LEGALLY OUR DAUGHTER!!

We got the most fantastic news today! Izzie is now our legal daughter! Izzie became a Morrison today when Blas obtained her new birth certificate listing Jaimie and me as her parents.

So, steps #1-5 from my list from the other day are completed!


Here is what we have to do now before going home:


6. Izzie gets a Guatemalan passport.
7. Izzie visits a U.S. Embassy-approved doctor, who will certify that she is in good health.
8. A cheek-swab DNA test is done on Izzie to make sure she is the same baby we started with. The sample gets sent to a lab in the U.S. for processing.
9. DNA results are sent to the U.S. Embassy.
10. U.S. Embassy grants us a visa appointment.
11. The judge in the Semillas case lifts the hold on Izzie's passport and we can go home!


Presenting our LEGAL daughter and her Mrs. Potato Head earrings:

Please keep up the prayers! We are on a roll, but step #11 is going to be tricky.

Love,

Kathy

Congratulations, Tita and Otto!

We are celebrating because yesterday, our dear friends Tita and Otto finally got to take their little girl, Carmen, home from Semillas! We think that they might be the first Guatemalan family to complete a domestic adoption in 2009. Here are Tita, Carmen, and big brother Andres in the car, bound for home!

Here is some footage of Izzie and her playmates enjoying the spacious new Semillas location:

Meanwhile, Lissette and Bernardo are working hard to get our new birth certificate out of RENAP-Guatemala for tomorrow. Soon, we will be the ones in the car bound for home!

Next Steps

Hi everybody!

I have been getting a lot of questions from people about what steps we have to do before going home and how long everything should take, so here is a brief summary:

1. Blas (our adoption atty) gets Izzie's mom to sign the adoption resolution. (done yesterday)
2. Blas registers the adoption in Izzie's hometown of Momostenango. (done yesterday)
3. The adoption papers are submitted to the RENAP (public records) office in Guatemala. (done today)
4. RENAP issues a new birth certificate listing Jaimie and me as Izzie's parents.
5. Blas takes the new birth certificate to Momostenango to convert this birth certificate into a Momostenango birth certificate. This document makes us Izzie's legal parents.
6. Izzie gets a Guatemalan passport.
7. Izzie visits a U.S. Embassy-approved doctor, who will certify that she is in good health.
8. (At the same doctor's appointment) A cheek-swab DNA test is done on Izzie to make sure she is the same baby we started with. The sample gets sent to a lab in the U.S. for processing.
9. DNA results are sent to the U.S. Embassy.
10. U.S. Embassy grants us a visa appointment. One day after our visa appointment, we are travel-ready on the U.S. side.
11. The judge in the Semillas case lifts the hold on Izzie's passport and we can go home!

As you can imagine, steps #1-10 will probably be easy. Step #11 is the great unknown. Izzie's roommate Jorge (who had Bernardo as a lawyer, too) passed the judge pretty easily in December, but not one other Semillas family has been able to get her approval since then. That's where our superstar Bernardo comes in. The environment keeps changing, so we are praying that Bernardo will still be able to be effective in freeing us from the Semillas case.

Our goal is to have steps #3-5 completed by the middle or end of next week.

Please say a prayer that all goes smoothly and quickly!

Kathy

O-U-T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi everyone,

GREAT NEWS!! We are OUT of PGN!!! In other words, our adoption of Izzie has been approved! Jaimie is here in Guatemala and we three are celebrating BIG TIME!

It has been such a rough road to get out of PGN. When we entered PGN, we expected to be released after a typical eight-week stay. For us, the stay lasted SIXTEEN MONTHS!! It still feels great to get out, though!

PGN was the last agency who should give us any trouble. The rest of our process should consist of routine, check-off-type steps. This means that we could be home in as few as five or six weeks!

Thank you, God, for Bernardo and Lissette! Their incredibly hard work has gotten us here.

Thanks to all of you for all the prayers and for the steadfast support. We are now in the HOME STRETCH!!

Love,
Kathy, Jaimie and "Iz"

We're Still Waiting...

We're still waiting for news from the PGN about our approval. We are hoping to get out today or tomorrow, but we just don't know for sure. We will keep you posted.