Family Album

Nola's hogar director e-mailed early in the week and asked for pictures of the family.  I looked through recent pics and sent several.  On Thursday, we received an e-mail titled "Family Album".  I opened it to find the sweetest surprise.  The message said that Nola is so excited about her new family!  There were also pictures of her sitting on the floor making a family album.  The director said she has shown the album to everyone.

 

We have been so blessed to have our little girl placed in a home where she is loved.  The director and his wife are doing their best to see that Nola's transition from their family to ours will be as smooth as possible.  Thank you Lord!!

We're Getting Closer!!

Last week we received our Empathy notification!  After several messages back and forth, we have our Empathy time scheduled.  We leave Saturday, April 27.  We plan to go to the hogar on Saturday afternoon for a visit with Nola and again on Sunday before we meet at the CNA on Monday morning where Nola will then be able to come with us to stay for a supervised two weeks.  Mark will have to go home after that but Maria and I will stay for another week.  After the two week period, the Social worker who interviews us will write a report and present it to the head of CNA for a formal approval.  That process should take about a week and a half and then the case will proceed to a family court. The family court time frame is the most uncertain.  Some families have had approval after about a week and some have had to wait closer to eight weeks.  For now my focus is on Nola and the time we will get to spend with her and finally get to know her.  We have missed out on so much and we'll never get that time back but we know we are one of the fortunate families.  Our daughter's coming home.  So many families have heard the news that their child will never come home to them.  I can't imagine the pain.  We're going to cherish every minute we have with our little girl during our visit and when we get home, we'll be waiting not so patiently for the day when we get to go back and bring her home with us and finally be all together as a family.
Thank you all for your prayers and please continue praying for the families who are still waiting to hear news on their cases.  This has been a long 5 and 1/2 years but some families have waited even longer.  I pray that all of the families waiting will be united with the child they love.

My Morning Nature Watch

 In an effort to keep myself occupied during this insane wait, I've opted to spend some time (that I don't really have to spend) enjoying nature.....one of my favorite mental diversions.  There is a nest of Eagles not far from our house.  If you commonly see these majestic birds where you live you should consider yourself blessed.  Until recently, a bald eagle sighting around here was very rare.  I still stare in amazement when I catch a glimpse of one.  I'm hoping to rent a good telephoto lens and get some better pics before the trees leaf out but here's one from this morning.  It's pretty grainy since it's zoomed in quite a bit but still such a beautiful site!

Happy Birthday Maria!

9 years old!  Wow!  Where has the time gone?  We celebrated with family yesterday.  The birthday girl took it easy on me this year.  She just wanted a cake that looked like the beach!  The only way it could have been any easier is if she had asked for a white cake with white icing and no decorations.  I borrowed Alison's bundt castle pan, colored some icing blue, made some fondant shells and some toothpick and colored paper flags and voila!

Happy Birthday Maria!!

We love you sweetheart!!

Whoopin' it up here in Indiana!

We have moved another step closer in our journey to Nola.  This morning, our packet of documents was delivered to CNA.  We were told by our contact at the Embassy in Guatemala that they will notify us if any additional paper work is requested or if anything we submitted doesn't meet the standards of CNA and needs to be reworked.  I was hoping "previos" were something we left behind in PGN but is sounds like we can still get them in CNA.  Hopefully, everything will be accepted as is and the next thing we hear from them will be our invitation to come down for Empathy.  Only positive thoughts here!!  What a wonderful feeling to be moving forward!!

Feels Like Old Times

There was a time.......back in the beginning........not the beginning of my life but the beginning of my blogging.  There was a time when we documented everything.  We celebrated each small step in the forward process of this adoption.  Over the past 4 years at least, there weren't really any events to celebrate.  But today, we had one.  It was, again, just a little step but it felt HUGE!  Today I mailed our packet of required documents to Guatemala for translation.  Our dear angel Mayra works with a translator who will be preparing the documents and then submitting them to the USCIS office in Guatemala City.  What a wonderful feeling!  Waiting.........waiting is never easy but at least now we are waiting on a process.......a process with actual steps............and yes, we will celebrate every one!

We Received An Early Christmas Present!

On Friday December 14th, while everyone was reeling in disbelief over what happened in CT, we received a phone call that brought more tears to my eyes.............happy tears!  A USCIS staff person called us to tell us that they received the referral information from CNA for our case and we are ready to begin processing under the new Acuerdo!  I couldn't believe what I was hearing!  My mind immediately started running through the list of things that need to be done..............our Spanish............first on the list is improving our Spanish!  We've had 5 years and here we are........not very proficient in her native language!  That phone call didn't include any kind of time line that we can expect to follow but knowing our little girl will be coming home is enough for now and knowing I still have some time to get my Spanish skills whipped into shape is not a bad thing.

We also found out where Nola is living.  When we went to Guatemala a few weeks ago with the Bags of Blessings for the children at Hogar Solidario, I was devastated to find that Nola wasn't there.  The house moms told us she was with a family.  They made sure I understood that the family wasn't adopting her but that didn't make much sense to me.  When we returned home, I sent a message to my USCIS contact letting her know that Nola wasn't at the home and asked if they could find out where she was.  When they received the referral information, it contained the name of the hogar where Nola is currently living so they gave us that information.  It's a small private Christian home called Hope For Tomorrow.  They have several pictures of Nola on their site (although they refer to her as "Mary"?).  She looks healthy and happy!  According to her bio, she was adopted by a Guatemalan family in January but two months later, the family decided they couldn't keep her so she was taken to the Hope hogar.  It's amazing the path her little life has taken but it has finally lead her back to us.  God has had His hand in it all along.  I believe it's been His plan for her to come home to us and I know He was protecting my heart by not letting me find out about the national adoption until after it was disrupted.  I can't imagine how I would have dealt with that!

Hopefully as soon as the Holiday's are over, we'll get our documents translated and delivered so we can again begin waiting.  The next step will be the Empathy Study which will be a supervised one week visit with Nola.  We're hoping to get that scheduled about 8 weeks after the CNA receives our documents but they will contact us when they're ready for us to come.

It has been a long five years full of doubts and fears and anger and frustration but last Friday, all of that changed!  Our little girl's coming home!  No, we don't know when, but she IS coming home!

Thank you all for your prayers and please continue lifting up all of the waiting families.  We've become a very close group and there are still so many who are waiting for their turn to receive good news.  I'm praying their turns come very soon!