Friday, September 30, 2005
Things Are Getting Better!
What a way to end the week! Frank and I just received new pictures of Baby Dominic. They made me cry; I think he is so beautiful. Frank wants to bring him home NOW! He just had his second physical and he is doing great! His weight is just over 6 lbs. now and he appears to be perfectly healthy. We weren't expecting pictures so soon, but they DEFINITELY reminded us that all of this chaos is worth it!
Our dossier is still MIA. Amazingly enough, Frank and I have been able to recreate the entire set of documents in just 2 days. We were only able to do this because people are so kind. We met an amazing young woman who works for our state representative and she has been willing to do everything in her power to help us. Our doctors, our school district, our friends, everyone has been so helpful and kind to us. We are so thankful. Because of all of these people, we have been able to do the impossible. We recreated a dossier that took 3 months to build in 24 hours.
So the dossier will travel to Harrisburg on Tuesday. Thankfully, Aimee has volunteered to go with me and keep me company. What a great friend! :) Tuesday afternoon the dossier will be overnighted to NYC and authenticated. It should take about a week until we get it back to Megan, our adoption facilitator. She is amazing. She called the president of the shipping company for us and it appears that we will be refunded for our losses. She is truly a remarkable person.
We are still without our INS/homeland security approval but it should be here any day. We KNOW that is not lost :) The Power of Attorney is in Guatemala and in Carla's hands. That is great news!
I have a few shout-outs . . . a million thanks to our family and friends for consoling us this week! Thank you for all of your support! Thanks to two of my best friends in the world, Lani and Chrissy, for giving me some of the BEST news I have heard in a long time this week! I am so happy for you both! Thanks so much to Marcy for lending me her ear on Wednesday (and over and over and over again)at school AND running around to help me out. You are a great friend and I owe you a million cups of Dunkin' Donuts Coffee . . . only Decaf for pregnant ladies, though! Thanks a million to Susan, Aimee and Aimee's mom for helping us with those witness statement without blinking an eye :)
Hopefully more news is yet to come. Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers during these next few months. Thanks so much to everyone for your kindness! Keep checking here for more news. :)
Our dossier is still MIA. Amazingly enough, Frank and I have been able to recreate the entire set of documents in just 2 days. We were only able to do this because people are so kind. We met an amazing young woman who works for our state representative and she has been willing to do everything in her power to help us. Our doctors, our school district, our friends, everyone has been so helpful and kind to us. We are so thankful. Because of all of these people, we have been able to do the impossible. We recreated a dossier that took 3 months to build in 24 hours.
So the dossier will travel to Harrisburg on Tuesday. Thankfully, Aimee has volunteered to go with me and keep me company. What a great friend! :) Tuesday afternoon the dossier will be overnighted to NYC and authenticated. It should take about a week until we get it back to Megan, our adoption facilitator. She is amazing. She called the president of the shipping company for us and it appears that we will be refunded for our losses. She is truly a remarkable person.
We are still without our INS/homeland security approval but it should be here any day. We KNOW that is not lost :) The Power of Attorney is in Guatemala and in Carla's hands. That is great news!
I have a few shout-outs . . . a million thanks to our family and friends for consoling us this week! Thank you for all of your support! Thanks to two of my best friends in the world, Lani and Chrissy, for giving me some of the BEST news I have heard in a long time this week! I am so happy for you both! Thanks so much to Marcy for lending me her ear on Wednesday (and over and over and over again)at school AND running around to help me out. You are a great friend and I owe you a million cups of Dunkin' Donuts Coffee . . . only Decaf for pregnant ladies, though! Thanks a million to Susan, Aimee and Aimee's mom for helping us with those witness statement without blinking an eye :)
Hopefully more news is yet to come. Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers during these next few months. Thanks so much to everyone for your kindness! Keep checking here for more news. :)
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Oh Where, Oh Where Could Our Dossier Be?
Yes, I am trying to maintain my sense of humor, but it is not easy right now. Our dossier, which includes the original of every document we need for this adoption, is lost in the mail. The funniest thing is that is not lost in Guatemala; it is lost here in the USA.
What does this mean? Well, a few things. The courier company (I won't mention any names, but PLEASE contact me before you ship something so you NEVER use this company!) has no idea where it is. It was mailed on the 21st. It should have been in Guatemala days ago. According to the company, it might be in Ohio. Ohio? I don't think that is anywhere near Guatemala.
Megan (our "agent" so to speak) and Carla (our attorney) have been working on this situation for several days without saying anything to us. They have been trying to protect us from what might be the inevitable . . . making a new dossier.
I think I have the new dossier under control already. I THINK I could have all the documents notarized and I could take them to Harrisburg for the state seal on Tuesday. From there they get mailed back to the Consulate of Guatemala in New York. From there, they try to make it to Guatemala for the second time. We pretty much lose 3 things: TONS of money, TONS of our own time, and a HUGE PIECE of our sanity.
Isn't this EXCITING? No. It isn't. The only good news is that this should not hold anything up, if we move quickly.
Say a prayer that we get a call that tell us our dossier has been found before I go back to Harrisburg on Tuesday! :)
What does this mean? Well, a few things. The courier company (I won't mention any names, but PLEASE contact me before you ship something so you NEVER use this company!) has no idea where it is. It was mailed on the 21st. It should have been in Guatemala days ago. According to the company, it might be in Ohio. Ohio? I don't think that is anywhere near Guatemala.
Megan (our "agent" so to speak) and Carla (our attorney) have been working on this situation for several days without saying anything to us. They have been trying to protect us from what might be the inevitable . . . making a new dossier.
I think I have the new dossier under control already. I THINK I could have all the documents notarized and I could take them to Harrisburg for the state seal on Tuesday. From there they get mailed back to the Consulate of Guatemala in New York. From there, they try to make it to Guatemala for the second time. We pretty much lose 3 things: TONS of money, TONS of our own time, and a HUGE PIECE of our sanity.
Isn't this EXCITING? No. It isn't. The only good news is that this should not hold anything up, if we move quickly.
Say a prayer that we get a call that tell us our dossier has been found before I go back to Harrisburg on Tuesday! :)
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Thank You!
Here is a close up of the little guy. I don't think he likes having his picture taken! He might not have the patience for a camera happy mom like me. Thank you so much to EVERYONE for all of the kind and supportive e-mails you sent! I have heard from so many people and I haven't had the chance to write everyone back yet. I promise I will! Frank and I are so lucky to have so many wonderful, supportive family members and friends. Thanks for the good wishes, prayers, and crossed fingers!
We finally have our Power of Attorney paper completed, thanks to a drive to Harrisburg last Friday for a state seal and to Aunt Linda for visiting the Guatemalan Consulate in New York. The paper is on its way to Megan, our adoption facilitator. From there is goes on to our attorney in Guatemala and to the Consulate. This is a key paper and a big part of this process. After that, we wait until we get approval for DNA testing. We need to make sure that Dominic's birth mother is really his birth mother. This is a safety precaution. People do steal babies and try to give them up for adoption to earn some money. So sad, but so true.
Other than that, we are at a standstill. We are still waiting for our INS approval. That is the last piece of this puzzle, at least from our end. I rush to check the mail for it everyday!
It was so great to hear from so many of you! I miss you all so much and I can't believe how long it has been since I have seen some of you.
More news as soon as we have it! THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND THOUGHTS!
We finally have our Power of Attorney paper completed, thanks to a drive to Harrisburg last Friday for a state seal and to Aunt Linda for visiting the Guatemalan Consulate in New York. The paper is on its way to Megan, our adoption facilitator. From there is goes on to our attorney in Guatemala and to the Consulate. This is a key paper and a big part of this process. After that, we wait until we get approval for DNA testing. We need to make sure that Dominic's birth mother is really his birth mother. This is a safety precaution. People do steal babies and try to give them up for adoption to earn some money. So sad, but so true.
Other than that, we are at a standstill. We are still waiting for our INS approval. That is the last piece of this puzzle, at least from our end. I rush to check the mail for it everyday!
It was so great to hear from so many of you! I miss you all so much and I can't believe how long it has been since I have seen some of you.
More news as soon as we have it! THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND THOUGHTS!
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Faster Than We Expected!
Can you believe it? After a summer of collecting documents, getting fingerprinted, notarizing papers, begging friends and family to write nice letters about us, begging more family members to help us get documents authenticated AND having our home and personal lives "studied," we are ALMOST done our adoption papers. The funny thing is that someone decided to come along BEFORE we finished everything! We are proud to present Baby Dominic. Funny things happen when you least expect them. Frank and I were so excited to finally be almost done with our dossier. The dossier is a huge collection of documents that gets sent to the country you are adopting from. This dossier included about 20 documents that needed to be stamped and sealed by the Secretary of State in Harrisburg and by the Guatemalan Consulate in NYC. We had just gotten our dossier off to NYC to be authenticated and we were waiting for it to come home so we could ship it could be off to Guatemala.
The last big document we need is our approval from Homeland Security/Immigration. Our adoption facilitator called the Homeland Security Office last Thursday (9/15) to see how long it would take to get back to us. After she called immigration to check on our status, one of her lawyer contacts from Guatemalan contacted her and told her she had a very cute baby boy waiting.
Our adoption facilitator got in touch with me right away. Now, for those of you who don't know too much about international adoption (which is probably most of you!) some groups in Guatemala are in the middle of trying to pass a law in their Congress to change their adoption procedures. This news is not so great for us. Right now, things are "on hold" as far as the news laws go in their government, but the threat of this law passing is not good for the adoption process. People in the middle of adopting from Guatemala are moving fast so they don't get stuck in a potentially messy situation.
Considering everything that is going on in Guatemala, our adoption facilitator and the Guatemalan attorney worked together to get the ball rolling. Even though we are not officially done our paperwork, we have accepted this referral and we are scrambling to make sure that everything gets to Guatemala ASAP.
Please remember that until we actually bring this baby home, things could change. For one, his birth mom could change her mind. If that happens, we'll wait for the next referral. Hopefully, we won't need to do that. We are still waiting for our immigration approval to officially be done all the paperwork. After that, we are looking at 4 to 6 months before we can travel and bring Dominic home.
This little guy was born on September 5, 2005, at 8:30 a.m. He weighed 8 lbs. and he is a little more than 19 inches long. All of his stats are "normal" baby-wise, and he appears to be in buenas salud (good health). Doesn't he look cute and fat? I wish I could hug him and kiss those chubby cheeks!
It will be a LONG 4 to 6 months for us. We'll use this blog to keep everyone posted. Right now, things are looking good. I am sure we will have both good and bad days in the next few months. Please keep us in your prayers and hope that this little guy can come home to us!
The last big document we need is our approval from Homeland Security/Immigration. Our adoption facilitator called the Homeland Security Office last Thursday (9/15) to see how long it would take to get back to us. After she called immigration to check on our status, one of her lawyer contacts from Guatemalan contacted her and told her she had a very cute baby boy waiting.
Our adoption facilitator got in touch with me right away. Now, for those of you who don't know too much about international adoption (which is probably most of you!) some groups in Guatemala are in the middle of trying to pass a law in their Congress to change their adoption procedures. This news is not so great for us. Right now, things are "on hold" as far as the news laws go in their government, but the threat of this law passing is not good for the adoption process. People in the middle of adopting from Guatemala are moving fast so they don't get stuck in a potentially messy situation.
Considering everything that is going on in Guatemala, our adoption facilitator and the Guatemalan attorney worked together to get the ball rolling. Even though we are not officially done our paperwork, we have accepted this referral and we are scrambling to make sure that everything gets to Guatemala ASAP.
Please remember that until we actually bring this baby home, things could change. For one, his birth mom could change her mind. If that happens, we'll wait for the next referral. Hopefully, we won't need to do that. We are still waiting for our immigration approval to officially be done all the paperwork. After that, we are looking at 4 to 6 months before we can travel and bring Dominic home.
This little guy was born on September 5, 2005, at 8:30 a.m. He weighed 8 lbs. and he is a little more than 19 inches long. All of his stats are "normal" baby-wise, and he appears to be in buenas salud (good health). Doesn't he look cute and fat? I wish I could hug him and kiss those chubby cheeks!
It will be a LONG 4 to 6 months for us. We'll use this blog to keep everyone posted. Right now, things are looking good. I am sure we will have both good and bad days in the next few months. Please keep us in your prayers and hope that this little guy can come home to us!
