Dossier received

Our dossier was received by Marilena, the Guatemalan facilitator our agency uses. It looks like we should be in the court system soon! I have booked my flight to Guatemala City. I leave May 25th and return the 31st. Needless to say, we are excited!

Packet to Marilena

After putting the finishing touches on our dossier, it is off to Guatemala. Alexander, we are so excited! We cannot wait to meet you. I have scheduled a trip the last week of May. My globe trotting girlfriend, Anna, is coming with me. We are looking forward to meeting Alexander, Miriam and Marilena. There is also a slim possibility I will be able to meet Maria, Alexander's birthmother. Anna and I plan to do some touring as well as spending time with Alexander. We will not be able to take him touring but will look forward to lots of snuggle time if he is in the mood.

My husband, Eddy, and I are planning to do a trip together this summer. The timing just depends on where we are in the court process. We have to wait until our case hits the courts . Taking this trip during this time frame will make Alexander's adoption an "adopt abroad". This means it will not need to be finalized in the States.

The third trip will be our "gotcha" trip! It is natural to question when this will happen. The short and long of it is it will happen when it happens. The general rule of thumb is six months after the dossier is received in Guatemala, which would put us at September, right around Alexander's first birthday. Things happen though, so there is no real way to know for sure. A lot depends on the US Embassy in Guatemala City and their work load. It also depends on how long our case is in the President and Attorney General's office or "PGN". Our case hits the PGN office after it clears the courts. Sometimes cases clear the PGN within weeks, other times months. Sometimes they throw out cases for being unable to read a signature, sometimes not. In short, it just depends.

For now we are celebrating being out of the dossier compilation phase. Between all of the extranneous stuff Dillon required, India's requirements and completing Alexander's paperwork, it has been constant paperwork, paper monitoring, follow up and the like. As someone who recently took a spiritual gifts inventory and almost had a negative score for "administration" (i.e. pretty ungifted), being able to move on from this phase is a relief. I know once I hold Alexander it will become a distant memory.

It actually feels good to have it out of our control for a bit. Now we can focus on preparing our home for Alexander!!

Dossier received from Guatemalan consulate

We received our dossier from the Guatemalan consulate. Junior called and said the US embassy in Guatemala city has received our approval. We are on to the last step of our dossier which is to mail it to our Guatemalan attorney. Wow!

CIS Approval

YEAH! It arrived, the magical CIS approval. Now our dossier is complete with the exception of one form we can fax to Marilena, our attorney, later. It is a form that proves that if our names have a middle initial on one form and no middle initial on the other, that it is indeed the same person and not an imposter with nearly the same name. Yes, for real.

So now I am off to copy and send our forms and a money order to the Guatemalan consulate. Yippee!

Round 2 of Authentication and CIS Letter

We received our dossier back from the State of Texas today and I am going to send it to the Guatemalan consulate along with my birth certificate tonight. After much discussion with the consulate in Houston and DC. they both agree that Houston should authenticate my birth certificate. Our documents were all authenticated and there was no freakish error, no one blew their nose on them making some key point illegible, a sea gull did not swoop them off the back of the Fed-Ex truck....In other words, something went as planned. WOO HOO! YES YES YES! A victory in the bureaucratic blizzard.

Yesterday I sent in a written inquiry to CIS regarding the status of our case. There is no human being who answers the phone there, only automoton phone tree synthesized, disembodied creepy lady. She advised me to submit a request in writing to find out the status of my case. Short of showing up at Junior's house, he has a very common name so finding his home in not really an option (that is joke), this seems like the only option. So, I wrote my letter listing everything including all dates and actions taken, phone conversations, messages left, etc. As I wrote it, it became clear that this should have been done by now and something is most likely amiss.

A good friend has a close family member who works for CIS, so I decided to call to see who I need to talk to in order for this issue to escalate. He was sympathetic and gave me the number of a human being other than Junior. Monday I will follow up with her. Meanwhile, I will "just wait" as my central CIS friend advised.

This weekend we are looking forward to celebrating the recent betrothal of some freinds with good food and company. We also had fun celebrating St. Patty's with some friends today, so it is not all bureacratic warrior work. LIfe is good and we are so thrilled Alexander is being so well cared for! What a blessing.

Well, I am off to write a cover letter for round 2 of authentication. Thanks for reading and luck of the Irish to you!

What warrants a restraining order?

So at what point does persistence become stalking? Firstly, I am sorry for doing three posts in one day which defeats the purpose of blogging. Such is life.

Junior is delayed in getting our I-171H. My husband, who manages projects and people who are not technically required to do what he says, is a wonderful consultant on this matter. He takes the polite pain in the patoot approach. He had advised me to do the same. So, after giving Junior weeks to do what the other orphan officer said would take days, I have mounted the squeaky wheel offense.

Problem is, Junior never answers his phone. He is a smart one. He also never returns calls. Smarter still.....So, I decided to call INS central, assuming (remember that is a BAD BAD word) that there is a centralized database. I hold for fifteen minutes. I think purgatory includes an automated voice reminding you that you are on hold, after you have already been on hold.

Do they think you may forget? You may say "self, I sura am enjoying carrying the phone around the house listening to easy listening music....why am I not listening to the instrumental version of "Flock of Seagulls" on the stereo? Oh yes, I am on HOLD. Thanks automoton person for reminding me". Anyway, a nice lady answers the phone and I tell her I am checking on the status of my I-171H. She replies "an I-1718?" We go through this for a while. I guess I am not that clear on the phone. She has no idea what I am talking about. I explain to her the process to get one. She says "OH! That orphan thing. Yes, you need to talk to your local office." I ask her what I should do if no one ever calls me back. She says " you can wait." And I guess that sums it up...I can wait.

Dossier sent to State of Texas

Last night I went to Kinko's to copy our dossier and send it in to the state of Texas for the first round of authentication. This experience is such a lesson in tolerance.

After the copier ate my paperwork, my precious originals, and I managed to extract them, no thanks to the very "Office Space" like Kinko's staff. Oh Mom, I know. They could have all just found out their favorite person had a dreaded disease, or their dogs could have died and they were distracted planning the joint dog funeral. Yes, those are all possibilities...either way I had to rescue my papers by myself and was feeling very put out by their staring while I dissembled the copier. Sure, they are making minimum wage to work the night shift at a copier place. I mean who can blame them, really? It is kind of dumb to expect any level of service from an eighteen year old who is making a highlighting appointment. It is Karma since I WAS the eighteen year old scheduling the highlighting appointment.

I stood in line behind the sweetest of grandmothers. She was sending her darlings a care package. They are studying in the Netherlands.....Who would possibly allow their college age children to do an exchange to the Netherlands? Speaking of Karma, I better stop. Anyway, she went through and told the Fed Ex guy everything that was in the box....a scarf, some mittens, a couple of magazines, bubble gum, boxers, candy bars, chips (William LOVES Doritos, don't you know? Particularly the "Cool Ranch" flavor) some socks, Twizzlers....you get the idea. I think there was one of everything in the junk food aisle of the average US supermarket. Then we went on to payment. She could do part credit card, part cash......hmmm.....or she could pay all of it with her check...but then her husband might get on to her for spending so much.....he just does not understand. She was very sweet and excited to send her grandchildren a nice package and she got stuck in front of the glaring prospective adoptive mother. Poor thing....Lucky kids in the Netherlands. I imagine those snacks will come in handy.

Thank goodness my two year old was not there. Maybe I should bring her and she could speed things along with some shrill screaming. Maybe I will speed things up with some shrill screaming. Hmm....maybe that will be my strategy for round 2 of the authentication game.

Well, I guess all is well that ends well and mission was accomplished. We still do not have our I-171H and Junior is now a wanted man. Oh and our home study was delayed because the social worker forgot to get the third incarnation notarized. We managed to get a complete one together, notarized, with all of the "Indias" changed to "Guatemalas" and, only 3.5 weeks after my overly generous deadline, we are actually on track.

Now we are just waiting on Junior. Apparently, his thorough attitude was a blessing in disguise as our social worker said our case could have been rejected for such an error. Whomever said "the Devil is in the details" was not a liar.

Update on Alexander

We received the following update from our social worker with Alexander's agency. She and her boss visited Guatemala and met with Alexander and his foster mom.

Dear Natalie,

We are currently in Nicaragua, but were able to visit with Alexander and the foster mom this last week, along with Marilena.

Alexander is really cute and doing excellent under Miriam´s care. She is a FANTASTIC foster mom! We just loved her. She told us that taking care of Alexander has truly been a blessing from God. Miriam herself has a special needs daughter, although I am unsure about the disability. Everyone just raves about her. She´s a humble and modest woman, I think you will like her right away.

She would be thrilled with a cross with Alexander´s name on the back! I know she would love it.

Andrea and I took photos which we can send to you later. I will not be back in the US until March 14th.

I explained to Marilena that you are working on the paperwork. Everything is o.k.

We also went to the doctors offices of Dr. Hagen and Dr. Figueroa. We met with both of them personally and they are just excellent. They knew immediately who Alexander was and told us that Miriam is a wonderful foster mom.

So that it what I want to share with you and your husband. Everyone is so happy you are adopting Alexander. He is truly blessed to have you as his new family.

Warm regards,

Janet