Last Night in Antigua with Mateo..went to PGN today!

Today was a crazy day. We had an appointment with Adoption Supervisors here in Antigua at 10AM. We talked with them in detail about our case. They are an outside attorney group that helps many adoptive parents dealing with cases like ours. We had a great meeting and felt very comfortable with them, if we will need to move forward with them in the future. After our meeting with them we went to eat lunch at the Santo Domingo, a really nice hotel with a very nice resturant. We had ordered our food and were looking forward to eating a nice meal, BUT...we realized that another attorney of a referral we had gotten from a Lenexa Attorney..has called. If some of you remember about two weeks ago on Monday I had emailed everyone a long email going into detail of our case and where we stood. I also asked all of you to pray for us. Well, we were given a referral of a local attorney in Lenexa, Kansas that works with international adoption cases..he is a Harvard graduate, and called me the night that I emailed him. He has a brother in law in Guatemala that is an attorney that we referred us to. We emailed him our whole situation and he said he would start investigating it for us and possibly be able to meet with us when we got into Antigua. So after this whole time here we were finally able to have him get us an appointment with PGN Minors Court Section...the head of that department scheduled an appointment with us at 2:00. Well, we hadnt checked our messages after talking with Adoption Supervisors, we were focused on getting lunch, so after ordering..Doug checked the messages on our phone about 12:40...and our attorney in Guatemala said he had indeed scheduled an appointment with the head of Minors Court Section of PGN...so we had literally an hour and 20 minutes to eat, take Mateo back to the orphanage , and drive an hour to Guatemala City. So we ended up taking a to go box..apparently they didnt understand I wanted the entree that we hadnt been served yet, they just put in the appitizer..so we paid for 3 bites of a salad...and an appitizer..and 2 entrees that we didnt get...but we were in a hurry. We had the front desk call us a cab, we had to wait for about 10 minutes. Then we had to take Mateo back to the orphanage again ( which was very hard) because we couldnt take him with us to PGN, or into Guatemala CIty for that matter. We dropped him off and then headed to Guatemala CIty, our driver drives like he was trying to win a race, BUT we needed him to, and WE SURVIVED a ride that we will never forget..you should see the way they drive! Everyone drives like he does! SO we got to our appointment about 10 minutes late. Our attorney was waiting outside for us as we pulled in. HE had already told the lady that we would be a little late, and she was fine with that.


Soo..her is what has happened. We were told by the director of the orphanage through our adoption agency that we were already in Minors Court and into the MP..we were not. Our file was still in the Minors COurt SEction..she had it right in front of us. Apparently, (which she showed us)the birth moms BC looked as if it had been whited out and then her name typed in after it...it was obvious something weird had been done. Apparently when the birth mom had adopted another child the person that falsiifed her birth certificate to say she was born in Guatemala CIty used the registration # of someone who had died..but apparently that adopted completed... Then she submitted that same document again with our adoption. Also, the DNA test is missing out of the file, we dont know if that was by accident or on purpose. The head of PGN section of Minors COurt said that our attorney that was initally assigned to our case through our orphanage director had indeed been investigated before on other cases...for questionable circumstances...she said it was in our best interest to hire this attorney that went with us and sign over a POA to him.. THis would completely take the inital attorney off the case. She also said that we have basically two options: the first is: find the birth mom and have her interviewed by PGN MInors Court Section..and have her bring her original passport from Nicuragua to Guatemala CIty or initial birth certificate, and also to have her be honest about waht happened. She would have to have a psycological test done to make sure she was telling the truth and to find more about her character. In addition she would have to do another DNA test, this way we could verify that she is indeed the birth mother of MAteo..as they are also questioning that because it is not in the file. Although we were sent a copy and charged for a DNA back in June...so when we get home we have to fax that to our attorney. But she said there is the possibility that Mateo want hers...the reason they are saying that is because it isnt in the file..and there are so many questions at this point. It is obvious that our inital attorney would just feed general info to the director because he had said we were already in MP, but indeed we were not yet...although we will be going there for sure, as this is a criminal offense..right now the attorney, the civil registar that signed the birth moms birth certificate, and the birth mom are being investigated...and they will be the ones that will have to account for everything that has been done. If we can get the birth mom to come ( which sometimes that is difficult because she will be coming into a place where they know she did something wrong..so there is a possibility that she wouldnt show up for an appointment with PGN)..and she complies with everything they are wanting and the DNA results come back positive that she is Mateo's birth mom, than we can complete our adoption with the paperwork & file as is now. She is willing to hold the file before sending it to the MP while we try to get the BM to come in..she will be the one trying to contact her, not us or the attorney. We are HOPING & PRAYING FOR THIS!! We want the birth mom to show up and get this completed...so please say prayers that she is in fact MAteo's real birth mom, and she passes favorably with PGN so we can complete it with our curreny file. Otherwise the 2nd option is we will have to start the abandonment process, which woudl be fine now that we have an attorney that we know would stay on top of it all...but as of April 16th PGN will no longer be in the process of adoptions...all adoptions will have to go through the central authority..and apparently there is a possibility that we would not be linked in anyway to the Mateo, and there is a chance that they would not let us adopt him..there may be no way to get our name in and linked to him..but we dont know?? I think there are alot of unknowns at this point with the Central Authority as they havent offically taken control. The abandonment process would start by asking the BM if she wants Mateo, then if she doesnt..they would put an AD in a paper with Mateo;s pix, asking for any family members that want him to contact PGN...I am not sure of the timeline on that...how long they wait. ALthough the head of PGN Minors COurt SEction did say that more than likely since MAteo has been at the orphanage since birth, no family member woudl more than likely come forward...espeically because her family is more than likely in Nicuragua. We did request that Mateo get to stay at Semillas De Amor, as it is obvious he is well cared for....if we wouldnt have requested this when the file was offically sent to Minors COurt ( not Minors COurt SEction)..they would have pulled Mateo out of where he is and put him into another place, and possibly one that we wouldnt be able to get updates from or have contact with Mateo. The lady that we talked with in PGN Minors Section, was very favorable with us continuing this adoption, we just have to follow the process, and have our attorney stay on top of everything.

I do beleive that Gods will is for Mateo to be with us..too many answers to our prayes have come through..and "angels" into our path these last few weeks.

So from here, we are signing over a POA to this attorny that we will be able to talk directly with...we will do that tomorrow right before we fly out. Then he will talk with our agency to discuss where we go from here, and get them on the same page. WHich is HUGE as the director of our orphanage wouldnt let our agency or us talk with the attorney directly, so that left alot of unanswered questions. THen we will wait for PGN to try to get in contact with the BM.

After we met with her we had a driver take us to pick up Mateo at the orphanage...he was in a crib with another baby, and when we saw us..he smiled and coo'd really big..that melted my heart!

Mateo has slept with us every night that we have been here..and of course tonight is no different. HE is all snuggled up in his blankies..two that we have to give to the girls ( RYlie & Adyson)..so they can sleep with them, as they have had a really hard time understanding why they cant be with Mateo or come with us. We are leaving an entire HUGE packed full of clothes, toys, books, and diapers suitcase to give to the orphanage tomorrow, in hopes that Mateo will at least be able to play with them and wear some of the clothes.

We will fight until we get him home, we will do whatever it takes. THis was an amazing trip, one that I will never forget. Mateo is the cutest little guy. He is snuggly, happy, he laughes, he likes to climb all over us, he sticks his little tongue out when he is focused on something..which is quite often. He loves to eat, and loves his baths. My heart enlarged tenfold... Coming to Guatemala made me more humble and once again made me thankful for what I do have. I have a whole new apprication & compassion for helping others & a drive to work harder in everything that I do so I can contribute more somehow to helping others. I had no idea the amount of poverty that people have to indure...maybe this is one of the reasons that I came here..to understand my purpose even more.

I feel so blessed to have the last four days with Mateo. He has given both DOug & I the strength to move forward with this process, and has taught us to love even more... Rylie & Adyson are our heart & soul, almost everything we do is for them, and now...we feel the same way about Mateo. It is amazing how your heart can triple in size!! You will all LOVE Mateo, I look forward to showing all of you the pictures we took, and show you all the video.

Please keep us all in your prayers as we go into an even tougher situation, but all for the sake of our son...Love, Val