Hello from Guatemala!

Hello from Guatemala! Today is Sunday, July 29th and in two days we will be home forever! The time has been going very slowly. I guess the anticipation is killing us. We can't wait to touch down in Houston because Miranda will automatically become a US citizen!!! It will be even more exciting to touch down in Baltimore so we can see our family, especially Patrick and Luke.

Today we are going to Antigua. It is about 40 minutes from Guatemala City. We are taking a guided tour with another couple from our agency. We are hoping to be able to see some real Mayan ruins, and a little bit of how people live. Also we are looking forward to shopping in the local markets.

We will be home very soon and we can't wait for everyone to be able to finally meet our little princess!

We are tickled PINK!!!

For those of you in the adoption world, you know what this means. For everyone else, PINK is the official notification from the US Embassy re: the time and date of your embassy appointment. Between the time that Miranda's file exited PGN and now the following things have taken place:

1. New birth certificate issued in the name Deysi Marbella Ochs
2. Birthmother signs off on the adoption for the fourth and final time
3. Miranda had to have an exit exam by a US physician
4. Our file is submitted to the US Embassy. If everything is in order, they issue you an appointment date and time on a pink slip of paper...thus an actual pink slip.


Our appointment date is Friday, July 27th at 7:15 a.m. We are leaving for Guatemala on Thursday. We will arrive back in Baltimore Tuesday night, after a brief layover in Houston, TX. Miranda's visa will be ready 24 hours after our PINK appointment; however, since this would be Saturday we have to wait to pick up her visa on Monday.

We came home from our vacation one day early. We have so much to do. Make flight arrangements, hotel arrangements, wash and repack our suitcases, and get all of our final documents in order.

Stay tuned for more information!

It's Picture Day!!!

We received our last update today. Does that mean that our Embassy date is right around the corner? Miranda is now pulling herself up in the crib, she is starting to crawl, and has started talking. Wow! She is going through a cute phase where she closes her eyes before her pictures are taken. She is still 17 pounds and is a about 25" tall.

Our caseworker is checking on the progress of our file. We are getting ready to leave for vacation and we need to get a sense of when we might travel. I have a business trip scheduled for two weeks at the beginning of August and I can't stand being in limbo.

I have attached a picture of Miranda, and one of her and her foster mother.

Enjoy!

Still No News!

Well here we are...eleven days after getting out of PGN and we still do not have any additional information. Talk about an anti-climatic event! Our caseworker is on vacation this week so we will have to wait until Monday for an update. I would like to know the following:

* Has the new birth certificate been received from Coban?
* Has the birthmother signed off on the dossier for the fourth and final time?
* Have the necessary documents been translated yet?
* Have we been submitted for pink?

We are anxious to make our flight arrangements. We have been experiencing a little bit of sticker shock as we start looking at possible flights. The flights will be about twice as much as they were in February & April. Oh well, we plan on being in debt for the rest of our lives (especially with three children)!

We leave for vacation on Saturday, July 14th. We will be going to Myrtle Beach for a week. Our boys, Patrick and Luke, are looking forward to spending the week with their cousins. We were so hoping to have Miranda home with us but that isn't God's plan. We will take the opportunity to spoil the boys rotten since their lives are going to change once Miranda comes home.

I did take the opportunity to shop for some new clothes for Miranda. She weighs about 18 pounds now. I bought several cute outfits, especially her "Welcome to the United States" coming home outfit.

I'll post once I have some additional information to share.

We are out of PGN!

After 9 weeks and five days, we are happy to announce that we are out of PGN. Our agency is working on getting a new birth certificate from Coban, which is where Miranda was born. Our estimated travel date is the middle to late July!!!!!!!!!

Thank you God for answering our prayers!

Nine Weeks in PGN

I'm sad to say that we are still in PGN. Today marks our ninth week. I do have some good news to share. My friend Kristin begged, borrowed, and stole to get the direct # for PGN. She gave me her # for her international calling card and it had 19 minutes left on the card. So I called PGN and got through to a man that spoke a little bit of English, which is more Spanish that I can speak. We were having some communication difficulty but we finally got to the point where he was going to tell me the status of our file. Guess what? My card ran out of minutes!!!!!!!!! Ugh!
I was totally freaking out. I called everyone that I could think of to tell them what happened.

I called Eric (my brother-in-law) and left him a message. He has friends, Jose & Mariana, that speak Spanish. Eric arranged for me to go to their house after work so Mariana could call Guatemala for me. After two hours of delays, she was finally able to get through to PGN. She spoke with a nice lady named Laura. Laura informed Mariana that our file was sitting on the director's desk waiting to be signed; however, there was still a chance that the director could personally kick out our file. Laura said that the file should be signed next week and we could call back for new information at that time.

This is more information that we have had in nine weeks. We are getting so close! Once our file exits PGN approved, it goes to the US Embassy. The embassy will set an appointment for the exit interview.

Please continue to pray that the rest of our process goes smoothly.

Eight Weeks in PGN

Today marks another day in PGN, and another week in the dreaded black hole. We had contact with our case worker in Texas this week. She confirmed that we did enter PGN back in mid-April. She indicated that she should be getting case updates either later this week or early next week. We should also be getting our monthly medical update and picture update. How we live for some information from our agency! The pictures are all that we have to carry us through from one month to the next.

Our friends Kristin and Josh are happy to announce that they have exited the building-the PGN building that is. They are now waiting on their "PINK" slip from the US Embassy in Guatemala. The appointment date and time is actually issued on a pink slip of paper.

Here is a sample of a letter that I would like to send to PGN...

Dear Senor Barrios:

Please sign our file today!!!!! We want to bring Miranda home!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope that I do not have to give you another weekly update. I want to be able to post that we are O-U-T.

Seven Weeks in PGN

Anyone starting to see a trend in my posts? Unfortunately when you are in PGN you do not get a lot of information. You are either in PGN or out of PGN. I am happy to report that based on our latest update from our agency we are still in PGN. This makes seven weeks for us. As far as we know we have not had any kick outs.

Our friends, Kristin and Josh, found out this week that their case has been approved by the PGN director. They are waiting for the final decree to be issued. Hopefully they will find out their embassy date early next week. Princess Reagan is finally coming home!

Six weeks in PGN

Time for the weekly update. Today marks our sixth week in PGN. As far as we know, we have not been kicked out yet. Timelines vary from adoption to adoption; however, the general consensus is that files are in PGN for 6-8 weeks (if there are no kick outs). Obviously some are in PGN for much longer and I think that as time goes on the wait will increase.

I'm sad to say that I had to flip over my calendar today to start marking our seventh, eighth, ninth, etc. week in PGN. When Jim and I first started this process (paperwork started in July 2006), I think that we had a goal set in our mind. That goal is to have Miranda home in time for our annual family trip to Myrtle Beach in July. The time between getting out of PGN and the Embassy appointment is running about two weeks right now. It would be great to get out of PGN and have our Embassy appointment all completed by the end of June. Please send your thoughts and prayers our way.

I promise to update the blog as soon as we get some type of new information.

Five Weeks in PGN

Today marks our fifth week in PGN. Last night we received an update from our case worker. She confirmed that our file is still in PGN. At this point we have not been approved or kicked out (previos). Yeah :). Our friends, Kristin & Josh, have now been in PGN for six weeks. Kristin and I were emailing each other last night and both agree that it seems like a good sign that we are this far into PGN and haven't been kicked out. Knock on wood. Senor Barrios can kick you out too so it's too early to think that we have sailed through this process.

Patrick and Luke are getting anxious for their new sister to come home. They were hoping that she would be home by the end of the school year so they could take her in for show and tell. They are going to be such awesome big brothers!

There are so many people waiting for her to come home. I can't wait to finally be able to introduce her to everyone.

May Update

Today we received about 15 new pictures of Miranda. She looks so happy and well taken care of by her foster mother. I just hate that we are missing out on all of these months with her as an infant. The monthly report states that she is now sixteen pounds, she is still getting up in the middle of the night for a bottle, she eats almost a whole jar of baby food, and she has finally learned how to roll over. I am most sad that we have missed this milestone because it is something that she has been working on since we first met her in February.

We are ready to go and get her at a moments notice. My parents are leaving on a two week cruise this week and I would love to introduce them to their new granddaughter when they get back home. Please pray that we will get some good news soon!

Four weeks in PGN

We have made it to the four week mark in PGN! I spoke with Carrie, our contact at Gladney, on Tuesday, and as of then we had not been kicked out of PGN. We have heard through various adoption forums that Senor Barrios is on a 20 day vacation. He is the head honcho at PGN down in Guatemala. I have been watching for people posting their "OUTS" on the adoption forums and there has been a slow trickle of people exiting PGN. It appears that someone else is signing off on files during Senor Barrios' absence.

Our friends, Josh and Kristin, have now been in PGN for five weeks. Kristin is preparing to make a visit trip to Guatemala at the end of May. I wish I could tag along to visit Miranda.

That's it for now. Keep your fingers crossed that this positive trend will continue!

Three weeks in PGN

Our case has now been in PGN for three weeks. I'm not sure if that is a good sign or a bad sign. As far as we know our file has not been kicked out of the process yet. The statistics say that 90% of cases get kicked out of PGN at least one time. It's kind of like waiting for the other shoe to drop--I'd rather have a kick-out now so we can get the problem fixed.

We met some friends on our first visit trip, Kristin & Josh, and they are a week ahead of us in PGN. So far they haven't heard anything about their case either. They are waiting to bring home their little girl Reagan. We also have some acquaintances through our friends Andrea & Darrell Guynn, that are waiting to bring their little girl Lily home from Guatemala. They are having a very difficult experience with their case. We wish them a speedy completion of their adoption.

This stage of the process will definitely test our patience. The information that comes from PGN is very minimal; typically, you are in or out of PGN. I would like a status report every day but that isn't how the system works. I guess I really am a control freak! No comments from the peanut gallery please.

We are back from our visit trip!

It's hard to believe that it has been one week since we arrived back home from our second visit trip. The five days that we spent with Miranda went by so fast! She is such a happy baby. She had no problems coming to us when we had placement on Thursday, April 26th. We thoroughly enjoyed playing with her, cuddling with her, and taking her swimming. She is a champion eater (just look at the pictures) and loves her milk, and fruit. She didn't care for the rice cereal that we brought for her, but the foster mother told us to put the rice in her last evening bottle.

Several days before we left for our trip my Bunco friends had a baby shower for us. Boy did we get some loot!! We received lots of cute clothes, a white wicker laundry basket, shoes, socks, diapers/wipes, baby medicine, bibs, hooded bath towels, and the list goes on and on. I was able to wash everything up before we left and I took several of the outfits down with us. Miranda is such a chunky monkey that I was afraid that the clothes wouldn't fit her once she arrived home.

Unfortunate News

We received an unfortunate email from our agency yesterday. Due to all of the uncertainty and turmoil surrounding Guatemala adoptions, our agency has decided to close its Guatemala program. Our agency has assured all of the families currently in the Guatemala program that they are committed to seeing all in-process adoptions through to completion. Our agency will be having a conference call this evening to give us further details.

We are in PGN!!!

We found out this afternoon that our dossier entered PGN yesterday! Hooray! Our caseworker informed us at the same time that there is yet another problem with our homestudy. Our homestudy states that "Mr. and Mrs. Ochs wish to adopt a female infant, newborn to three months at the time of referral, from Guatemala." This statement is true because Miranda was only 10 days old when we accepted her referral. However, the attorney is worried that since she is now 5 1/2 months old that the PGN reviewer will kick us out. We have contacted our homestudy provider to see if they can change just that one sentence to read "Mr. and Mrs. Ochs wish to adopt a female infant, newborn to twelve months at the time of referral, from Guatemala." Hopefully we can get this taken care of quickly.

We leave one week from today for our second visit trip with Miranda. We can't wait to hold her again, but most importantly we just want to bring her home. We also can't wait for everyone to meet her.

Finally Some Progress

On Tuesday afternoon we finally received the call that we had been waiting on for the last nine weeks. Our adoption caseworker emailed us to let us know that our attorney in Guatemala had received the final social worker report. It has been a long nine weeks waiting on this report. Typically this report is completed in one week. Hopefully we won't have any more problems with the guardianship information in our homestudy.

According to our caseworker our dossier should be submitted to PGN by the end of the week. During this process a reviewer goes through your file with a fine tooth comb. They can "kick" (called a previo) you out for a ton of different things: missing documents, expired documents, misspellings, not using the correct color ink, not including every variation of your name on the name affidavit, etc. Most of the kick outs are for ridiculous things, but it adds more time to your case. If your file is kicked out it typically takes about 6 weeks to be reviewed again after your resubmit.

After the reviewer signs off on the file it goes to the Director of PGN-Senor Barrios. He also goes through the file with a fine tooth comb and he either signs off on your file or rejects your file. The only problem with this process is that there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason why he reviews particular files. He doesn't review them in date order so some people have waited six months for him to review their file. On the other hand, some people only wait four weeks.

We are crossing our fingers that our dossier goes through this process smoothly. We will take any and all prayers! We want to bring her home soon!

An Amazing Gift from the Heart

Our youngest son had his first baseball practice last night. He woke up so excited that he wanted to wear his cleats to school. I can't imagine how hard it was for him to get through the day.

Grammy and Pap came to see him at practice. During practice my Mom called Jim and I over to speak with her and my Dad. My parents had a very special gift for us--a gift from the heart. They know how hard we have been struggling with the recent delays in Miranda's case. My Mom has listened to me cry because I miss her so much and I just yearn to hold her. My parents gave us enough money for airplane tickets and some extra to cover our hotel so that we can plan another trip to see our baby!!! Jim and I just stared at them--both of us with tears in our eys--because we just didn't know what to say. It was very emotional! I have always prided myself on being self-sufficient and Jim and I always say that whatever we have we have done by ourselves. Reluctantly we accepted this gift from my parents and professed our sincere thanks to them. The best part of the whole thing is that we are going to see Miranda!!!!

No News IS NOT Good News!!!

We have been trying to be so patient. Finally on Tuesday we just couldn't take it anymore. Jim fired off an email to our agency letting them know that we were less than happy with their communication skills over the past month or so. It is not acceptable that we do not get return phone calls or answers to our emails. He demanded to know if we were in PGN or not? He let them know at this point we would be happy with a simple "yes" or "no" response. For those of you that know Jim it takes a lot to ruffle his feathers.

Unfortunately their reply is not what we were hoping for. We are NOT in PGN yet. Our attorney in Guatemala is still having problems with the Guatemalan social worker and our homestudy report. For some reason the social worker does not like the way our homestudy addresses the guardianship of our children. I'm not sure what else she wants because it indicates in black & white that Michele and Tim would be the guardians of our children. Our attorney in Guatemala had to go to the social workers boss to get this issue resolved. From what we have been told we are just waiting on the final report from the social worker. According to our agency several families had the misfortune of being assigned to this social worker and everyone is having problems.

The hardest part to swallow is the fact that Miranda is now six weeks older than the last time we saw her and she is no closer to coming home. Her case has been at an absolute stand still since we came back from Guatemala. Instead of her being home by Easter we will be lucky to have her home by Memorial Day. Every day is torture when you do not receive an email or some type of communication on your case. We are lucky in the fact that we have two wonderful children at home to help distract us from the fact that absolutely nothing is happening.

I Can't Take it Anymore!!

Bring on the chocolate! Get out the straitjacket! I'm ready for the little white padded room!

We typically receive our monthly update and pictures around the 15th of the month. Well the middle of the month has come and gone, and what do we have? Nothin'! Zilch! This is killing me...

I finally broke down and sent our adoption coordinator an e-mail last week. We hate to bother her because we know that she has a lot of families that she is working with beside us. After several days without a reply I had Jim send her a message asking for an update. Jim did get an auto reply message that she was out of the office until March 19th. What a long weekend we had!

Nothing on Monday from the adoption agency but I was okay with that. I explained it away that our adoption coordinator was trying to catch up on Monday. By yesterday afternoon we still hadn't received any information. In desperation I had Jim call her to tell her that I was driving him crazy and could we please have an update. Guess what? She wasn't at her desk so he had to leave a voicemail message.

Right now it is 1:30 p.m. and we still have not heard any information. We check our email about every five minutes and refresh our screens every ten minutes. This is definitely turning into a sickness!

How much longer?

How much longer seems to be the $1 million dollar question right now. This is the question that we hear over and over. The honest answer is that we just do not know. As far as we know we have not entered PGN yet. This hurts because for the past three weeks we were under the impression that we would be entering any day. This last part of the process is the most heart wrenching because you can be in PGN (aka the black hole) from anywhere between 6 weeks to 6 months. There is no rhyme or reason why they review, KO, or approve files. Additionally during this time we will not be able to get much information from our agency regarding our status. You are either in PGN or out of PGN.

Last night I cried myself to sleep because I miss our little Miranda so much. As of this Thursday, March 15th it will be one month since we met Miranda for the first time. I wonder if she has figured out how to roll over (she almost had it mastered during our visit)? I wonder if she is teething (she really liked to chew on our fingers and knuckles)? Is she sleeping through the night now? I long to hold her again, smell her hair, and feel the warmth of her body as she sleeps on my chest. I ache to hear her laugh, coos, and the rhythmic sound of her breathing at night.

One night earlier this week my Mom boldly stated that Miranda will be home in time for Easter. At the time I agreed with her but that thought stayed with me for the rest of the week. I think that my own realization and understanding is that she won't be home for Easter. It was with this thought that the tears started to build in my eyes and run down my cheeks. The weeks are quickly slipping by. She is already four months old now and by Easter she will be five months old. We are just missing so much!

Legal Guardian Mix up

I just knew something wasn't right. I had that feeling deep, down in the bottom of my stomach. We have been home from our first visit trip since February 19, 2007 and we had not received any news about our case. I asked for an update from our contact at our adoption agency and she responded back to us last night. It seems that there was a problem with the social worker report. The social worker said that our adoption homestudy did not address legal guardianship. What! I know that it was addressed because we had to submit copies of our Last Will & Testament to the homestudy agency. I raced upstairs to tell my husband that our case has been at a stand still for the past three weeks, and together we both start searching through our mound of adoption paperwork looking for our homestudy. After several exasperating moments we find the darn thing and as we skim the report (all nine pages) we find what we are looking for. Sure enough on page 7 of the report the social worker indicates that my sister and her husband have been appointed the legal guardians of our children (including Miranda) should anything happen to the two of us.

I whiz back downstairs (taking the steps two at a time) and fire back an email to our agency. I pointed out the page and section and then quoted exactly what the social worker wrote. "Is this enough I ask?" The last thing that we want is to be kicked out of PGN (like our attorney general) for something being wrong with our paperwork. Once you get kicked out of PGN it takes about 6 weeks for your file to be reviewed again. Such an unnecessary delay since our little girl is getting older each and every day.

Thankfully we heard back from our agency today and it sounds like everything is back on track. Keep those fingers, legs, and arms crossed that we can enter and exit PGN quickly. We are ready to bring Miranda home.