The Hard Part

It's Monday night, and tomorrow we head home. We've done a good job on this visit keeping the focus on enjoying our time with Shira, and not regretting the fact that we have to leave without her. But now the moment is nearly upon us, and it's not easy. We all love her so much, with all our hearts, and she fits so easily into our family, that leaving her behind will be very painful. We are extremely grateful to her foster family for the wonderful home they are giving her, and we are planning to visit again as soon as we can, and hoping for an early pick-up date.

The reasons for the long process are complex. Some of it is an excessively bureaucratic system here in Guatemala. Some of it is the very legitimate need to screen each adoption case to make sure it does not involve illicit baby trafficking. And some of it is sheer luck -- which attorney ends up reviewing the case, how stingy they are about the paperwork, whether the birth mother can easily travel to the necessary court appearances, when national holidays fall, and so on. We've met families on this trip who are bringing home 7-month-old babies, like Shira, so for some it still moves fairly quickly, but we also see families bringing home much older children.

In our case, of course, we didn't start assembling the paperwork until after Shira was born, so that set us back a few months. We are now at the stage in the process where a family court proceeding ensures that the birth mother is relinquishing her parental rights voluntarily, and that Shira is in fact her baby. In fact, a DNA test is scheduled for tomorrow after we give Shira back to her foster mother. So hopefully that proceeding will be completed within a very short time.

Next up is a preliminary review of the case by the U.S. Embassy. In light of recent increasing concerns about trafficking, the Embassy is giving greater scrutiny to each case, and we have been advised that this review can take up to 60 days. Hopefully, the fact that this is the same birth mother and the same adoptive family as our first adoption will make the review go faster. But who knows? We recognize this is a complicated situation with competing interests. We absolutely support a process that is thorough enough to insure against trafficking cases. At the same time, the interests of the child in legitimate cases is clearly to get to their adoptive family as early as possible. So it's frustrating, but it is a difficult balance.

After the Embassy review comes the Guatemalan attorney general's office, known as PGN. PGN is notoriously fickle about paperwork requirements -- some people sail through in a few weeks (as we did with Merav) while others get stuck for months as paperwork is sent back for review again and again. There is absolutely no way to predict how long this will take. When PGN completes its review, we should be able to pick Shira up within a few weeks, as final papers are prepared.

What all this means for us is that our most optimistic timetable -- having Shira home by the end of the summer -- is probably unrealistic. We are now pinning our hopes on getting her home by her first birthday, October 7. We will no doubt be planning additional visits, of at least some combination of us, as often as we can, and can afford to, come. We know that the older Shira gets, and the more language she acquires, the more challenging the transition will be for her. But however long it takes, and whatever challenges arise, we feel blessed beyond words by the arrival of our third daughter into our lives, and we look forward to a lifetime of happiness with her.

As always we appreciate your outpouring of support throughout this process and hope that this illuminates for you some of what the process entails.