A new addition to our family

It seems unbelievable. Matt & I "matched" to a six-week old baby boy on Friday. This means we have been chosen to be his adoptive parents, and we are beginning the formal process to bring him home from Guatemala to live with us.

So some background first, just before Christmas, Matt & I submitted our paperwork to the Citizen & Immigration Services Office in Portland. We had been told that the Portland office was quicker than most, but that the average wait to get an approval to adopt is 2-3 months. In the meantime, we have been working on getting all of our documentation (called dossier) ready
to go to Guatemala. Everything has to be notarized, then verified by the Secretary of State where it was notarized, then authenticated by the Guatemalan consulate serving the state where it was notarized. Needless to say, we have our own Fed Ex account to get all the documentation taken care of.

Well, thanks be to God, our approval letter showed up on Thursday (a mere five weeks since we submitted it), and we were so overwhelmed--in shock really. So on Friday morning, Matt called our agency, Journeys of the Heart, to report that we had actually received our letter, and they were amazed at how quickly it had happened. Then the Director of International Programs, David, got on the phone with Matt. I saw Matt's eyes get big, and he said, "Wait a minute, I have to put you on speaker phone so that Sarah can hear this."

So once he was on speaker phone, David said, "We got a call from one of the lawyers we work with in Guatemala this morning and she has three baby boys available for adoption, one of which is a six week old. We think he would be a perfect match for you." Needless to say, we were stunned. Actually, we couldn't really even speak. David said, "I realize you must be in shock and if we need to we can pass on this time and wait for the next child." We were both like, "No, this is clearly the child God wants us to have."

So David contacted the lawyer in Guatemala and got some basic information about our baby sent up. He was born on December 15, 2005 with the birth name of William Aquino Castro. His birth certificate lists that his mother was Hilda Esperanza Aquino Castro, 36 years old, whose occupation is a house keeper. He had a well baby exam on December 20th which showed him to be 6 lbs 8 oz, about 19 inches long, and in perfect physical & mental health.

We decided to accept the referral which means we have "matched" to this child. Matt & I will chose an additional name as his first or middle name (to join 'William', given by his birth mother) , and that will be the name we call him by. We are flying to Guatemala City to see him for a few days over President's Day weekend (and to take as many pictures as humanly possible during that time). Right now, he is in foster care, and we should have opportunity to meet his foster family while we are there. This will be the family that will care for him during the six to eight months that it should take to finalize the adoption. The length of time it takes to finalize is dependent a number of things, including how easy it is for the Guatemalan lawyer representing us to schedule appointments for meetings with the social worker, doctors, birth mother and civil servants, and especially upon which beaurocrats' desks our paperwork lands on. Please pray that the process will be smooth and worry free for us.

We expect to bring home our son sometime in late summer--we will only get about a week's notice to appear at the Consulate in Guatemala once the adoption is final. We will of course send pictures as soon as we have them, and we'll update this blog with news about our growing family.

More news to come as soon as we have it, Sarah & Matt