Embassy Pre-Approval: 10-6-06
Entry into PGN (estimated): 10-17-06
Approval by PGN:
Travel date:
Return home!:

Adios!

Letter to Henry

Hola amigos. Well Halloween came and went and we didn't see any trick or treaters with UNICEF boxes. Actually, we barely saw any trick or treaters due to the brutal cold up here. Classic Duluth Halloween, as you can't see the kids' costumes under the Gortex coat and numerous layers of long underwear. In a nutshell, the problem with UNICEF is that it pushes each country currently doing adoptions to shut down their systems in favor of a system regulated by governmental agencies and more red tape. I have mentioned the Hague Convention on adoptions before, which should be ratified by the U.S. in 2007. The Hague contains some admirable provisions, such as the requirement that health histories of both birth parents be disclosed to adoptive parents. However, even if countries are set up to handle all of these requirements, the end result would be an even longer process that would jack up prices and in the end severly restrict adoptions. Also, UNICEF advocates for countries to place their adoptive kids internally, with other families from that country. Unfortunately, countries like Guatemala are so poor that there aren't even enough families around with the resources to raise these kids. So in the end, the kids would end up in orphanges or on the street.

Okay, I'm done ranting.

We are waiting for updated pictures and medical information on our Henry. Our last update came on October 13, so we're not expecting another one right on time, although now we are into November and would like to hear something. This weekend we attended Andy's 10.5-year high school reunion in Northfield, and a fun time was had by all. We got a gift bag with a baby bottle and bibs because Andy stated on a questionnaire that he was expecting a child. We also put together a care package that will be dropped off with our agency this week, for further distribution to Henry's foster family in Guatemala. We enclosed a set of clothes, some pajamas, a baby book with our pictures in it (so he can see us) and a teddy bear that records sounds (so he can hear our first words to him). We also wrote a note to the foster family that was translated into Spanish by a gracious friend of ours. We wrote that we cannot express our gratitude in mere words, that we think and pray for the foster family every day, and that we promise to love Henry every day forever. It will be great to meet the foster mother when we travel down there, and we know the experience will be somewhat bittersweet because she has to give away a part of her life while we get the best gift of our lives.

On the ride back to Duluth we entered into serious discussions about buying a dog. We both want one, and it's amazing to think we've owned a house for over a year without one! The pros to getting a dog are obvious, but some cons are that we wanted to have our baby home first so the dog would know he is second fiddle, as well as the fact that the dog could mess up our wood floors (the latter is more Andy's concern than Erin's). So, what do you think? Should we get a dog or wait until our fella is home first? Please feel free to comment and we will post them.

In the meantime, here are a few pictures of decorations for Henry's room, as well as the "G" we carved into our pumpkin (for Guatemala, of course).