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