Last Saturday we
celebrated Daniella's fourth adoption day. We call it Gotcha Day, but
that has now become politically incorrect. Supposedly it sounds like
you went to the store and picked them up--degrading, they say. I asked
Marissa, age 8, who is also adopted, and she thought that was
ridiculous. She likes her "Gotcha Day". So Gotcha Day it is around
here.
Let me preface our
story by saying that it is not typical. Most Guatlemala adoptions take
5-7 months to complete. Please pray that issues with the Hauge
Convention do not stop Guatemalan adoptions altogether.
We began the process to
adopt Daniella in July, 2000. Thinking that you will be an old pro at
all the paperwork and the process because you've done it once before is
only a dream. Almost everything has to be redone. It also took us
longer because we were adding a bedroom to accomodate a new baby, and
the social worker would not complete the homestudy until the bedroom was
pretty much complete. This is even though it would be our bedroom, and
the girls would sleep in the old master. (However, we LOVE our social
worker, and she thinks homeschooling is great.) I think our homestudy
was complete and approved in about February of 2001.
We got a call for a
referral of a little girl the first week of May. At that point, you
race to get the foriegn dossier done as soon as you can. You can't
start on it until after the referral comes, and the process down there
can't start until those last few pieces of paperwork are done. In
Guatemala, you are given the referral of a newborn, and have pictures
and info for that child until the adoption is complete. We got pictures
of her when she was just a few days old.
Lesly Cristina Gomez Alvarado
The court procedures
and everything went smoothly for the first few months. If we stayed on
the tentative schedule, we would be out of PGN by mid Nov., and be able
to bring her home by early or mid Dec. When it was time to come out of
PGN (which is the equal to an Attorney General's office--the final place
where a lawyer for the Guat. govt has to approve you), we get the call
that there is a smudge on one of the papers, so they will not accept
it. It was a very nit picky thing, especially since it was their
standard form in Spanish that was still readable. Later what we realize
is that we got an attorney who does not like U.S. adoptions. When you
have one of those, you are in for it. And we were.)
The form happened to
be one that is difficult to get to start with. You must have a
reference from someone who will testify that you will be a good parent
and can provide for the child, BUT, they can't be a friend, relative,
employee, etc. AND, they have to have a passport. Not only that, you
have to set up a predetermined time with this person and a notary that
their sig. can be notarized, because before this can happen, you have to
tell the adoption agency the time and date, and the whole form has to
be made up in Spanish to be notarized. Can you imagine how it feels to
go up to someone, ask if they have a passport, and say, "I really don't
consider you a friend, so could you please sign this statement that I'll
be a good parent? And, by the way, you have to be at the notary when I
tell you to, and you'll be signing a form in a different language, so
you'll just have to take my word for it what it says." So this is the
process we were going to have to go through again. The bigger problem
was that the one they threw out was a missionary who was out of the
country, and we had no idea when she would be back.
Thankfully, PGN said we
could use another witness--so we had to start over that process above.
This paper then had to go to the Courthouse for a seal, Nashville for
the Sec. of State's seal, and to D.C. for a seal from the Guatemala
Embassy. This could take up to 3 weeks. So, in one day, we got the
notary and the courthouse seal, then dh jumped in the car and drove to
Nashville (3 hours), and they did it on the spot. The next day, grandma
came for the other kids, and he and I headed for D.C. (about 8 hours).
We went into the embassy (which was an adventure to find). Their
website said they had a one day turnaround for walk-ins and this was a
Thurs. We gave them the papers, and they said we could pick them up
MONDAY. A spontaneous gasp escaped from my mouth (we had left our kids
and really couldn't afford a D.C. hotel that long). She tells us to
wait a second, and when she returned, she said we could come back
tomorrow! Friday, we picked it up, walked to the nearest FedEx drop
off, and it was on it's way in 3 days instead of 3 weeks. At least dh
and I had a nice, quiet (?) couple of days to ourself. There were very
few people there the week after Thanksgiving either.
The whole 6 week PGN
process had to be started over completely instead of just picking up
where we left off, so we waited and waited. Finally about the 2nd week
of Jan., we get a call. "I'm so sorry, but now they are saying they
will not accept a new witness. It has to be the original person." We
were devastated. Fortunately, she was back in the country, but that
entire process had to be redone. So it was back to Nashville, and back
to D.C. The whole family went this time.
(A funny side note: We
had just been to D.C. for a family vacation in Sept. of that year
before, so this was the 3rd trip dh and I had made to D.C. in 4 1/2
months time. And, yes that was Sept 2001. We had been in front of the
Pentegon on Sept.9th!)
Once that was done, the
process went along pretty smoothly. You wouldn't believe how ecstatic
we were when we found out the paperwork had LEFT the PGN office. Many
squeals of delight. Of course, the birthmother still had to come back
and sign a final paper. She did, but it took about 3 weeks for her to
do that, and we were getting a little stressed out over that one. This
whole time, we had still not even seen a picture of our little girl
since she was few days old. Once that child is referred to you, you
can't help falling in love with it, even though they warn you not to.
The stress and sadness come because in your heart, that is your child,
stranded in another country, and there's nothing you can do about it.
The call to go get her
came the 2nd week of April, and she was brought to us on April 15,
2002, eight days before her first birthday.
I know this is very
long. Thank you if you stuck with me through our story. I will post
about our trip and pictures next time.
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