Your Gammie is coming, your Gammie is coming!

Hi everyone...yes that's right, Ursula's mommy and Gammie are coming down for another visit! I'm really hoping that this is the last visit before our pick up trip! We are leaving April 10th-14th and we are going down with a friend we met on our 1st trip from Ohio. She is going down to visit her little girl who is exactly 3 weeks younger than Ursula. I'm really excited to see everyone, especially my baby girl, and I think her Gammie is pretty excited too! She will finally get to meet the grandchild she has been wanting for so long!
We did find out on Friday that we are with the 2nd reviewer in PGN (which is our last BIG step of the process). I'll fill you in on the whole process later, but in a nutshell, PGN is the last step that involves 3 reviewers who look over our case and make sure everything is complete and ready for the stamp of approval. This is a process that normally takes an average of 8 weeks to complete, however, we have been in and out since the beginning of December. Ugh! Oh, and I forgot to mention that at any time, a reviewer can "kick you out" or give you what is called a "previo". These can occur for any reason: a missed signature, paper not filled in correctly, he's having a bad day, whatever. After you get "kicked out", the attorney must correct the problem and resubmit the paperwork to start all over again. We have been kicked out twice and the last resubmit for us was Feb 29th. So for all of you mathematicians out there, that means we've been back in for about 4 1/2 weeks. Guatemala shut down for almost a week for the Easter holiday, it's very big down there. So, like I said before, we made it to the 2nd reviewer, which means someone has looked at our file and approved it! It's progress!
So, we are trying to be optimistic that the 3rd time's a charm for us and we will get "out" soon. Once we get the final signature and our case comes out of PGN, Ursula is officially our daughter! We will then have approximately 4-8 weeks from then before we can go get her, the attorney has to get her new birth certificate (with our last name!), her passport and 2nd DNA test authorized, and then we'll get a notification of our visa appointment at the Embassy. So, I will definitely post before we leave if I hear anything.

2nd visit trip....

Since our process was starting to take longer than we had hoped, we set up another visit to see our little princess. We went down in the middle of January for another 4 day trip. I really think that Ursula remembered us from the first time (at least I like to think so :) because she went right to her daddy and again, never had any separation issues from her foster mother. She is almost always pleasant (see picture below) and happy and easily entertained. She does occasionally have what I like to call a "mini meltdown", that lasts approximately 1 minute. She just scrunches up her little face and lets out her "I'm not happy" cry and within seconds, she's back to her cheerful little self. I have to admit, I'm probably a bad parent, in that, I sometimes let her cry a little longer than I have to, just because she looks so darn cute when she's having a tantrum. I know, I know, once she's home I probably won't be doing that, but for now, I enjoy seeing all the different sides to her personality, good or bad.
So once again, we toured every inch of the hotel and actually shopped at the mall. We had a great time bonding with her, but after 4 days, it gets difficult keeping 2 adults and a busy baby entertained in a hotel room :) We did get to hang out in the pool area, it's really pretty and makes you feel like you are outside, but it's actually glass covered.
Her foster family says they are calling her Ursula, and after she was with us for about a day, she definitely responded to her name, when we called her. It's pretty funny because with their accent, her name comes out sounding like Orr Soola, so even though they are calling her by her name, it is still completely different than how we say it. I think it's cute though that they are trying. During the drop off and pick up of this trip, we were definitely able to see just how much her foster mother cares for her. We are so thankful to have them in her life and ours as well. Even though it was difficult to leave her again, we know that she is in a loving environment and that she is being well taken care of while we are waiting.

Peek a boo! I'm almost crawling....
And standing!
Here I'm happy....
And here I'm not!

The first meeting....

After receiving our first update and getting Ursula's 1st DNA test done, we were able to set up a visit trip to meet our little girl for the 1st time! We left for Guatemala on November 9, 2007, our 5th wedding anniversary....what a gift! This was the first time either of us had flown out of the country (we'd been many places before on cruises, but never by plane) so it was an interesting trip. Flying into Guat was awesome, we saw several volcanoes and from the air it was breathtaking. We stayed at the Grand Tikal Futura Hotel in Guatemala City and that was pretty much our home away from home while we were there. Our attorney doesn't allow us to leave the hotel with the baby, so we were confined to our hotel and the adjoining mall. At least we were able to eat "regular" food from the food court...McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Pollo Campero(the equivalent to KFC), you know, the stuff we actually eat.
So, enough of that. Back to meeting Ursula. After an unsettling hour long wait (the foster mother was late bringing her to the hotel, stuck in traffic), the doorbell finally rang and there was our translator, Blanca (the FM), and our sleeping baby girl. Blanca laid her on the bed and we unwrapped all 4 layers to see how small she really was. She must have felt Steve and I hovering over her oooing and awwing, because she woke up and immediately grinned from ear to ear as if to say "You're finally here". It was like she was waiting for us.
We couldn't have asked for a better baby, she is so pleasant and easy going, she didn't cry once. She definitely made it easy on us, being 1st time parents. For the next 4 days, we just enjoyed getting to know our baby girl and we had a blast! It was such a great experience and even though we had to give her back, we wouldn't have traded that time with her for anything.

Now the wait begins.....

So, I called the agency that was representing this sweet little girl on Monday, August 13th and by Tuesday she was put "on hold" for us. After we got all of her information about when and where she was born, and her medical reports, we sent in our application and on Friday, the 17th, we got the call to say she was "placed" with our family!
We completely switched gears, not to mention countries, which meant MORE paperwork! Guatemala's dossier preparation required an entirely different set of forms, all of which had to be put together in about 2 weeks and sent off to our attorney in Guat. One saying we've learned that best describes both countries and the whole adoption process in general, is "hurry up and wait". Every step of the way, we do what we need to do as fast as we can, only to wait for the agencies/attorneys/governments to do their thing in a timeframe that, let's just say, isn't as quick as we'd like it to be.
That said, onto the fun part of our wait...the updates! Our agency rep goes down to Guat several times a year and visits with the babies and foster mothers to get the latest information on the children. We get a DVD with a short video and lots of pictures with a little "report card" of how our baby is developing, her current weight, what she's eating, what she can do and her disposition. Each time we send little care packages down for her with toys, books, outfits and anything else we can fit in a one gallon ziploc bag :)
These pictures are from our first update DVD from the end of September when she was 4 months old. Until next time.....

How it all started....

Welcome to our new blog! We thought we'd set up a site for all of our friends, family, co-workers and anyone else interested in the life of our little Ursula to be able to follow along with her journey to her new home here in the US, as well as all the milestones she'll be reaching in the years to come. Some of you may already know the beginning of our story, but for those who do not, I'll start there. After a long 2 1/2 years and 4 miscarriages, we came to the conclusion that a "homegrown" family wasn't meant to be. We decided to explore adoption and went to a local agency for an introductory meeting. We had done a little research on the different options and had decided that international adoption was the choice for us. We narrowed down the countries to 2...China and Guatemala. I was set on Guatemala and Steve on China. So, to make a long story short, even though I "knew" our daughter was waiting for us in Guatemala, I reluctantly went along with Steve's preference and we submitted our application to enter the China program. The next few weeks brought on a flurry of activity...a home study with a social worker who came to our house to make sure we'll provide a safe and loving home for a child, we compiled a dossier consisting of personal autobiographies, bank records, net worth, employee verifications, physicals, name affidavits, personal references, fingerprint records, passport photos, photos of us and our house, oh, and we had to get everything notarized, certified and authenticated, whew! So finally, after all of that, our paperwork was sent to China and "logged in" June 13th, 2007. By this time, the wait time for the program had increased from the original 12-18 months to 18-24 and based upon reports would only get longer and realistically we would possibly get a referral in 2-3 years! Yikes! On August 12th, after searching the website precious.org, I came across a photo that would change my life. I've been on the website many times before, but that day I came face to face with my daughter! Check out the pics and I'll pick up here next time....