By Popular Demand--A Quick Lesson in the Adoption Process

I am getting several e-mails asking me to explain the whole process and what all of these initials mean. So, here goes...

We began the process by applying with our agency, and doing a homestudy with a social worker. Now let me just say that was interesting. We had to meet with this woman on 4 different occasions. The first meeting was just me and Jeff. She stayed with us for about an hour or so and asked us questions about our childhood, how we met and our views on parenting. She also wanted to know why we decided to adopt. For those of you that don't know, I have always said that I wanted to adopt. I remember it being up there with being a teacher. Jeff said he has always felt the desire, also. She told us that she hears that alot from families and that most of them suffer from infertility. I do not think this is a coincidence. I believe God pricks the hearts of some people at a very young age and that births something very special that manifests itself later in life. Adoption is not for everyone. Anyway, I have digressed. Back to the process... the other visits were individual ones- one with Jeff and one with me. The last one was a family one. She spoke with Jake separately and then with all of us together. One month later, we had a typed report that stated we were fit to adopt a baby. The journey begins...

We began working hard and compiling all of the necessary documents for the U.S. and Guatemalan governments. In July, we sent it all off to our attorney in Guatemala and began the process all involved hate the most-- waiting. The second week of September, we found out that a woman was scheduled to have a c-section on Sept.21. We were going to receive the baby as our referral. Your referral is when they match you with a certain baby. There was only one problem--Jake's birthday is Sept. 20 and he wanted his baby sister to share his birthday. I remember the night of the 19th we were saying prayers with him and he asked Jesus to let his baby sister be born the next day. Being the realist (faith-lacker) that I am, I explained that she was scheduled for the 21st and those things don't change. He told me, "Momma I prayed and Jesus is gonna do it." The faith of a child is so pure. Well, the next afternoon, on the way home from school, my cell phone rang and it was our adoption coordinator from our agency. As soon as I saw her name on my caller id, I knew we had a baby and that Jake's prayer had been answered!! Sure enough, for no "apparent" reason, the doctor rescheduled the c-section and our Bella was born early that afternoon on Wednesday, September 20-- the day her big brother turned 7 years old. We then rushed home and waited for Jeff to get home so we could look at the pictures of her. She was PERFECT.

The next steps that had to be done were for her and her birth mother to have a DNA test done to prove that she was indeed her child. Just as we met with our Social Worker, the birthmom had to meet with one in Guatemala. Hers was appointed by a judge in Family Court and we had to wait for the report to be done. Once we had that, we had to wait for our DNA results. They came in early January. The next step took forever!!! We waited 49 days for Pre-approval from our embassy. We needed this before we could enter the final phase. This came on March 1, the day we brought Bella back to the hogar (orphanage). If you haven't read those posts, go back and do so. It will shed more light on what was going on at that time and the significance of it all.

On March 8, we were resubmitted to PGN. I say REsubmitted, because our attorney went ahead and submitted us the first time on Feb. 12, knowing that once our reviewer saw that we were lacking PA (preapproval), we would get kicked out. This is called a previo. PGN is the equivalent to our Attorney General's office. There are reviewers that go through all of the paperwork that we gathered last summer and decide if it meets their specifications. Once they decide that all is okay with our file, they sign off on it and it goes to the director's desk, for his final signature. If they want some document redone, they issue us a previo. They can issue as many as they want. We then have to redo them, and it can take weeks to get back into PGN. We are hoping that our reviewer looked over everything before he kicked us out for no PA and that we won't get any more kick outs. The average time spent in this final phase is 5o days. We are believing God that we will be out sooner and be able to get Bella home in May! Please pray for this!!!!!!

So, the latest is that we have successfully been in PGN for exactly one week today and as of 11:20 P.M., we have not gotten any previos. Pray that this trend continues.

We have finished Bella's room and it is as girly as a room can get. We will post pictures this weekend. I have been shopping for clothes and odds and ends that I haven't used in many years. You know--sippy cups, feeding bowls, baby spoons and bottles. We are definitely ready for Bella to be home where she belongs. And I know our God will do just that-- get her here soon!