So Sweet

Planning a trip back to Guatemala!!

2011-10-29T16:17:00.000-05:00

I am soooooooooooo excited!! This summer i will be traveling back to Guatemala and with quite a few others!! We are planning a mission trip to Guatemala this summer!! I am currently working out all of the details and as of now we have 20 people who have said they want to come with me!! Most of them are on my Arbonne team and some of them are my Arbonne sidelines.

I will keep you all updated with details of our trip! We are hoping to work in multiple orphanages in Guatemala as well as do some community outreach. I will be bringing my girls with me this time and hopefully Doug & Mateo will be coming as well!! I know Mateo will be excited to see some of his nannies and they will be excited to see him!!

Mateo is doing sooo well!! He is in his 2nd year or preschool and is writting his name and speaks English so well. He has been speaking in complete sentences for awhile now. He plays soccer and will be playing flag football & tee-ball next year in addition to soccer. He is a BUSY little boy and keeps us on our toes! We are enjoying every moment of it!!

He says some of the funniest things and some of the sweetest things. He is always saying how beautiful i am. He likes it when i get dressed up. He told me today how he wanted to go "to the city" to go see dolphins. We were watching a show today about dolphins and he thinks we can just drive up to "the city" to go see them. He hears us say we are going to "the city--meaning Kansas City" all of the time, so he must think its the go to place for everything "fun to do! " LOL

His best friend is his cousin Max. Those two are CRAZY together!! They love wrestling, and actually got put in time out at preschool last week for wrestling!! If we end up sending him to Kindergarden next August we are going to have to warn the teacher to put them in different sides of the room...lol

He has has a little growth spurt recently and i have had to go buy him new jeans, he is a little snacker and loves to snack on something all day long! He loves it when i read to him and loves the songs i sing to him at night.... Today he was singing "B-I-B-L-E, yes thats the book for me..." Soooo sweet!!

We are so blessed to have him home and continue to keep the families still waiting in our prayers!! Blessings to you all!!

Can you believe it has been a year???!!!

2011-08-27T22:55:00.000-05:00

Its hard to believe that tomorrow marks the 1 year anniversary of Mateo's Homecoming! This past year was filled with many firsts and we are so thankful to have experienced each and everyone of them. Its such an amazing feeling to have our family complete. For so long i carryed on in a constant state of panic, not knowing when and what was going to happen next.

God has blessed our family so much and my faith has grown so strong this past year because of the blessings that have been poured out on my family!

Mateo is doing amazing! He starts his 1st day of 4 year old preschool this week and is VERY excited to get back and see his teachers and friends. He will be starting his 2nd season of soccer this next month and loves to play any kind of ball. He likes to be silly and repeats things that his sisters have taught him...like crazy dances, and funny sayings.Lately he says "ohh, laa, laa" alot. Not sure that its the best thing for him to be saying! LOL

He loves to "nuggle" and is a total Mama's Boy. He still talks about his frfriends in Guatemala and wants to go there to see them. He is speaking so great; in full sentences and in English. We have him in Spanish still 1 day a week; he really loves that. His best friend is his cousin Max and they are two peas in a pod!

He asks a gazillion questions and still sleeps with the monkey that i would bring on each visit trip to Guatemala. He calls it his "Elmo." He loves for me to read to him when he goes to bed and to sing him 3 songs. We go to the library where he picks out 10 books each time and LOVES to be read to.

About a few weeks ago he started writing his name. He didnt put the letters in order, but wrote each letter ...like : Mteao . Very cute, and that was all on his own doing.

He LOVES music and he loves to dance! He loves to jump on the trampoline and play with his dog Lila. He named her after a cute girl in his preschool class last year.

He loves going to Papa & Nana's farm and likes helping Daddy brush the cows. In May we went to Disneyworld for the first time and he LOVED it!! You should have seen his face light up! It was a magical experience!!

He has brought so much joy to our lives, i have to pinch myself each day to realize he is actually here!

Here is to many more memories to come and we are all looking forward to them! Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support over the past few years! Blessings, Valerie

Update ...9 months later

2011-05-15T08:39:00.000-05:00

Its been awhile since I have been on here to update everyone on Mateo's progress. He has more than adjusted, and has found his own little personality & style. Mateo will be finishing his first year of preschool in about a week and 1/2. He loves going and has his cousin Max in the same class as he is. Everyday before we even get out of the car, if he doesnt see my sisters car there he says "Oh no, Max isnt here today." He has a little girl in his preschool class that he says is his girlfriend because she is "bootiful." He has been working with a speech pathologist for the last few months to help with some of his enunciations. She said that he has to learn how to move his mouth and his tongue when saying words with multiple syllables. Unless prompted to say it correctly, he will leave off the "s" sound when saying something that should be a plural. He also was leaving the "s" sound off when saying words that started with an s, like school or smile. So everytime he says "cool" for school, we stop him and say "you mean sckoool". So we are trying to really spend sometime with him to sound the words out so he understands the right way to say it. His speech pathologist says that his brain is working faster than his mouth can say it, so he talks so fast and leaves off some of the sounds that he needs to say the words clearly. My hopes are that he will get this all down before he will start kindergarden in August of 2012.

He has been talking in full sentences for probably about 5 months. It really does amaze me that he was only speaking Spanish when he got here at 3 1/2, just 9 months ago and now he is speaking all English. We did put him in an 8 week session Spanish class. One of the parents that was taking the same adoption class that Doug & I did at the beginning of the process has a daughter just a little older than Mateo. She is also in his Spanish class. She was also adopted from Guatemala, and just happened to get her home in 2007 before the Guatemalan shut down. There is actually another little boy also from Guatemala in his class as well. He would always want me to go in the room with him, and I did for about 2 classes. Although I finally told him that he needed to go in by himself and I would be sitting out in the lobby with all of the other mommys and daddys. He is always worried that I would leave. That is one thing that I have found to be hard. I think he remembers the times that I would visit him in Guatemala and then leave after visiting him for a week. I guess when I was there I was more in the moment of being so happy to see him that I really didnt understand the full experience from his perspective. Whenever I leave to go somewhere he always ask where I am going. He wants to know am I going on a train, a plane, is Mateo going too? He is attached at my hip. Very sweet though.

In the mornings, when he isnt going to preschool or his Spanish class, he goes with his daddy to feed the cows. He really likes going to the farm and he brushes the cows, and plays around. He has his little cowboy boots that he wears and he thinks he is pretty cool. He played soccer for the first time. His Aunt Cherie was his soccer coach and he loved it. He was on the same team as his cousins; Max & Hayden. Its funny because Hayden is older than Max, but he always refers to them as Max & Hayden. Whenever we go somewhere he always wants to know if Max & Hayden will be going too. When we pray at night, he always is sure to pray for Max & Hayden. His first soccer game was cute, he is about a head shorter than everyone else on his team. He is the youngest on his team. He is pretty fast though and got exposed to soccer from his first week home when he attended multiple soccer games with Rylie & Adyson. He would kinda just push his way into "the pack" and maybe get a kick here and there. By his 2nd game he was doing much better and really would go for the ball. He scored 3 goals at his 2nd game. Although the 3rd goal would have happened naturally, he just picked the ball up right before it went into the goal, and positioned it in front of the goal so he could get a straight shot in! lol

He loves to read and to be read to. We typically read before his naps. Everyday when we get ready to go to nap, without fail he asks " I just take a pequeñito ( meaning small) nap?" I always say "no Mateo, you need to take about an hour and 1/2 nap." He literally would let me read to him all day. He loves the book "No David" and has it memorized and will just read it to himself.

He loves Thomas the Tank Engine and plays with his trains everyday. His 4th birthday party was the Thomas the Tank Engine theme. His Uncle Greg made him an amazing Thomas the Tank Engine cake and when Mateo saw it, he wanted to take it outside to play. He had a family birthday party and a friend birthday party. I think the two parties were a bit much, although we have a big family and I knew there was no way I could try to combine the two. By the 2nd party he was exhausted and partied out.

I have taken him with me on two business trips, so he has been on an Amtrak and also on a plane. He loves going with me. Obviously, everyone loves seeing him too. We will be going to Disneyworld in a few weeks and he is so excited. This will be our families first vacation there, so we are actually all very excited.

There are still so many children still in Guatemala waiting to come home. I think that is the hard part about experiencing so much happiness myself. I have met so many other familes that have become friends and even though we are elated that he is home and we realize how lucky we were to get him out even after 3 1/2 years of waiting, you still feel this anxiety over the other families. Its hard to totally breathe a sigh of relief because I know that there are so many other families that are not able to experience all of these things. I also know that their children are about Mateo's age and I know how much we have had to catch up with him being 3 1/2 when he got here, I cannot imagine bringing home a 4 or 5 year old. Who knows what the outcome will be, but I do pray for the children and families waiting for them to come home forever.

I will try to do a better job on keeping this updated with all of the milestones and with some newer pictures of him.

Update on Mateo adjusting to his new family & this Kansas weather!! LOL

2010-12-12T22:55:00.000-06:00

Mateo has been home now for over 3 1/2 months. Its amazing how much he has changed since he has been here! He has gained about a pound and 1/2 & has grown over an inch. He has been in preschool two days a week for 2 1.2 hours since the first week he got here and has really adjusted to the kids well! It helps that his cousin Max is in his class. Mateo is ALL boy!! I am not sure if we were ready for the "difference" between our girls and a boy!! He keeps us on our toes that is for sure!

The loves to LOVE on Mateo as much as they love to PICK on Mateo! Every night he wants to sleep with one of his sisters. He prefers to sleep with Adyson because she has a "Grande" bed. He has been going to his share of both soccer & basketball games and has really enjoyed getting to know all of the players & the other parents on the girls teams.

Mateo LOVES his chocolate " chocolate milk"; although we have had to start giving him just white milk because we think he is a little too "busy" and that extra sugar just puts in over the edge... He loves to jump, wrestle, run around, jump off things, play trains, airplanes, cars, dinosaurs, & anything that boys typically like. He does like to read. We just recently got him his library card and have been going to the library to check books out a few times a week. He will sit in my lap and let me read to him for 30 minutes or more.

He can sing his ABCs, and most of the nursery rhyme songs. He counts in both Spanish and English. He understands everything we say in English and responds in what I call "Spanglish"...he mixes most English nouns and verbs but instead of using ( he, she, they, me, here, there, etc...he uses the Spanish word for it.". We will be starting him in a Spanish class every week in January so he can keep up on his Spanish. He loves going to our local Mexican Restaurant as they SPOIL him when he is there!! He loves the owners who are also good friends of ours. They typically take him back to the kitchen so he can say "Hi" to all of the cooks in the back. He likes it when they speak Spanish to him.

Kind of a funny story...Mateo went upstairs to go to the bathroom one evening and came back downstairs and said "me go pee pee outside!" with a big smile on his face!! So Rylie went upstairs and opened the backdoor and saw a little "trail" of his pee-pee on the patio...so I guess he thought it was okay to do outside because he was probably at the farm sometime with his daddy when he got to go outside there! So we had to explain to him the difference between being on the farm and being outside at our house in town...

Mateo still talks about some of the nannies at the orphanage..he talks about a Mama Tooley & a Mama Kata...they must have made a pretty big impression on him! He also talks about his friends Eduardo & Christian. I try to pull out their pictures regularly so he doesn't forget them.

Mateo got to meet Santa for the first time a few weeks ago and jumped right up on his lap and told him he wanted a train for Christmas. HE even pulled on his beard to see if it was real! Then we went on a little horse carriage ride around our town square.

I still cannot believe he is home with us and this year we will actually ALL be together for Christmas!! Doug & I went Christmas shopping on Friday and we were able to buy for all 3 kids

Mateo has special relationships with all of his Aunts & Uncles. He has little names he calls them & knows all of their kids. He talks about his "Guncle Paul" who cleans carpets and even got Adys tooth brush and was "demonstrating" how Guncle Paul uses the floor cleaner..with Adys tooth brush.

He likes talking with his Grandpas and Grandmas and has his little routine when he goes to Papa Forest & Nana Kaye's house..he always get a cookie and sometimes Papa will cut him up an apple.

We got a new dog names Lila, Mateo liked the name because there is a girl in his class that he likes that's named Lila. We have had to teach Mateo to not kick or hit the dog. I don't think he is trying to be mean, but I think he is trying to see what he can get away with. We have had to do timeouts off and on the last few weeks.

I have to say we have been VERY blessed that there haven't been HUGE issues we have had to deal with since he got home..just the basic adjustment to a 3 year old boy entering a home that has primarily been run by girls. Of course he doesn't LOVE to take naps, but Daddy always has a way with getting him to go to sleep where I tend to take forever getting him to go to sleep. I think Daddy is a little firmer with that than I am.. LOL

Thank you again for all of your prayers the last year and I will keep you updated on Mateo's first experience with snow, Santa, Christmas, etc.....

17 days since Mateo has been home...

2010-09-14T21:28:00.000-05:00

Well I thought that I should update everyone on how things have been going at the Edwards home since Mateo has arrived home!! Its been wonderful! I still cant believe he is here! I think back to how many times I would walk past his bedroom and peak in his room wondering when there would be a time when he would actually be sleeping in there. Now to know that he is actually there!! So awesome!! He is talking soooooooooo much! He says the alphabet, counts to ten, has a vocabulary of about 100 words in English. He of course still speaks Spanish primarily, but has picked up on English so well. When he says something in Spanish I repeat it in English. If I dont know what he is saying then I find a way to figure out what he wants and then I repeat it back in English. He is sooooooooooo funny! When he hears music he holds up his hand to his mouth like he is singing in a microphone and closes his eyes and mouths the words to a song ( well acts like he knows). He has learned all kinds of dance moves from his sisters and some I know he has taught them. He has some serious rhythm. He has really bonded with his sisters, and calls them by name when he wants them.

The girls take turns sleeping with him at night, and they also want to give him a bath every night. He loves to brush his teeth, and he is so laid back when it comes to letting me clip his nails, do his hair, seriously just a perfect little guy. Now he does know the word NO, and doesn't like hearing it come from us! Although what 3 1.2 year old likes hearing the word no. LOL

Adyson has had a little bit of a hard time adjusting to not being the official baby anymore. We have had to give her a little extra attention to help her get through this time. Mateo has been going to the soccer and basketball games with us for the girls and so far has really liked going. Although after all day at games he gets a little restless. He goes to the bathroom quite often and that is always fun in the middle of a game! LOL At least he is out of diapers and totally potty trained!

He started preschool 2 weeks ago and goes 2 days a week for 2 1.2 hours. Today the teachers said it was a breakthrough day!! YEAH!!! So glad to hear that!! He raised it hand at circle time, was the line leader, and participated with the other kids!! So that is great and exactly why I decided to go ahead and put him in preschool! It also gives me a bit of time to work!!

I have gotten use to the block/tower building, Barney movies, etc... He loves Mickey Mouse, cars, trains, he is ALL boy!!

We are so happy & so blessed!!!

Mateo's Homecoming Video at the KC Airport

2010-09-02T22:30:00.001-05:00

Mateo's Homecoming from valerie edwards on Vimeo.

Life is soooooooooooooo Good!

2010-09-01T22:15:00.000-05:00

I cant believe he is home! It is sooo surreal! Mateo has just really taken to the girls & his Papa!! He loves him room, he loves taking baths, he loves his shoes, his baseball hats, he loves reading, he loves playing with his trains & cars, he loves hammering everything, he is just a little LOVE BUG!!!!!!!!!!!!

Every morning I wake up and smile knowing my baby boy is up in his room! Every night I go to bed knowing that I dont have to worry about whether or not "it" will really happen, because it has and we are living it!!

He is just precious, we couldnt be more thrilled! He is now combining like 3 words in English " Mateo go potty", " Mateo bath" , "Mateo's Casa", "Love you", "Love you more". I always say "I love you" and then when he says it back I say "I love you more"..now he is saying " I love you more!"

He had a little playdate with my best friends little boy today and they had a blast! We ate lunch, played with all of his little musical intruments, played with his little view finder ( he loved that!). We also went to the gym today, he loved the ladies!! He even blew one of my friends a kiss!! Too cute!

We are so thankful to have our little man home!! Thank you all for all of your prayers!!

Mateo on his way home to Kansas at OneTrueMedia.com

2010-08-29T22:23:00.001-05:00

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Mateo is home & tucked in his bed...Rylie ( his oldest BIG SISTER) is sleeping with him tonight!!

2010-08-28T22:57:00.001-05:00

Mateo is home & tucked into his bed. Rylie & Adyson worked out a deal...one will sleep with him tonight and the other tomorrow.

Wow, what a wonderful day this has been for all of us!! Mateo was a little overwhelmed to say the least at the airport...he was VERY shy, kind looked down the whole time..but once we got in the car and he saw his car seat..he was like WOOOOO!!! He loved it!! Then he & his sister laughed the whole way home!! I have the most BEAUTIFUL pix of them when we went to check the cows tonight...sooo cute!! Words cannot describe how amazing it felt to look back in the car and see each spot taken!! Our family of five looks pretty amazing!! He saw his room & WOW..was he excited!! he played a little bit with everything in his room! He saw his Spiderman bike in the garage when he got out of the car and RAN straight to it! The girls gave him a bubble bath in the jacuzzi tub in THEIR swimsuits...too cute, the played with the soccer ball, danced, jumped on the trampoline, played trains, got on his bouncy horse thing in his room...just to name a few things!! LOL They are all three tuckered out!! Adyson said
" Well I guess I am not the baby anymore.I am the middle child".
I told her I was the middle child of 6, so we high five'd it for being the "Middles." Then in the evening I was holding Mateo trying to get him to go to sleep and she looked at Mateo and said "Mateo you are laying in my place", it made me remember when I brought Adyson home and Rylie was 21 months old....Rylie told me to "Put Ady Away Mom" so I could spend time with her...

I will have to do my best to show the girls that Mama has enough love to be split 3 ways. I told them that today was one of the 4th most favorite day in my life; my wedding day, When I had Rylie & then Ady, and then of course when Mateo was officially home forever!!

The "moment" at the airport was pretty amazing, just what I had expected!! As we walked off the plane we saw all of these little faces holding all of these BEAUTIFUL signs Welcoming Mateo home. I saw my incredible husband standing there with tears in his eyes, and his sisters with HUGE smiles on their faces. I knew then that they understood why Mommy has been so "preoccupied" over the years, just to be able to bring him home to them. That moment is what kept me going when things would seem so far away.

Mateo is most defiantly ALL boy, but I didn't think he would be so outgoing with all of those people. He didn't cry, but he wanted me to hold him the whole time. We had family, Godparents, friends...AMAZING! There were a TON of tears, laughs, and a HUGE sense of Peace & Thankfulness! Rylie was concerned for Mateo and wanted us to leave so he wouldn't be scared. I know it was alot to take in, but I am so glad they were all there...I know he may not understand it now, but when he is older he will be able to look back at the posters, videos, & pix and know how much he was loved!!!

God has blessed my family so immensely and has taken such great care of us over the years. While I may not have always understood his timing, the past 3 1/2 years have "God Winks" all over them!!

All day I kept thinking off and on about my "Mom Warrior Friends" and praying for them to be just as blessed as we have been to be able to experience this. I ask all of my friends & family to please PRAY everyday for the rest of the Guatemalan 900 children to have the doors open & their cases processed swiftly. They have become like family to me. We have become each others shoulders to lean on during our tough days. When one of us hurts, we all do...when one of us experiences JOY, we all do! May GOD keep his hands on all of you, may he keep your children safe, warm, & healthy until they are in your loving homes!!

I have had trouble getting my pix to load today, so I may have to wait till tomorrow and try to get it figured out...I will promise to post pix tomorrow... I didnt get to take any airport pix myself, but my sisters all did & Christy tool a video...so when I get everything from everyone else I will pass them onto you all!!

Thank you all again for your prayers!! I cant wait to wake up in the morning to pitter pattering of feet!!! xo

We got our Visa yesterday!!!

2010-08-26T07:18:00.000-05:00

We picked up our Visa yeterday for Mateo!!!!!!!!! Yeah!!!!! It has been such a relief to have that done & now we just have two more days in Guatemala to spend relaxing at the pool, maybe doing a little more shopping ( although my bags cant handle much more), and just enjoying the beauty of this country as it will be awhile before we come back...

Mel & I went to the Central Market yesterday morning with Claudia & Mateo.That is quite an experience I have to say!! LOL The colors everywhere are just beautiful & everyone was willing to give you a "special price". LOL We bought some beautiful pieces to bring home to our families & some special request gifts for our kiddos. I have had a great time here with my sister. I love seeing her with Mateo!! He just loves her.

It is almost unreal that this is all over for us. I told Mel yesterday at breakfast that I had been walking around for 3 1/2 years in this constant state of anxiety with a heavy heart, and that feeling was gone yesterday morning. At that point I didnt even have our Visa yet....I just knew that it would be done that afternoon.

I will load some of the pix we have take here.... So we are on for flying home on Saturday bright and early at 7:15AM!! Mateo will be an official US citizen when we arrive in Houston, TX!! Because Doug & I had traveled to Guatemala before we are coming over on an IR3 Visa. After an hour or so layover in Houston we will be flying home to KC at 3:41PM!! There will be MANY tears shed, and they will most definitely be tears of happiness!!!!!!!!!

Thank you all for your many prayers over the last few years!! Our baby boy is coming home!!!!!!!!!!!

We have Visa approval and will pick up Mateo's Visa tomorrow at 3:30PM!

2010-08-24T20:06:00.000-05:00

Just got back from an incredible day!! Got up early this morning for breakfast and then went to the Embassy at 8:30AM. They called us in about 8:45PM to submit our papers, then we sat back down for another 10 minutes or so..then they called us back to the room for the interview. They interviewed us for like 30 minutes or so. She just basically went through the paperwork making sure everything was there, asked if Doug & I had both traveled to Guatemala prior, etc... After that she said just go back out and wait for about 25 minutes and then they will call you back to give you details on your Visa pickup. So about an hour 1/2 later I was getting nervous because they hadnt called me back yet, so I talked with a guy there that spoke English and he asked them how much longer it would be. I then took Mateo outside to be with Claudia because he was being so good in there, but it was getting late and he was bored, I knew he was hungry. I wish I would have brought in something to eat & drink for him...but I didnt think I could. Luckily I did have some toys for him to play with! So finally about 15 minutes later they called me back to the window, but they needed Mateo to be with me, so I went back outside, got Mateo and then came back in & they had me raise my right hand and swear that my answers to these questions were the truth. They just asked about Doug & I coming to Guatemala together before ( so they can for sure know that we would be coming over on an Ir3 Visa....so he will be an automatic US citizen when we enter Houston on our connecting flight.) Then she said they had approved me and that they were going to try to get Mateo's Visa printed off today so we could come back at 3:30PM today to get it, but they couldnt promise us...so I could come and then they could have said it wasnt ready..so we just told them I would just get it tomorrow at 3:30PM. This was we could go ahead with our plans for going to Antigua and then we would just get it tomorrow..

So we went to Antigua, had a great day! I got some cool things to bring back for the girls, Doug, Mateo, & grandparents..

So tomorrow will be a big day, cant wait to have the Visa in my hands!!
I will keep you posted after tomorrows pickup of Visa.

Blessings, Val

We have PINK!! Our Visa appointment is at 8:30AM tomorrow morning!! Whooo!!

2010-08-23T21:12:00.000-05:00

I got up SUPER early this morning..about 5:45AM to get ready to be at the Embassy at 7AM to get an appointment. I didn't sleep good because Mateo literally was moving all over the bed all night long!! I will be interested to see how long Rylie & Adyson can actually sleep in bed with him and actually get sleep. I was up EVERY hour. He slept through the night, but not mommy!! :)

We finally got a number about 7:45AM and they said to come back at 9:00AM. So we went back to the hotel and had breakfast with Mateo & Melaine, & Claudia. Then we went back to the Embassy appointment. I took Mateo back with me to meet with them & while I was there they were very nice! Susan Olson who has been a blessing the whole time was the one that was in the room with the lady that had initially given us the number to come at 9AM that morning. I didn't realize it was Susan though until after...otherwise I would have begged to have her come out from behind the window and give me a HUG! She has been incredible to me the last few months! Always answering calls, etc... While I was in there they showed me the request for evidence on the document that they said they were missing. They asked me if I had the document to present. It was the resolution from Family Court. When i handed it to her , she looked in the file and saw that they actually already had the authenticated version ( which is all we needed to have) so they said, you dont need to give this to us..so I got it back. They said that they had already talked with the Consular section and they would have time to get us into the Visa appointment tomorrow ( Tuesday) so they would be emailing me the time later in the afternoon. So after that I was sooooo excited!

We decided to go get the photo copy of the passport for Mateo that we would need to give to the doctor at the doctors appointment along with getting his picture taken for the VIsa appointment as well as the doctors appointment. So we did all of that. It took quite a long time for the pictures to be developed because the computer took like 45 minutes to warm up from the night before...then we waited in the lobby at the doctors for like 30 minutes then we were in to see the doctor for only about 15 minutes. That is when the doctor said that Mateo was in the 5th percentile for his height and weight. He also said that he heard a slight heart murmur...but that most likely he would just grow out of it. He suggested we check on it when we get home. He said all 3 of his own daughters have one..and it can be perfectly harmless. After we got through at the doctors we went back to the hotel & got the gifts to give to the nannies at the hogar as well as the directors, etc... then we bought pizza, pop, & cookies at the store to bring to the kids at the hogar for Mateo's going away party. We had a great time!

The nannies were crying it was sooo sad!! Mateo was so happy though the whole time. I think he was excited to be going home for good! He loves them all though and you can tell they love him!!

So I will update again tomorrow after the Visa appointment! We should be picking up the VIsa on Wednesday... YEAH!!!!!!!!!

We are in Guatemala!!

2010-08-22T22:13:00.000-05:00

Well we are here!! We got in earlier this afternoon. After unpacking our bags we went down to the lobby to wait for Mateo to get here. While we were waiting I was asking about directions, etc ...and then I saw him standing there with a little red rose in his hands. He looked at me with recognition, and then saw the little monkey that I bring everytime and got a HUGE smile on his face. He hugged me & smiled. He has been wonderful since we got him! He ate a big dinner & then came back to the room to get a bath. While he took his bath I ran to the business desk to get copies made for Dinora and Mel stayed up in the room with him. When he got out of the bathtub he asked Mel where I was. He was looking everywhere for me, in the closet, behind the curtain, so cute... I loved that he knew I was missing.. LOL

When I came back up Aunt Mel & Mateo were snuggling in bed watching Cars. It was in Spanish..so I am sure Aunt Mel really understood most of it!! LOL We have been living by our Spanish book!! When I got back he smiled really big and held his arms out for me. We laid in bed and snuggled & watched a little more cars & then I turned it off and read him some books. He was so sleepy, and just kinda turned over and went to sleep..

I am getting up early in the morning to have Claudia pick me up to take me to the Embassy to get an appointment. We will get there at 7AM!! Bright and Early! Then hopefully we can give them the original document that they were needing ( they had emailed me on Friday at 3:30PM stating that they were requesting evidence of an original document...so I think Dinora got it all covered). We are hopefully going to give them what they need and HOPING that they will give up PINK tomorrow so we can go to the doctors on Tuesday..then Visa appointment on Thursday & home on Saturday.

If we dont get pink tomorrow we will have to wait till Tuesday, hopefully we get it then so we can then take him to the drs, and then we can do VIsa still. The last day we really have to do it is Wed so we can take it to the VIsa appointment on Thursday.. If we dont have pink by then, most likely we will have to wait till next Tuesday for Visa appointment..which would delay the return home to be Visa on Tues, pickup VIsa on Wed, and home next Thursday. So please PRAY that we get it tomorrow, but no later than Wed so we can have Visa on Thursday!!

Dinora thought we would be fine once they have what they want. I will also call Susan Olson at Embassy and beg her to PLEASE allow us to speedup through Consular section so we can get pink and then so on....

I will update whats happening after appointment tomorrow. I have to say I love this country. Maybe because my son is here, but when I landed I just felt like I was at my 2nd home. Obviously I know the danger here but knowing that a piece of me is here, just feels like my 2nd home for now. I will most definitely want to come back to bring Mateo here to visit his home country.

On the plane ride from Houston to Guatemala I sat by this young man, 26 years old. He lives in Chicago so he can make money to support his family but he sends money back to Guatemala to take care of his wife & two daughters. His 3 year old daughter has Leukemia. She has a 5 year treatment plan. He said that she goes to a hospital here that is alot like St Judes in the states. He was traveling back because his brother who was just 21 was killed in a motorcycle accident last week. It just broke my heart. He was so sweet. To think that a young man could be going through so much. I was traveling to GC for a trip I have dreamed of for 3 1/2 years...bringing my son home. He was traveling for a whole other set of circumstances... Its amazing how you can be consumed with your own life & sitautions, and then you stop and breathe and realize that there are so many problems all over & everyone has their own circumstances to deal with. I wish him & his family peace & his daughter full & complete health.

Being here also makes me appreciate the fact that I am healthy to be here. On Feb. 23rd of this year I suffered a subarchnoid hemorrhage which caused a stroke. My life could have been forever changed. I realize how blessed I am to have my health back and to have fully recovered. I was only down for about 2 1/2 months, and luckily recovered. A local Paolan Grant Haley suffered an aneurysm which also caused a stroke on Feb 4th. He is 6 months into his rehabilitation & I also wish him full restored health. He is in my prayers daily & I look forward to the day that he can once again be free of pain & able to get up and live his life the way he use to. I had the opportunity to hear a video of him singing at his cadence concerts, WOW...he has an incredible voice!! Please pray for Grant Haley & his family, as well as Jimmy ( the man on the plane) and his daughter & his family to find the strength they need to get through their tough times..

God is so good. I am so thankful that I could have my sister be here with me to experience this. I have wonderful friends, beautiful & loving daughters, an AMAZING extended family and I couldnt be more happy right now.. I cant wait to introduce my precous son to his Grandma's & Papa's, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, etc... slowly we will get to all of them. I know they are biting at the bit to see him!

Bless you all & I will keep you all updated!! val

Its offical, our paperwork was submitted to the Embassy for Visa appointment!

2010-08-17T10:51:00.001-05:00

YEAH, just got an email from Dinora. Our file was submitted to the Embassy today!! We should have Visa appointment date scheduled for either next Tuesday or Thursday! I should know by Friday!! I am planning to fly to Guatemala on Sunday!! YEAH!!!!!!!! I will keep you posted on things as they progress!! Blessings, Valerie

Birth Certificate..Check! Passport for Mateo..Check!!

2010-08-12T09:10:00.000-05:00

Well we received pictures of Mateo's new passport on Monday!! Our file & all of the List B documents are suppose to be submitted to the Embassy today. I am praying that it happens!! Apparently in order to submit the documents you have to get there at 7:15AM & set up an appointment to officially submit the documents. So hopefully today I will receive an email saying that it was done!! If that is the case, then we should have a Visa appointment by next week! It could be next Thursday or most likely will be the following Tuesday...so that means that we would be traveling to Guatemala by next weekend!!

I have learned a long time ago to not expect things to happen when you expect them to...so I am trying to be as patient as I can.

I bought Mateo's bedding yesterday..just cant wait to have him home in it!!
Thank you so much for all of your support & prayers!!

OMG!!!! Its legal & official!! We have our new Birth Certificate with us as parents!!

2010-08-03T22:27:00.000-05:00

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Its official!! I just got an email from Guatemala & I saw Mateo's birth certificate with our last name on it!! It has our names on it as his parents!!!!! His last name is ours!!! They are just working now on getting everything together for our passport!! I cant stop crying!!! I am so happy!! We are just weeks away!!!!!!

I just received an email with copies of Mateo's new birth certificate!! They are working on the passport now & then off to the Embassy & will just be waiting for the Visa appointment to be scheduled. I am so excited!!! My head hurts from the excitement, my heart is completely full, my face hurts from smiling so much, & my eyes are red with tears...Can you imagine what will happen when we land in the Kansas City Airport with him!!!???

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am getting sooooo excited!!!

2010-07-31T14:38:00.000-05:00

Wow, I cant believe how close we are getting to FINALLY bringing Mateo home!! I got an email today from Claudia who works with our adoption agency & she said that she has our file from Guatemala City Renap! They approved us for our birth certificate!! So it will be taken to Amatitlan Renap this next week to get the new birth certificate printed with our last name on it!! Then they are going to get our passport done before I even fly in as well as take Mateo to the doctors appointment, so it looks like I will just be flying in for the Visa appointment & then pickup. I will mostly like plan to stay for like 5 days or so..i want to be there beforehand just in case anything comes up. Once we have the birth certificate Dinora will be taking our file to the Embassy where they will schedule our Visa appointment..typically its like 5 days to a week out before we fly out.. I am ready now though if need be!! LOL

I am painting Doug's old twin bed this week for Mateo & have to get a twin mattress for his bed. We had a crib in his room with beautiful custom made bedding but he is now 3 1/2 & he is too big to be in a crib, plus we will want to lay down with him to read at night, etc...so we cant really do that in a crib! LOL

The fair in Paola is finally over as of today so we can have a little more of a normal schedule starting next week. Doug has to sign his POA & get it notarized & then get his passport copied & notarized so I can take those with me to the Visa appointment since he isn't coming on the pickup trip.

I am planning to go online today to get an idea of what flight are running, etc...

I cant believe its actually happening!!! Thank you God!!! Thank you all for your prayers!! val

Entering Guatemala City Renap on Tuesday of this week!!

2010-07-12T15:25:00.000-05:00

We got word o Friday that our file was done at Amatitlan Renap & we had gotten the approval notice we needed to be able to move onto GC Renap Process. You can only submit files on Tuesday's, so tomorrow our file will be brought in. When i had called a few months back & spoke with Gaby at Renap, she said that it typically takes 2 to 3 weeks. I am anticipating the full 3 weeks, as the longer has been what we most often get. Typically GC REnap is the one that actually prints off the new birth certificate with our last name on it, but because Mateo was born in Amatitlan..once GC Renap has looked over our file & has approved it; they will send the file back to Amatitlan Renap & it will be there for 8 days..and that is when we will OFFICALLY get the NEW birth certificate with our last name on it. It will say David Manuel Edwards. Once we have him home we will legally change his name to Mateo Douglas Earl Edwards.

After we get the BC from Amatitlan Dinora said there are a few things she will have to fill out & then she can submit our file to the Embassy in Guatemala. They will then look over our file for a week or so, & schedule our Visa Appointment. This is whats known as "getting the PINK slip". We will also get an email with the VIsa appointment date. My sister Melaine is coming to Guatemala with me to pick up Mateo & we will most likely leave for Guatemala about 4 days or so before the VIsa appointment. While we are there we will get his passport ( you apply for it in the morning & pick it up that late afternoon), get a doctors appointment..and then we will be able to bring him home. It is looking like it will be mid August for pick up!

Please continue to keep all of us in your prayers. We pray that there are no more delays & that the Renap process in both GC & Amatitlan goes quickly & smoothly.

I got update pictures of Mateo, he is getting so big. He is 3 years 4 months old. I cant believe how much time has flown by. I miss him so much, the girls talk about him more & more each day. With each sporting event we attend I get anxious to have our son there with us to root his sisters on!! Rylie & Adyson said they are wanting to sleep with him at night, so I have a feeling that will be a little bit of an issue..Who gets to sleep with him, etc.. LOL

I am looking forward to getting up in the mornings & making breakfast for him, snuggling up with him & the girls to watch cartoons in the morning, going on walks, pushing him on the swing set, laying in the hammock with him, so many things to look forward to!!

Update since Friday

2010-06-28T09:44:00.000-05:00

I received an email from Dinora. Our file was taken back to Amatitlan Renap on Friday. They had fixed the typo on the notification at family court & now we are just waiting to get the approval notice that we need from Renap in Amatitlan so we can move into Renap in Guatemalan City!! I pray that there is a miracle & its done today or even tomorrow morning so it can be submitted to GC Renap by tomorrow. You can only submit files to GC Renap on a Tuesday. Dinora knows people at Renap...although I am not sure that would make a difference on getting our file accepted anyday but on a Tuesday. As of now , the way things are looking..it will most likely be an end of July pickup for us!!

The last week of July is fair week in Paola. Rylie shows her steer & heifer, I was hoping to have Mateo home in time to get to go to his first fair. Either way, he is coming home soon!!

I did enroll Mateo in preschool already, to start in the fall. As of now I am still planning to have him go. His cousin Max will be in his class & its only for 2 days a week for 2 1/2 hours at a time. I think it will be good for him to interact with other children & hear more English modeled. Its hard because to me preschool is such a big milestone & its the first one we will get to experience, and I am not sure I am ready for that already!!

My friends have children coming home from Guatemala each month. I just saw pictures of another friend that just brought her son home & I saw their family & friends waiting at the airport. I was in tears. That is the moment that I have been praying for, for over 3 1/2 years!! My sister Melaine will be going to Guatemala with me to pick up Mateo. It will be her first time out of the country & of course her first time meeting Mateo in person! I cant wait!! We are sooo close!!

Newest Update

2010-06-25T12:27:00.000-05:00

Last week we found out that Amatitlan Renap found a typo on the notification that family court gave them, so they rejected our file. The attorney had it fixed & then brought it back today to Dinora ..she is bringing it to Amatitlan Renap today. I am PRAYING that we can get the approval notice that they give, so we can go into Guatemala City Renap by Tuesday of next week. If you don't make it by the Tuesday day, you cant get entered in until the following Tuesday. Please pray that everything going smoothly for the rest of this!

We have had 2 volcano eruptions & a tropical storm delay things for a few weeks, so it would be great if for once everything goes quickly & smoothly!! Would love to have Mateo home in July, just in time for the Paola Fair!!

After 5 weeks of being in famly court we got out yesterday!!

2010-05-21T13:20:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was such a crazy day!! I was frustrated in the morning because I was told there wasnt any updates on our status at fmaily court. So I decided to call Guatemala Renap office to see if they could give me an idea of how long the process would take to get Mateo's birth certificate done...well needless to say I found out my "week" thinking was more like 15 to 25 days!! So that part was not good. :(

Although I did find out that process... Apparently because Mateo was born in Amatitlan we will have to go there first and then get an "approval notice", this could day a few days to get. Then we take that approval notice to Central Renap in Guatemala City where they will have to go through our file for about 15 days...she said it could be 25. I am praying for the 15 days!!! Then when they are done making sure everything in our paperwork is okay, they will give us a notice that we then take to Amatitlan Renap, which is where we will have them print off the actual birth certificate for Mateo with our last name on it. Once we have that we can have all of our documents translated from Spanish into English. Once that is done our entire file, including the birth certificate will be presented to Embassy where they will assign us a Visa appointment, we will have about a weeks notice to fly out & then get his passport & Visa & then bring him home. :)

So Dinora said that we got out of family court yesterday, but that they wouldnt be bringing our file to the CNA until Monday. Monday will start our 3 day wait period..then HOPEFULLY on Thursday Dinora can take our file to Amatitlan to start the process of getting Mateo's birth certificate done!! Please PRAY that there are no complications!!!

We are on the final stretch!! Will most likely be beginning of July before we have Mateo home, but at least we will have part of the summer with him!!

So far here is our whole timeline:

Oct 2006- started the paperwork to apply for adoption
March 3, 2007- Mateo was born

May 2007- we are assigned to Mateo & accepted referral

June 07- we signed the POA

July 07- we were entered into family court

August 07- we entered PGN

Oct 07- while file was with 3rd reviewer at PGN ( so close to bringing home) they kicked out our file to investigate it in minors court section of PGN. Aparently the Birth mother had a falsified birth certificate for herself because she had lost hers & then has used that same birth certificate with a previous adoption a few years prior, and it went through...but because things are more strict they caught it..and started an investigation of the Birth mother, orphanage, & attorney.

Dec 31st, 2007- Guatemala CLOSED ALL ADOPTIONS

Mar 08- Doug & I met Mateo for the 1st time on a trip to visit him for his 1st birthday. While we were there we fired our attorney that was assigned to us through Semillas & hired another attorney that represented us up until around August of 2009. We were told by PGN official that we would not be able to complete our adoption of Mateo with how things were then...she suggested that we cut ties with orphanage & attorney and start process all over again. It was a scary decision, but we did it.

July 2008- Doug & I flew to Guatemala for a court hearing to let them know that we did want to pursue the adoption of Mateo. This is when we met Mateo's birth mother for the first time. She was still lying about where she was born so they requested another DNA test. We had Mateo pulled from Semillas & he was put into the orphanage he is in now, Hogar Luz de Maria. He was 15 months old. Mateo was pulled out by PGN officials the Friday before there was a raid at Semillas. We got lucky there! For a month we had no idea what orphanage Mateo was at....we found out later he had cried for the first 2 weeks most of the time.

August 2008- Mateo's birth mom did a DNA test & that is when she finally admitted that she had lied about her birth certificate and that she was really born in Nicaragua. Minors Court finally closed the investigation. We were able to immediately order her a new birth certificate which only took 2 weeks!! Although it took another 11 months before we finally go the piece of paper called the "final resolution" that said the case was dismissed.

March 2009- I flew to Guatemala for Mateo's 2nd birthday by myself.

July 2009- Our file was submitted to CNA in Guatemala.

Nov 2009- Doug & I flew to Guatemala to do our empathy study for CNA. We were with Mateo for 2 weeks. It was wonderful, but bittersweet leaving him!

May 2010- We got notice that our file was signed off by the director of CNA.

April 13th 2010- We were entered into family court

May 20, 2010- We got word that we are approved by family court!

Still waiting....the story of our lives the last few years

2010-05-20T08:48:00.001-05:00

Well its Thursday morning & I just got an email from Dinora. She said that our paperwork is at the Embassy awaiting preapproval & our file is still at family court #7. Apparently they are working slow. I am not sure why. I think I just had gotten it in my head that we would only be in family court for a week or two, because that is how long my friends were in family court. Although, you would think after 3 1/2 years of doing this I would realize that nothing ever goes the way you think it would.

I am thankful that Mateo is in a home that has people who love him, if it wasn't for that, I think I would have had to move to Guatemala my now. I see pictures of him, and he is just growing up before my eyes. With each picture update I see how much time I have missed with him.

I am looking forward to the trips to the pool, the zoo, snuggling in the mornings in bed with the whole family, reading him books before bed, okay, so I am getting a lump n my throat just thinking of all of these things. I try to get through each day by leaning on my faith. I know God has a bigger plan, and most of the time we don't understand what his plan is, but I KNOW he will be home soon. I keep picturing the moment we land at the KC airport & Rylie & Adyson get to see their brother walking off that plane & they get to hug him for the first time. My heart breaks for all that he & they have missed out on.

As I am writing this and my heart is breaking for my own situation, I realize that I am one of the lucky ones included in the Guatemalan 900. So many of my friends that I have met along the way are so much farther behind us. Many have no direction on who to talk with, where to go. The CNA is no longer accepting any applications for transition cases. So if you didn't have your paperwork submitted before a few months ago, they apparently sent everything back to Embassy?? So its now apparently in the US hands, although no one is willing to step up and make it a priority & get these children home. One of my friends Audra has been waiting 8 years!!!! Another one of my friends & her husband have no other children at home, they have been to Guatemala like 7 times to see their daughter, but because their daughter was born Dec 22, 2007..they didn't get their POA in time before they officially shut down adoptions Dec 31st, 2007. So they cant be grandfathered in with the old law, they don't fit into the transition cases, so who is their advocate?? Who helps them?? My heart breaks every time I talk with them because I can feel the hurt & pain in their voices. Financially this has put a burden on so many of us, we are at over $60,000 out of our own pocket. Most people cannot afford to pay that kind of money & we aren't even done yet!! I think of the families that couldn't afford to keep fighting & hiring one attorney after the other, so they had to give up. I wonder if that was Gods plan for that family & that child, or if that child was really meant to be in their home.

Why can our government find a past president of the US to go to Korea & work with a country that has no relations with us, to bring home 2 reporters that were stuck in a prison with a 12 year hard labor sentence ( even though they should have never been in prison & I am so glad they are home), but they cant help the 900 children that are STUCK in Guatemala that have US families that have been in process for years!!???? If anyone has a phone # to the President, Oprah, to a Vice President, or ANYONE that can really help our children & these families...PLEASE let me know! In the meantime I pray, that is all I can do.

I dream of our life and what it will be like when Mateo is home where he belongs. I have been nesting for over 3 years, there isnt more to decorate at my home. LOL

Please continue to pray for us & please say extra prayers that we get out of family court in the next week! We need Mateo home, we need him & he needs us!

Thank you!! Blessings, Valerie

Newest Updates

2010-05-03T12:35:00.000-05:00

So we were officially entered in Family Court on April 13th!!! WHooooooooooooooo!! I was so excited!! It looks as if we will be getting out this week! We have submitted the paperwork neccessary to the Embassy for Preapproval ( what they require when you are a transition case). Once we are out of Family Court we will legally be Mateo's parents by Guatemalan law! After its out of Family Court we have a 3 day notification period for PGN, CNA, and RENAP to be notified that we are officially Mateo's parents, and they have 3 days to say they want to object ( although that doesn't typically happen). Once we have the notifications done, we order Mateo a new Birth Certificate from Renap ( it goes in on a Tues and we get it on Friday!) We will also be translating all of our documents from Spanish to English while we are waiting for the Birth certificate from Renap, then our file that has been translated back to English along with the NEW birth certificate with our last name on it will be taken to the Embassy for them to schedule our Visa Appointment. This appointment will come to us in an email. Typically you get a weeks notice before you fly out for the Visa appointment. Once you fly out there you are really only there for 3 to 4 days before we can take him home for good! While we are there waiting for the Visa appointment we will be getting him his passport & taking him to a mandatory doctors appointment, then we go on the Visa appointment to get VIsa, and then its done!!

I cant tell you how much I am looking forward to landing at the KCI Airport , walking off the plane, & walking out to our family & Rylie & Adyson meeting their little brother for the first time! Just thinking about that bringing tears to my eyes!

I know its all in Gods timing and have turned this all over to him. He has not forgotten us yet, and always has opened doors for us when we needed them open! The timing will be great because the girls will have just gotten out of school and they will be able to be with their brother full time over the summer! I am looking forward to the little things: snuggling at night reading books before bed, snuggling on Saturday & Sunday mornings with the kids in our bed, taking him to the swimming pool, going to the zoo, seeing a cow for the first time, getting our family picture taken, seeing him with his daddy, I could go on and one..but I am so excited and know that we are so close to FINALLY bringing home our son!

Thank you Prayer Warriors for all that you have done for us! Many Blessings to you all and I will keep you posted on further updates!!

Still waiting, please pray for movement this week!!

2010-04-04T12:53:00.000-05:00

We are currently still at the CNA, although we are apparently with the attorney group there awaiting their signature and for them to take our file along with a memo they have to type up, to family court. From what I have heard family court has been taking about 2 to 4 weeks to get through. Most of my friends that are ahead of me in the process were only in family court for about 2 weeks. Once we are out of family court that will officially mean we are Mateo's parents by Guatemalan law. Then after we are "out" our documents have to be translated from Spanish to English and then we have to get a birth certificate with our last name on it and then we will fly out to go pick up Mateo.

I need everyone to pray for us that our file will be moved this week into family court and that we we will be able to move out quickly this month so we can go pick up Mateo next month. We are so ready to bring him home.

I will keep you posted on what I hear next, thank you for all of your prayers!!

Almost ready to move into family court!!!!!

2010-01-07T16:35:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to send a quick update, we got word that we are almost ready to be moved into family court!! Yeah!! They are just waiting for one of the head guys at CNA to bring the notification to our new attorney tomorrow, and then hopefully by next week we will be officially there! Depending on what court we get will depend on the time frame..the fastest I have heard it happening was 2 weeks, but typically its a month or so. Once famly court is done, that is when its offical...we will legally be his parent, by Guatemalan law!!! Then after they get the final sign off at family court, it takes about a week or so for them to officially have our file out and that is when we will fly out to get the birth certificate, visa, passport, etc...and BRING HIM HOME!!! Once they have their final sign off, it takes 3 days for all notifications to go out to PGN, CNA, & someone else to say its offical, and that is when we will come out.

Luckily we are past the holidays and so we wont have any delays with the holiday vacations. Please PRAY lots of prayers for a speedy court, and that everything goes VERY smoothly! Its been over 3 years and I still cant believe he isnt with us, but we are sooooooooooooo close! When you all meet Mateo personally, you will fall in love with him too!

We are so blessed to have our orphanage director helping us with everything, she has really moved things along for us! We were able to raise money with friends, & family to purchase the hogar a playset for the kids to play on for Christmas, they all loved it!!!!!!!!! Mateo's birthday is March 3rd, so I am praying for him to be home by then!!!!!!!!! If Mateo isnt home by his birthday I will probably send money to the hogar to have a little birthday party for him with his friends and then when he is home I will have a big welcome home, 3rd birthday party for him!!! We will wait and get him accustomed to life here and my HUGE family, and then we will have it.

I am currently in the works of setting up a foundation to help support Mateo's hogar as well as various families in need in my community. If anyone is interested in hearing more about his and how they can help, please email me and let me know! I am hoping to have it all set up by the end of the month! How awesome will it be to be able to make sure Luz de Maria will be able to have all of their needs met and the kids will always be able to have loving, and caring people to help raise them until they end up in their forever homes! I know that they are needing funding to help pay their monthly bills; paying the nannies, food, supplies, etc...so I want to do what I can to make that happen! So many times over the years I have said, why did this have to all happen to us? Why did we have to be one of those cases...but I now know why! If we hadn't experienced so many problems we wouldn't have ended up meeting Dinora and the staff at Luz de Maria, Mateo wouldn't have such a wonderful place to take care of him, I wouldn't have realized the need to support this specific hogar as the one for my foundation to support, this journey has been a HUGE growing process for us. I know that our process to bring Mateo home has been one of those many God Winks!!!

Seriously I feel like doing back flips!!! Mateo, mama's coming!! Blessings to you and your families!!!

Here is the scoop on what we have left..

2009-11-29T13:20:00.000-06:00

So we just finished our empathy study..and below is an outline of the process that we have left. We are looking at Feb or March to bring Mateo home. We needs all the prayers we can get to have people pray for a speedy process through the CNA to family court and then that we get entered into family court #4..please pray for us to not get entered into Family Court #2!!! Thank you all for all of your support and help! xo, valerie

Process to Completion
Starting with the Empathy Study

1) After the empathy study; the social worker and the psychologist do a report and give to the legal department, after visiting you during your empathy study.
2) The legal department creates a document that is signed by the sub-director. The head attorney is Lorana Ramirez, she will prepare the documents for the director. Juan Carlos works with Lorana on national adoptions & speaks English.
3) Once director signs off on papers they go back to the legal department.
4) After that the file is submitted to the family court. ( Pray for family court #4- Judge Gonzalez, rumor has it that Family Court #2 is more difficult)
5) Once you have gotten sign off from Judge at family court, the child is legally yours. ( It could take a week to 2 weeks after the final signature of the judge before your case ACTUALLY gets out of family court)
6) IMPORTANT****- Once you get notification that the family court judge has released and signed off- go ahead and submit documents to Embassy for preapproval & include all items on List A.
7) After signed off from family court judge, notifications will be sent out to PGN, RENAP, & C N A. Once those have been sent out there is a 3 day waiting period.
8) If there are no objections than C N A will request certification of ruling & C N A produces the final documents to go to RENAP (the local Renap where your child was born..Amatitlan in our case). They will need the C N A & family court ruling & then the RENAP will register it in the system.
9) Once it is registered in the system from local RENAP, it then goes to Central Renap. (It goes in on Tuesday and out on Friday.) Gaby from RENAP speaks English, call her is you are waiting or there are any problems ( 2416-1914). She can tell us what we need to get together to get the birth certificate if they don’t already have it all.
10) At the central RENAP they will give you the birth certificate with your last name.
11) Then go to the passport office to get child’s passport.
12) Once you have the passport, go to the embassy & prepare documents for List B. ( New BC, C N A ruling, Family Court Ruling, Copy of passports- you will need all pages of passport)
13) Submit List B to Embassy
14) Once you get approval or notification from USCIS on List B, you will get orange slip & that will give you permission to get final physical for child. ( Can use Dr Sidney Hagan- 12th St- 1-25 Zone 10, Inside a mall, Torre Norte, Suite 402; Spanish only, and the phone # is 2335-3431) You will get an HIV test for child which cost $60 US, and final physical. ( Make sure you have all shot records from hogar or foster family to bring to final physical or they will charge you and do them all over which can be very expensive.)
15) Final Interview will be scheduled when you get orange slip at Window 10- Embassy.

A gift of the Lord....

2009-11-24T00:09:00.000-06:00

Mateo- Gift of the Lord. I had no idea that our life would lead us to the adoption of our son. I had no idea that the name we picked out for our son wouldnt be just a name reccomended by my best friend Laura, but that it was a divine intervention. Mateo IS truly a gift from the Lord. We had prayed God and thanked him for more than we ever have before. This process has opened my eyes to what is really important. This process showed me how lucky we are to have been blessed to have Mateo placed with us to be his forever parents.

Mateo has experienced so much in his short little life, more than he will ever be able to express to us but enough that we know just how strong he is. He has such a loving heart & spirit. He freely gives kisses and love to us, and he trusts us. The nannies at his hogar love him because he has this special something about him that just makes you fall in love with him from the moment you meet him.

In May of 2002 when we were first assigned to Mateo and received his pictures in our email was one month that I will never forget. I prayed for God to let me love him just like I do my biological daughters, I prayed to the process to work out. God has blessed our broken road many of times, and I know that we will see Mateo come home to us in 2010! He will be able to experience all the love that his family & friends have for him. When I looked at his pictures for the first time it was love at first sight. He melted me right then. I had no idea i would still be waiting to bring him home almost 3 years later. Although God designs a plan for us and we are his servants and have to have faith and follow his lead. My faith has been tested, but I always realized how much we have been blessed with, and I am reminded that it is the broken road that led us straight to Mateo. That song melts my heart when I hear it because it describes our journey to the "t".

In October when I found out that we wouldnt be bringing you home that year it was one of the hardest days I had ever had. We were only 1 signature from bringing you home! ALthough, again...GOd had a plan. Then in February of 2003 when we received a phone call saying that because of the documents that were falsified from the birth mother that we would more than likely not be able to complete our adoption, we decided to go ahead and fly out to see you for your 1st birthday. We took a flight of faith and believed that even if we only have you for 5 days , that for 5 days we would love all over you and you would know you were wanted. I think DOug was nervous to go because he was afraid if something happened and we werent able to complete our adoption that I wouldnt get back to normal....but I had faith, enough for both of us. DOug fell in love with Mateo the moment he laid eyes on him in person. Doug instantly cried and of course I melted....

In May of 2003 I had spent 1 day scrapebooking all of the pictures from our trip to visit you in March, and then I got home and receceived an email from Nancy Bailey at Semillas de Amor saying that because we cancelled the POA that we had signed for her attorney that she assigned to us, and hired another due to advice we took from PGN Minors Court, that we would no longer be able to adopt Mateo. She said he wasnt our son and that we did this to ourselves. I was sick, I remember being in a fetal position crying myself to sleep. I remember not wanting to wake up and get out of bed and get on with the days....but then I realized that this is one part of our journey to bring Mateo home to us, and I needed to be strong for him and for Rylie and Adyson who needed me. Doug didnt know what to do with me he knew that I was taking it hard. Very shortly after that nasty email from Nancy, we decided that we would do whatever it took to bring Mateo home and so we worked with our attorney and did what was needed to get out of the MP & Minors Court. We were there from Oct of 2007 to August of 2008. Then it took from AUgust of 2008 to July of 2009 before we recieved a paper saying that the investigation was dimissed and we could offically enter the CNA and start the process to be linked to Mateo.

Now here we are in Guatemala with Mateo on our empathy study, about 5 months from having him home with us....faith, stregth, prayer, faithful friends & family, prayer warriors have gotten us through and we thank all of you for being there for us during this very difficult time but also this very special time in our lives.

Mateo is a gift from God . He placed Mateo with us and we are his forever family.

SO as I sign off for the night I will sign off with a poem...

The Adoption Creed

Not flesh of my flesh, not bone of my bone- but still miraculously my own. Never forget not for a minute-you werent born under my heart but in it.

Mateo my love, we are getting closer and we love you! Blessings, Valerie

This is our last full day with Mateo in Guatemala....

2009-11-23T08:25:00.001-06:00

Today is our last full day with Mateo before we have to bring him back to the CNA tomorrow. We have to bring him back at noon on Tuesday. We have had a great time with him. Its been fun getting to know him better and he us. He has had a hard time taking naps and going to bed at night, not sure why but he lays there for quite awhile before he goes to bed, I am hoping that he is okay when we leave and adjusts back to his schedule at the hogar.

We are ready to go home, its been hard to be cooped up in 1 hotel room for 13 days. We miss Rylie & Adyson like crazy, and cant wait to jump off the plane and hug them both. This is the longest we have gone without being with them. They have been busy with their grandma's, aunts, and cousins...so they have had fun but I think they are ready too.

Yesterday we spent the day in Amatitlan. It is the city where Mateo was born. We tried to give him a little pony ride there although he wanted nothing to do with it. Then we went up a cable car..VERY HIGH i might add..and looked at the view of the lake at the city. That was fun. At the top we stopped and got Mateo a chocolate banana...he loved it of course, as did I! Then we decided to drive to Port San Jose, which was about another hour from Amatitlan..and went to the beach. THey have black sand beaches, so it was beautiful. IT was Mateo's first time being at the beach. He LOVED it! We hadnt planned to go so we went in just a ways in our clothes and quickly got them soaked, so we stripped Mateo down to his superman undies and let him play..he was in HEAVEN. That was an awesome experinece. The lake is called Lake Amatitlan. Then afterwards we stopped at a resort and ate at a hotel. Doug started feeling sick so he got a bit grumpy, and then ended up sleeping awhile on the way back to the hotel. We say beautiful views the whole way home. GUatemala is a beautiful country. We saw Pacaya ..which is a famous volcano in Guatemala. We saw smoke coming out as well as lava flows, which was awesome.

Got back to our room and gave Mateo & I a bath...as we both has sand all over us, and then ate some pizza for dinner, and off to bed. It took about 45 min or more to get Mateo to sleep. Doug seems to do the best job getting him to fall asleep. If you hold him or rock him he just lays there quite, but awake. If you lay next to him, he will lay there for hours awake...so if has to be very dark, no noise, and you cant talk with him or try to soothe him..or he will stay awake, so we had to let him cry it out...that was hard as a mom.

Today we are planning to just really enjoy our time with Mateo. We are staying at the hotel and doing the pool thing again. We have dinner plans with another parent coming to visit her daughter tonight and then that is it. Tomorrow we have to have Mateo back to the CNA by noon and then we will go with CLaudia to do last minute shopping for CHristmas presents. We are looking to buy a large little tykes play area for Christmas for the hogar. This was it can stay out and the kids can play with it. They seem to keep the little toys put away most of the time so I dont want to bring any little toys. THe little tykes are too big to put away they will have to be put together and then left in the courtyard for the kids to play with all day.

Thank you all for your prayers. DOug and I fly out on Wed morning at 7AM, so pray for a safe return flight home. Blessings...

Good Morning

2009-11-21T08:54:00.000-06:00

SO we are on day #10...time has flown by on one hand and then went so slow on the other. We LOVE being with Mateo! He is an absolute doll, and I cant imagine leaving him at the CNA on Tuesday. That will be a VERY hard day! He has progressed so much since he was been with us; speaking english, talking also in spanish ( basic words like por favor, gracias papa, agua, mama...and words I am sure he is saying that I dont know), he has been able to say both of his sisters names and when he talks with them on the phone each night he smiles...he loves hearing their voices.

He loves to play ball ( throwing and kicking) he LOVES the pool NOW, yeah!! THe other day we were at the pool with friends for about 3 hours and he had plenty of time to get acclimated to it and didnt want to leave. HE was so cute , when we were in teh hot tub he would grab ahold of my hands and say 1,2,3 in spanish and then dunk himself under the water...he loves that! I have been able to have some extra pool time to lay out while Mateo and Doug go up to nap. Which is great because I get to listen to my IPOD, listen to some of my favorite songs and think & pray. I have downloaded alot of HIllsong and Mercy Me songs, so they really lift my spirits when I think about having to leave him again. I just dont want him to be confused with why we are leaving again. I think we will definately have to start doing webcam weekly.

I am so thankful that he is in a hogar that cares for him and loves him...that is obvious. I just want his sisters and family to be able to get to know him and his sweet personality. He likes to push the button on the elevator when we go to the lobby, he likes to read books...especially the ones that he can feel different materials on the books. He loves to color, and play playdough. At first he would be nervous in various situations when we would go out, etc...but now he is quite comfortable. He does pout when we tell him he has to go to sleep...we have had a harder and harder time getting him to take naps and go to bed. He will lay there forever until finally he will just get too tired and go to sleep. They go to bed early at the hogar so I am hoping that he gets back into a routine and doesnt give them too much trouble with his naps when he gets there. They hae va great schedule for them and we havent had as good of a schedule with us beig here...appointments, etc....

I am so thankful that my girls get to be with their grandparents and my sister during the time we are gone, it has really made the time go by quickly for them. I am looking forward to going home and seeing Rylie & Adyson....although its bittersweet because I am missing Mateo then.... I look forward to the day we are all together.

Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers!

We just finished our emapthy study appointment today

2009-11-18T15:46:00.000-06:00

About 2:45 we went downstairs to the lobby and met with Lily from CNA..she is in charge of the adoptive childrens unit, and then with Maria Los...she is in charge of the adoptive families unit. She was a little more stern but not too bad...maybe because Lily is so overly friendly. We also had CLaudia who is our adoption agency in country contact that has helped us so much be there to translate for us.

They asked us questions like: what do your girls think of Mateo? What do your grandparents think of Mateo? What are your plans for MAteo for the future; school ( will he go to the same school that the girls go to?), college, activities he will be involved in once home ( sports, cow shows with the girls, etc..?) They asked us if we would tell Mateo that he was adopted, as well as asked us if we plan to travel back to GUatemala to have Mateo visit his country of orgin. They asked us if MAteo was closer to DOug or I and of course we said both of us equally. They asked if Mateo remembered us when we came. They asked why we named him Mateo. They asked if he was speaking english as well as spanish. SO basic questions that were pretty easy for us to answer.

We went shopping this morning for CHristmas presents for mom, dad, Grandpa & Granma Raley, and the neices and nephews that we were suppose to buy for. Then we had lunch at an authentic Guatemalan resturant, but couldnt read the menu so we told them to surprise us..so they did, adn it was awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We dont have many plans tonight so just planning to hang around here and maybe meet up with another adoptive parent to have dinner.

So we are planning to go to Amatalian..which is where Mateo was born probably tomrrow so we can get a picture of the hospital where he was born and get some items from his birth place...'

We miss our girls like crazy and look forward to the day that all of our kiddos are together!!

THank you for your prayers!

Update over the last few days

2009-11-17T18:12:00.000-06:00

On Sunday we went to Antigua for the day. We had a great time and did some shopping, which of course I love!! We were able to tour some beautiful cathedrals, and buildings. We went to the pool yesterday again and Mateo liked it this time because daddy played with him in the hot tub which apparently he loves! I am sure the ball had something to do with it! :)

Today we went to the childrens museum and Mateo had a great time! We came back to the hotel and I laid out while Doug and Mateo took a nap. We decided to just hang out in the room tonight after DOug had a massage and I went to take a nap and Mateo decided to dive in too! So funny! He loved it!

Tomorrow we are planning to do shopping and then hang out again at the pool! Its beautiful here! Our emapthy study appointment is tomorrow, so I am looking forward to getting that done. I will update you later with how that goes!

Yesterday was a great day

2009-11-15T08:17:00.000-06:00

We went to the pool at the hotel yesterday and Mateo didnt love the water so much. He kinda whined/cried most of the time. Hopefully with us being here for 2 weeks he will get use to it. We had a great dinner last night at this authentic Guatemalan resturant, it was wonderful! The waiter was very helpful and taught me a little spanish, so hopefully after being here for 2 weeks this time I will learn a little more. Mateo had ice cream last night after dinner, he loved it. Although last night he was so gassy..his tummy was hurting him. Literally he had gas all night! He is such a doll baby! Literally I am sooo excited for when you all get to meet him in person! I cant wait for Rylie and Adyson to get to hug their little brother! They are going to fall in love!!!

Well we are headed to Antigua today, I cant wait! It is my favorite place so far in Guatemala! I am looking for some gifts to buy my mom & dad and in-laws...they have been such a HUGE support system! My sister Cherie is watching my girls this week and has been a HUGE help as well! I know the girls are excited to spend the week with her boys.

Well that is it for now, thank you all for all of your prayers! Hugs!!!

1st Offical Empathy Day with Mateo-Nov 13th

2009-11-13T19:14:00.000-06:00

Today has been so much fun! We picked Mateo up at the CNA this morning. We met with Lily Guzman from the CNA for about 45 minutes and she just talked with us about what the process will be like this next few weeks as well as the rest of the time until we get to take him home. It seems that it will take a few months after the emapthy study before we will be entered into family court. They said this because they go through all of the papers in our file with a fine tooth comb to make sure there are no mistakes so when the file goes into the family court there are no problems and we wont be pushed back anymore. I also asked if the fact that the holiday season would push us back and she said no because we will still be in the CNA and they dont take much time off. She said if you are in family court you may experince a slight wait but not much. SO since we will still be in the CNA before moving into family court during NOV, and DEC...it looks like we should be fine to move along. It sounds like it will be February before we go into family court and then from there it may take a month to 7 weeks or so, and that is when they offically make us his parents. Then the file goes back to the CNA for them finalize everything for a week or so and then it goes to RENAP to get a birth certificate, and then you will be scheduled for pickup where they do immnigration and a VISA appointment. Then we come home. SO it sounds like it could be April at the earliest but probably May. Although I am praying...you never know!

We had to run to the grocery store to get lunch food and Mateo was a bit nervous being out and about. I dont think he is use to be around other people other then the nannies at the hogar and the kiddos there. HE had to go to the bathroom and didnt know how to tell us so he did have an accident and we had to take a bath as soon as we got to the hotel. He loved the water, just like before. He took a nap with me for about 30 minutes and then with Doug for another hour . After the nap we played with playdough, colored, and played with cars. Then it was time for dinner and we walked down the block to a Guatemalan resturant that was very good. Mateo liked their food. When we got back from dinner we were changing him into his pjs and he started running around and kicking the ball and dancing to the music I had playing. He loves dancing music like his mama!! He is so funny! He has done a great job the rest of the day going to the bathroom on his own. He just kinda grabs down there and we know...he hasnt said pee-pee yet, but he goes both. :)

We got some great video of him dancing and laughing. Doug and him are laying on the bed snuggling now...seriously I am sooooooooooo happy!! I wish Rylie and Adyson could be here with us! I think we are planning to hang out at the pool tomorrow here and then go to Antigua on Sunday. SO I will take lots of pix at the pool to post! Good Night!!

We are in Guatemala!

2009-11-12T22:22:00.000-06:00

We arrived today about 12:30 and found out DOug was missing his suitcase, so it took awhile for us to get to our hotel. Then when we got there they couldnt find out reservation, and we had to wait about 30 minutes while they made calls to find it. BUT, THEN....we got to go to see Mateo! We spent about 2 1/2 hours with him and the kids at the hogar. We bought pizza and pop, and spent the time playing with the kids and Mateo. Doug fell in love with him all over again! He is such a great dad to the girls, but WOW...he is so going to spoil Mateo! He was in heaven! We have an appointment at the CNA in the morning at 9AM and that is when we can offically take custody of Mateo. We will have a better idea of what is going on with us while we are here, meaning any traveling and sight seeing we will do, etc, depending on when they schedule the actual emapthy study. It is where they will watch us with Mateo and see how we interact with each other. My room looks like BOrders Books and Toys R Us had a party in it! Lots of toys, clothes, little superman undies, ..I am so happy I cant even tell you ! DInora has been so wonderful for us and has helped us tremendously!!! THe kids there just melt your heart and you cant help but want to take them all home with you! I am so looking forward to spending the next few weeks with little Mateo!! We love him soooooooooooooo much! I am posting some of my favorite pix from today! Thank you for your prayers!

We got our emapthy study scheduled!!!

2009-10-30T18:45:00.000-05:00

We are so excited because we finally got our empathy study scheduled!! We will be flying into Guatemala on Nov 12th and staying through the 25th of November. Doug is nervous that we are having to fly home the day before Thanksgiving....but I am just so thankful to be going that I am good with whatever!! We initially had thought we would just be there the 12th through the 19th and had even booked our flight and hotels online just to find out about 30 minutes later that we had to actually be there for 8 actual business days, so that works out because of weekends to being 13 days. I am so excited to see Mateo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our empathy study is Nov 13th and we will be going to CNA on the 13th at 9AM to get Mateo and meet with the psychologist and whomever else we need to talk with. This is when we will be able to actually take custody of Mateo! We will then have Mateo the rest of the time. They also meet with us for a closing appointment during the empathy study the day before we leave. We are looking at rebooking flights and hotels right now, just trying to find a good place because the one we want to stay at will cost over $2000 just to be there for 13 nights...CRAZY!! We are looking at renting a place while we are there or finding a place that has a kitchen type area...

Dinora, our orphanage director is sooooo helpful! SHe has really been helping us a ton and I am so thankful for all she has done. We are working directly with the CNA and DInora and their attorney to complete our adoption. The only reason we were finally able to get our empathy study scheduled is because of Dinora. She has been in and out of CNA everyday this week and the end of last week.

I am 100% focuses on bringing my son home and cannot wait to see him! Keep us in your prayers! valerie

Newest Update or News

2009-10-21T17:27:00.000-05:00

I emailed our attorney a few days ago asking him if he had heard anything and he said that the C N A had called him and said they needed a few more pix of Doug, Mateo, and the girls so he had a few and sent those to them. He also had a fill out a form that hadn't been done, that is finished and they have now scheduled the medical report for Mateo, so as soon as that has been done, we should be getting some kind of an update on them scheduling our empathy study which should now be in Nov. I was going to go by myself to visit Mateo and now it looks like I will just get to go with Doug. So that is it for now, hopefully I will hear good news that the medical report was actually finished this week! Till next time, keep us in your prayers! val

So its getting harder and harder to wait...

2009-09-28T21:39:00.001-05:00

Its amazing how you can have good days and bad days and sometimes a great day can still end up finding you thinking about why its taking so long, and then get down. Had a great day at home with the girls today. Although as I am getting ready for bed I realize that once again I am finding myself missing Mateo. I think about all of the nights I am missing tucking him in, reading to him. We went to the Cider Mill today. We always go there to get pumpkins in the fall, and of course have to sample the donuts & cider...I realize that that was a moment that Mateo would have enjoyed. The girls had already been there many of times before they were 2 1/2. God grant me patience, strength, and please keep your hands on anyone that is in charge of our file at CNA. Please encourage them, and let them work with their hearts and hurry to move our cases along. Another Halloween, another Thanksgiving, and another Christmas that will be without my son, & the girls brother. I found his little monkey that I always bring with me on my trips to Guatemala, and then his little blankey that he sleeps with when I am with him. I was drawn to just hold them, as those were things that he slept with the last time I was with him.

I just want to cry sometimes and scream because I am so mad that this has taken so long. How one false document that we knew nothing about, that really didnt have anything to do with Mateo and us bringing him home could cost us over a year and 1/2 with our son, so far. So I go to bed again tonight praying for Mateo to come home soon!! Please keep us in your prayers!

Most recent update on our status at CNA

2009-09-09T22:05:00.001-05:00

I received an email from our Guatemalan contact that works for our agency. She went to the CNA and was able to get information on our case as we signed a POA so she has the ability to do that for us. My attorney is a little slow getting back to me through emails, etc. Actually I have emailed him 3 times and no answer in 3 weeks...isn't that nice??

Claudia from Gladney went to CNA on Friday Sept 4th , this is the update as of then:
- The office that is now in charge of our case is the Unidad de Familia Adoptiva ( Adoptive Family Unit) and they just received our file more or less 10 days prior to the 4th of Sept. Previously it had been with the legal department and before that Mr Tecu . Apparently the file can go back and fourth between people at CNA multiple times before they schedule the empathy. This office will have to review our file and will make sure they have everything they need in it and then will let my attorney know if its complete or if we need to add anything to it. I am pretty sure it is fine though. They said that it will be another 15 days before we will get any kind of an update..so that puts us at the week of Sept 21st.
- Our case was reviewed first by the Direccio'n del Consejo.

So once again we wait. This has become the norm with our adoption. We don't put much merit to anything until we actually see it being done. So when we get the call to schedule our empathy, I will believe that we are moving forward. So far there is alot of information going around with other adoptive parents that things at the CNA are slowing down due to too many files and not enough workers. I am told that they are no longer taking transition cases...I dont know if this is temporary while they get through the files that have been approved to be transition cases and are just being reviewed throughout the offices/processes of CNA OR if they are putting a hold on things because of all that has been going on in Guatemala over the last few months. Apparently there have been more raids on orphanages and it has caused quite an uproar. There are so many political things going on right now that its always so frustrated because there is always uncertainty. I have been told that we are officially a transition case. I have also been told that I am one of the 30 cases that are currently being reviewed by CNA as a transition case. I hope this is true. Again, until they call us to schedule the empathy we cant believe anything 100%.

My heart breaks for all of the families caught in the middle of this nightmare. I know that it is hard on everyone, not just us. Its so sad that my son has been forced to spend 2 1/2 years of his life in an orphanage when he had a loving family awaiting him since he was a month and 1/2 old. I know I cant turn back time, and I am okay with trusting 100% in Gods will....I still have my days. Not a day goes by that I don't wonder what he is doing that day. Not a day goes by that I don't think about what he is missing out on. I don't want him to ever think we didn't try hard enough, or wonder why we have to leave him all the time. I so look forward to the day that he is home forever! SO for now I wait. I look forward to the pictures I get monthly of him, and the progress report I receive. I haven't received videos for the last 3 months and think they have taken video...so I am planning to email my agency to see where those are?

Please continue to pray for Mateo & his well being. Pray that the leaders in Guatemala that make decisions regarding the 800 children left in Guatemala will make decisions based on the best interest of the children, and that they do it quickly. Please pray for our patience & strength over the next few months while we wait for updates. Pray that we are able to get to Guatemala to see Mateo by mid October. It looks like a Christmas homecoming will not happen, right now I pray for a 3rd birthday homecoming.

Thank you all for your support & prayers! Many Blessings! valerie

Got Updated Pix of My Little Man!!!

2009-08-11T20:23:00.000-05:00

Update

2009-07-26T09:03:00.000-05:00

I got an email from Dinora at the orphanage. This email was sent to me last Friday July 24th:

I want to tell you that yesterday came the CNA psychology and she just ask the Mateo`s history and everything is o.k., we told everything that we remember. and also came a doctor and he said he is in excellent condition. so I hope he can go home soon.
Dinora

So CNA came last Thursday on the 23rd of July, we should be going to Guatemala soon for our empathy!! Cant wait!

Keep us in your prayers! val

Got pictures sent to me today of Mateo

2009-07-22T16:30:00.000-05:00

I just received a bunch of updated pix of Mateo today, so I will be posting those! Got an email yesterday from Marco, an attorney in Guatemala that has helped us...and he finished the last few documents we needed to have translated and legalized and was bringing them to the C N A today, so I should be receiving notification that our file is complete sometime soon, and then hopefully will heard news of us going into the legal department so we can have them look over our home study, pysch eval, and have an eval done on Mateo; so they can schedule our emapthy! We are hoping to get that done in August!! After empathy its family court...they do a report after the empathy ad then our file goes to family court where it could be a few weeks to a few months depending on what court we get. So keep us in your prayers!! I cant wait to hold my little man!!

Latest update..July 13th, 2009

2009-07-13T23:16:00.000-05:00

I had to run to Topeka, KS today to have our required Hague Training Certificate certified at the state capitol, so I could them take it to the UPS Store and have it over-nighted to Houston to the Guatemalan consulate to have it authenticated, and then prepaid to have it sent from there directly to Guatemala. This document had been in our file since March , when I was there the last time. Although my attorney didnt think to check ahead of time to see what exactly I needed in the file before we submitted it, ect...I could have done that along time ago. I have been to Topeka probably 5 times now in the last few months, and it would be nice to be done with that drive!

I got an email from Roberto last week saying that our file was officially taken to the C N A. The reason it took so long to get there was because from the time I left in March...they had still be waiting to get the certificate of adaptability from the minors court ( a document which is a final resolution of the investigation they did because of the falsified birth certificate from the birth mom.), my attorney just received it the beginnig of June. Then once we had that he could go to Renap to have them get a corrected copy of Mateo's birth certificate , as since the birth moms own birth place was listed wrong on his birth certificate, as hers was falsified, they had to correct the info on his. So once that was done, we were able to have everything we needed to get into the C N A. Roberto did have to go last week to get Mateo's footprints and handprints as part of what was needed for C N A.

Many of you ask me why has it taken so long. Because of all of the corporation in Guatemalan Adoptions for years, US finally said become Hague Complaint or you are out, basically..and so until they could get their process to be right, they haven't been able to open up yet. Although all of the cases like mine that started with the old law, before the closed adoptions back in Dec 2007, the would still be able to be grandfathered in. Although because our document was falsified by the BM, and she finally admitted that the paper was fraudulent, it made the file as was null and void. Soooo..we had to become an abandonment case through the Minors Court, although no one told me that until I was so confused by what we were, where we were, that finally another attorney that has helped me this whole time understand the process, said "because you are not able to go old law and you have to go through the CNA you will be an abandonment case." The paper that we needed from Minors Court stated that Mateo was adoptable. The paperwork that we have been doing recently to give to the CNA, is part of their dossier. So not only could we not do old law and use the grandfathered in laws, there isn't an adoption process in Guatemala, so now new official rules yet. So, we like many other families are being whats called a "transition Case", cant do old law, but new law wasn't open and we had already been linked to a child...and can prove a bond and a link ( travel, pix, etc.) that we would officially be completing our adoption through the CNA. They have just recently really streamlines their process. This is all new to them. They have a low staff, and is sounds like files coming in all the time, so they are swamped. Supposedly as of now from the time you get into the CNA and the time you pick up your child should be around 4 months or so. We will be VERY close to Christmas time when we bring Mateo home! Many families are farther along than I am so they have really helped me understand what comes next and what I need to do to be prepared, ect...some families have recently brought their babies home in the last few weeks. So I know it is REALLY going to happen this time!

So as I understand it here is our process that we have left:
1) file goes to Mr Tecu in the CNA for his approval of all of the documents being exactly what is needed in our file.
2) Mr Tecu then sends the file to the legal department
3) The legal department then goes through each document page by page, and then approves it ( could take a couple of weeks or so)
4) Then the psychological evaluation & home study that we did will go to the psychologist for review..which takes about a week to a week and a 1/2.
5) Once those have been reviewed the psychologist goes on a visit to see Mateo at his orphanage to check on him and his well being, ect..than she does a report on her findings.
6) Then they schedule the empathy study ( we will have to go to Guatemala for 7 days) more than likely it will be a last minute . this is when you have to be here trip. we will be able to take custody of Mateo then, and then keep him with us during the time we are there. The psychologist will come visit us to see how he interacts with us..I think just for like 30 minutes or so sometime during that week.
7) It could take a few weeks to a month once the empathy is done before it will be signed off by the director of CNA to go to family court.
8) Depending on what court you get into, it could be anywhere from a week to 8 weeks or so... family court is where they officially make us his parents
9)Then the file goes to Renap to order a birth certificate with our last name on it, and then
10) It goes through immigration, and they schedule our Visa appointment, which is when we get to pick up Mateo!

So please keep us in your prayers!! We are getting so close , I am praying that he will be a Christmas baby!! xoox, val

What has been going on since the last update

2009-05-13T19:11:00.001-05:00

I found out not too long ago that I had to have Doug & I do a full psych evaluation and then have a letter typed on letterhead explaining what tests they did, and what they found out. I had originally submitted a letter from a licensed social worker, but they said that wouldnt work. So Doug & I have our appointment scheduled for next Thursday. I am hoping that he can get a letter typed up and back to us very soon after that so I can then have it certified , authenticated, and then mail it to Guatemala to have it translated, and then legalized. I also found out that we had to have our I171H form notarized. Our fingerprints expired in May, so we had them updated back in April. Before we could update them they required that we have an updated homestudy...so we had to have that done as well. So we had been waiting for a new updated I171H to be sent to us, and apparently they dont send up one, just a letter reflecting the updated finerprints and the new expiration. So I have those, and have to have those notarized , certified, autenticated, translated, and then legalized in Guatemala as well. So I am waiting to mail those off until I get the pysch letter back so I can do it all at the same time.

Once those are done, we can offically submit our file to C NA . Roberto, my attorney said that he talked with CNA and that they just need those documents to complete our file. THen we can get an empathy study scheduled. My hopes are that this can be scheduled for the end of June or very beginning of July. Then hopefully they give us an approval quickly after the empathy, so we can move onto Family court. Once family court has approved us, we are offically his parents. They just have to then order a new birth certificate from RENAP with our last name, and then it will go to immigration, and then getting the VISA for Mateo. Apparently the time line that I am getting is about 3 to 4 months after empathy, that we can pick up Mateo. Of course nothing in Guatemala is as they say. I am PRAYING for him to be home early fall...we will see...I would love to have him home for Thanksgiving & Christmas!

Roberto was picking up notarized copies of the final resolution today, and then he was taking one of them to RENAP so they can updated Mateo's birth certificate with the new birth moms birth place info, as the first one was false. So when they get that done, it takes about a day or so, then he will have a new birth certificate. These items also have to go to the CNA.

I cannot wait to see him!! I am biting at the bit to see him! I got two videos of him for March, and April, and he is getting so big! I miss him! Keep praying for mateo to be home with us soon! val

Its Sunday and I find myself thinking again of little Mateo

2009-04-19T16:07:00.000-05:00

Still no update from Roberto. I am told that in Guatemala Easter is a big holiday, so they take a few weeks off. It has been 3 weeks now since I have last heard from Roberto. I have emailed him and called him multiple times and get no response from him???
It is VERY frustrating. I keep hearing about how families are in CNA waiting to get their empathy studies scheduled by the CNA, and I am still not there yet as I havent heard from Roberto if our file has been brought there yet?!! It sounds like it is not a fast process through the CNA, so I am praying to get him home by Christmas. I cant believe that I am having to even say that, this will be his 3rd Christmas....I dont want to think about him not being here.

I was in Las Vegas at NTC and our president brought her granddaughter up front to show her to everyone and I melted...I just started crying and couldnt stop, so had to go to the bathroom , hide in a stall , and bawl. Everytime I see a baby, at church, at the store, my thoughts go to him for all that I have missed with him. I am so angry, that this has taken so long!! I am angry that I am literally just so empty, because I have such a blessed life; my husband, my girls, my business, my team, my friends, my health, but I cannot physically do anything to hurry this process up! It just makes me so sad that this little boy is missing so many life experiences cooped up in this tiny orphanage. My am sooo angry! How can you feel so blessed one minute and so sad the next.

My girls deserve to finally be able to see their brother. My husband deserves to be with his son, and take him out to help with the cows. I deserve to be able to play with my son, read him books, play football with him, just LOVE him. Mateo deserves his family. What more can I do at this point??? I pray mulitple times a day, but I dont understand what else I can do??
Valerie

Still no word from my attorney??

2009-04-10T16:10:00.000-05:00

Well I still havent been able to get ahold of my attorney? I have emailed him multiple times and keep calling but he doesnt answer, it goes straight to a spanish message and then hangs up?? So I am hoping that is only because of the Easter holiday and that I will be able to talk with him next week to see if my file is at the CNA?? Cross your fingers! I leave for Vegas on Tuesday for Arbonne and I am hoping that I will get an update on Monday before I leave!!

Where we are as of now..

2009-03-18T07:55:00.000-05:00

When I was in Guatemala I realized I had to have the two KBI Background checks that Doug & I did for our homestudy, authenticated & then translated & legalized in Guatemala City. So on Monday I mailed off the two KBI background checks ( I got them certified here in KS & then authenticated in Houston last week), & then our marriage license which was also authenticated, to Roberto. I wired my last payment, for now... to him as well as extra money for the translation fee of these three documents & then the money for the fees for them to be legalized in Guatemala.

I just mailed off a letter to the USCIS office to schedule an appointment for DOug & I to update our fingerprints. They give you a one time free extension, although since this has taken so long we have already used it. So I mailed the letter with a $160 check to them, and a copy of our current I 171H form. They will them send me a letter telling me that we can come in to get that done. They dont let you call to make an appointment . This takes about a week or so for them to send it back to me, then it takes a few weeks or so to get an new updated version of our I171H form with the updated fingerprints & when these will expire, as well as our date of when the offical I600 form would expire.... Things take so long so you are constantly having o update things!! Its ridculous! Anyway, once we get that we have to have a cover sheet with DOug & I notarizing it that it is a true and valid document...and then we have to have it certified in KS again, and then overnight it to Houston, and then get it back to have it then sent to Guatemala to be translated & legalized. I am hoping that we can submit everything but this for now, since techinally the one that we have on file with my attorney to give CNA is technically still current, until May 20th...the fingerprints anyway. It is just not certified & authenticated....or translated, ect...so I dont know what they will do? So it could be mid april before all of this is done and back to them in CNA, and if they dont look through our file before that it will then be 6 weeks after that. I feel like they are constantly giving us some kind of a stall tactic. Although, I am praying that what Roberto has now he can present & have them start reviewing our file... he wont get the documents I sent him on Monday until next week, and then he has to have those translated and then legalized...so at the minimum our paperwork wont go into the CNA until the last week of March.

So far only one other family has made it through CNA enough to be able to take their child home. I know that because this is a new process and they are still fine tuning things, there will be some delays..but seriously!! Uuugghhh.

It is hard not being in Guatemala and staying on top of everyone the whole time making sure they do their job. I am hoping that we can go in May for our empathy study, although it seems that many are waiting to get this scheduled. Everyone's cases are different, so they require different things from each file depending on the situation...if they need to look further into something or need further proof of something. We just recently found out that our I171H form has to be notarized, certified, translated, and legalized....through my yahoo group I am apart of. Almost everyone in that group has a case that will potentially be a transition case with the CNA.

I wish I could trust someone 100% to have our best interest at heart!!

As far as I know, and I will call Roberto to confirm today, we are still waiting for th judge to sign off on our resolution; apparently it has been on her desk since the week I was in Guatemala..waiting for her to sign it. Then when we met with Mr Tecu he said we needed to fill out an offical application for the CNA....which he sent us downstairs to get, although..they had no idea what he was talking about. Roberto said he was waiting to get the application from Mr Tecu's assistant, we will see...

I had my nephews stay the night last night, one woke up at 5:45AM this morning and wanted to have his diaper changed, his "milkie" refilled and some cheerio's in a baggie and watch Sponge Bob Square Pants. IT is moments like that, that I realize that I am losing out on precious momements with Mateo. My girls went to preschool at 3 & 4, and I dont know if I can handle sending him to preschool..when I never even got to experince his "baby" stage. To me, he is still a baby. I was dreaming about Mateo when Doug woke me up saying that someone was up walking around this morning. I miss him so much! I am calling the orphanage today to see if the girls and I can talk with Mateo through the webcam.

Today I am spending the day scrapebooking all of my pictures of Mateo. I am tryng to get an entire album done for each visit trip...as of now, I have the one I did in March of last year, but still have to do July of last year and the one this month.

Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers. I never imagined another summer would go by. I pray that we dont have to miss another Halloween, Thanksgiving, & Christmas! We have missed so much already. I assumed my paperwork would already be at the CNA, and now it looks like it may be end of the month before it is submitted on a good note, or April..if it takes longer. With the way things go in Guatemala...you want to figure longer than shorter, so you dont get your hopes up to high.

I wonder how much I have to pray & be a servant to God for him to help speed this process up. I know we have had many GodWinks along the way, although not without a price, that price is time away from my son.

Val

Our video of pix for the trip

2009-03-09T13:52:00.001-05:00

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I am home!

2009-03-09T13:32:00.000-05:00

Well I am back in Kansas! I took Mateo back to the orphanage on Friday at noon. It went fine, no crying... he was excited to see the nanneies there waiting for him. That made the transition easy. Then he turned me to me and wanted me to hold him again, which made me happy! Then headed off to the airport and then back to Kansas! Doug and the girls were waiting for me when I got off the plane, which I love!

I am going to Topeka tomorrow to Authenticate a docmuent that I need to get to Houston to have authenticated and then onto Guatemala. I didnt know I had to have the KBI background checks done too! So we got the marriage license back and authenticated so I will send all three back to Roberto so he can have them translated and then legalized in Guatemala and then back to Mr Tecu, so they can start their review process!

It hit me yesterday that Mateo's life could have been so different if he were to stay in Guatemala. The issues with the birth mother and no father, would have basically been a guaranteed push onto the streets. While I was there I saw little kids, about 5 or so with their faces painted , juggling and dressed up like clowns running around through traffic trying to make money. I saw kids run up to sell phone cards, wash our windows, and just even begging for money. Most kids do not have an education past elementry school, because they have to work to make money. It showed me that I can do so much more to help, and made my heart ache because I knew no matter what I do, it wont be enough.

He has changed me in so many ways, this whole experience has changed me! I cant tell you how much I just want to bring him home, wrap him in my arms and say , " you will always be loved, provided for, you will never want for food & or a drink, you will always have a safe & warm home, and you will have a life of endless possibilites. " He will melt your heart, as all the kids there do!

I am starting a non for profit charity to help raise money for Mateo's orphanage as well as hosting Parties for a Purpose. I will be hosting Arbonne parties throughout the year to raise money for Mateo's orphanage as they get no funding for the government to take care of the kids. Everything they have it all from donations.

Adopting Mateo was initally because I wanted a son, and now I realize that God intended for him to be in our lives. He knew that he would do great things, whether it be through him, through our journey, or experinces with all that is involved in adoptions. Mateo's name means "the gift". He is a gift to our family in so many ways. He and his 2 year old life have already changed me forever!!

Hugs, Val

Last night with Mateo here in Guatemala on this visit trip

2009-03-05T22:10:00.000-06:00

Well I just got Mateo to go to sleep...it took awhile. He wanted me to hold him, then I sang to him, and then I just laid down with him and held his hand until he fell asleep. As I am laying with him holding his hand, and kissing on his little hands I realize that it will be another few months before I get to do that again. His little hands still smell like the banana I gave him before bed time.

I hate that he will think that I left him again and be confused. He has been so attached to me all week. If we are sitting by ourselves he will sit and eat his food in his high chair, although if other people are sitting with his, he has to sit on my lap.

Today I took him to get his hair cut, and got to keep his hair so I can put in his baby book. He cried the whole time. This older lady in the hair salon got onto me in spanish because he had shorts on. She was trying to tell me that he needed pants on and a long sleeved shirt. I thought it was suppose to be warm the whole time, so all I brought were summer type clothes. I guess even in the summer they dress kids very warm. Oh, well... His hair cut was alittle shorter than I liked but it was still cute! Hopefully when I come back for the empathy study it will be grown back out!

We went to dinner with a few other couples that I have met. They have children also at the same orphanage that Mateo was at initally. They are both using the same agency I am too. They will be taking their kids home with them this next week, which I am so excited for them!

I miss Doug and the girls and need to get home to them, but feel pulled to be with Mateo. This is so hard. We have really gotten close this week. We have our little routines; he eats a banana and drinks his juice in the morning and watches cartoons while I get showered, he gets all of his clothes on and then goes and grabs his shoes and sits right down so I can get them on, he pushes the buttom to go up and down the elevator, he wants me to hold him while we pick out our breakfast in the buffet line, he gets excited when we get to our room and jumps up and down, he touches my face while his eyes open and shut as he goes to sleep..so many memories and still months to wait to bring him home with his forever family!!

We are leaving the hotel tomorrow at noon to take him back to the orphanage and then head off to the airport..

Till we meet again!!

Mateo got his haircut this morning..

2009-03-05T11:01:00.001-06:00

After breakfast we went to take Mateo to get his haircut. I am not sure that he liked it too much, as he cried the whole time. I had the front desk guy here at the Barcelo write a note that I could give to the hair stylist so she would know not to cut it too short, as I liked his curls. She still cut it shorter than I wanted her to. They gave me the hair that they cut off. So I can put that in his baby book. Then we went to the kids play area and colored for a little bit. I am waiting for his to warm up a little so we can go and swim..hopefully here in a bit!
One of the older ladies that was waiting to have her nails done at the salon told me in spanish that I needed to have pants on Mateo instead of shorts, too funny! I didnt bring pants, only shorts, as I thought it would be hot here. I guess even when it is hot they still dress the kids very warm here.

We are getting ready to go walk around downstairs and blow some bubbles while we wait for it to warm up!

Update after the appointment today with Mr Tecu in CNA

2009-03-04T17:36:00.000-06:00

Well I went today to meet with The Central Authority. I met with Mr. Tecu. He was a lot younger than what I expected. He looked about 36 or so.. He was very nice. Serious, but nice. Roberto, my attorney first started by explaining our whole situation to him. Then showed him some of the documents that he wanted to see; the DNA test, the correct birth certificate from the birth mom, the paper from the courts, ect. Then after he had an idea of our situation he explained what we would be expecting. He said that it was very important to know that I have visited three times now with Mateo in person. He says that one of the most important things for the C N A is that they know that we have built a relationship with the child, mainly by having quality time spent with him. This made me feel bad for the other families that needed to be transition cases as well, but didn’t know that they needed to go on visits to see their child to build this relationship for proof. Many cannot afford to do this.
He said that there are families in Guatemala that want to adopt children and that they would typically have them have first choice, although since we have proof that we have built a relationship with Mateo, that it is very likely that we will be linked to him. He said there have been no transition cases that have been denied through the C N A when there has been proof of a relationship that has been built with the child; pictures, video’s, ect..time spent with the child. He said that the C N A is not trying to be an obstacle for adoptive parents, but they are wanting to work with us to make sure that the best interest of the child is served. He said that there has been so much corruption that, that is why they are now working with adoptive parents for these transition cases.
So for us this is what he said: Fill out an application with the Central Authority requesting to start the adoption process of Mateo with the C N A. ( He said we will not be able to go through PGN and that Roberto needed to tell them that.) Get a letter from the Embassy attesting to our valid I 171 H form (which I presented him the original to him that day, but he still wanted the letter from the Embassy). I explained to him that I had tried to email and call about 20 times with no response, and he told my attorney to contact another person, I don’t know the name..Roberto wrote it down and told me that he knows this person and will make sure that we get it. He also said he needs to the Minors Court to take out the part in the resolution that recommends Doug and I for adopting Mateo because it wasn’t their decision. So Roberto is doing that part. Then he said we just need to submit the documents for the C N A dossier, which are the requirements I had already gotten done. They are being translated and will be done on Friday. We will submit those and then once he has all the paperwork, which he said to hurry and get to him…that it would take about 6 weeks for them to go through our paperwork and that they have to check and make sure Doug & I had nothing to do with the falsified birth certificate of the birth mother. Then once that is done, they will schedule an empathy study. This is where Doug & I will come to Guatemala for 7 days and keep Mateo with us. Then we will have a social worker meet with us a few times to watch us with Mateo and ask us a few questions. They said they will work with us on the timing of this empathy study…he said we would have about a 3 week notice. Then once the empathy study is done we have two options. We can take custody of Mateo then and stay with him in Guatemala until the adoption is complete, or we can have him go back to the orphanage until we do the final pickup. From the time the empathy study is done, he says it takes about 3 to 4 months before we pick him up.
He said that once the empathy study is done, the C N A general director will have to approved the resolution for us to adopt Mateo. Then the file goes to the family court, and it is there for about 4 to 6 weeks. Then the file will go to ReNap where they will issue a birth certificate with our name on it, and then it will go to immigration and then to the US Embassy where we will get his visa and then take him home.
So in a perfect world, the paperwork that we have to submit will be to the C NA by the end of next week, and then they will review it for 6 weeks, an empathy study will be scheduled..so maybe in May or so, and then we will go for the empathy study. Once that is done we will have about a 3 to 4 month wait before we will officially be able to bring him home.
So I am thinking it will be August, or September. Sounds like a long time, but at least I have time frames, which I haven’t had this whole time. I did ask how many transition cases there were in C N A and he said that he couldn’t tell me because that information was confidential.
So tomorrow I have all day here at the hotel, we will probably veg out at the pool for the day. We are meeting another couple for dinner here in about 25 minutes.
Xoxo, val

Birthday Dinner

2009-03-03T20:06:00.001-06:00

Mateo & i ordered pizza for his birthday at the resturant here and then had a cake that the resturant made him. We had a great time , even if we were by ourselves..
Right as we were getting ready to leave me saw another adoptive family that have a daughter at the first orphanage where Mateo was. We had them sat with us for about 30 minutes or so and caught up while they ate. We are meeting again tomorrow for dinner with another couple from that same orphange that are also staying here.

Tomorrow we are getting Mateo's hair cut alittle, as it is quite long in the back. Then we will do some fingerpainting, play at the pool, and then probably have a little nap before I go to the CNA. Claudia will come here to play with Mateo while I am with Roberto at the CNA. Then we have dinner with the other two couples tomorrow at 6PM..

I have been so lucky to meet all of these families that I have been talking to for so long over the phone and emails, on this trip!

Till tomorrow!

Had a great day today!!

2009-03-03T14:10:00.000-06:00

Today was Mateo's 2nd birthday! He slept 10 hours last night, and I had to wake him up this morning to get up to eat breakfast. He had eggs, french toast, rice crispies & milk, strawberries, and orange juice. He fed himself mostly. Then we went to the zoo! He didnt want to get into the stroller. He wanted me to hold him the whole time...so it was a bit tiring for me. :) We then went to the local market place to look at gifts for his sisters, and got them two things each. Mateo was happy to be walking at this point as he was sucking on a sucker the whole time. Then we went to Mc Ds for for lunch. He had a chicken nugget happy meal again, and then the employees came over and sang him happy birthday & gave him a cheesecake thing with chocolate on it. He liked that. He hasnt done to well with the chicken nuggets, so we probably will have to do something different tomorrow. We played in the toy area, and at first he was nervous but after we went up once he liked it and wanted to do it again.

When we got back to our room, he wanted to play and dance. We listen to music and dance, he loves music! He is sooo funny! We had to call Doug because he shocked me!! I was saying "eyes, nose, mouth, ect.." and he repeated me and pointed to the correct parts. Over and over again he said the correct names in english. He will repeat what I say. When I was changing his diaper I said " you have a stinky tushie.." THen he would say "tushie, tushie" and laugh!! I love it!

Right now he is laying on the bed trying to nap while reading books. We read some, but he likes to lay there and look at them too! So I will lay with him for awhile and then will update again tonight!

I have Mateo with me!!

2009-03-02T18:07:00.000-06:00

Today was a busy day!! I got up early to meet with Claudia. We got the letter at Minors COurt from the judge to have permission for me to have Mateo with me while I am here this week. It took about 45 minutes for the judge to get there and then another hour and 1/2 wait for the clerk to type the letter. I am not sure what took so long?? Anyway, we got it! We then went to pick up Mateo. He is soo sweet! He came running up to me and said Ma -Ma, and hugged my legs! All of the kids came running up and hugged me too! I brought cracker jacks and the kids couldnt get enough of them. Seriously, these little kids are so sweet!! You just want to take them all! We stayed there for awhile and then took Mateo with us. We had to drop off document to the translator to get translated, she will have them all done by friday.

I came back to my Hotel to get money out to give my attorney, but the atm kept declining my debit card??? I even drove to another place and it still wouldnt work?? So finally we drove to the bank and they swiped it with the machine and then I was able to get money out. Apparently you cant take out more than $120 a day with the ATM. I didnt know that so I was putting it in for more, and thats why. Nothing like being in another country without a working debit card and my husband not here with me! Luckily we got it all worked out and got my attorney the money he needed and me what I needed. although, we still could only take out $500 a day?? Crazy...
We drove through drive through at McD's to get mateo a happy meal, as it was already 2:00 by the time we did all of this running around to the ATM;s and banks. Claudia and Roberto took me back to my hote and I fed Mateo. While we were running around he had drank two juices I had brought, well...needless to say Mateo broke me in good with the EXPLOSION he left me to clean up! It was apparent he needed a bath!! And I needed housekeeping to come and change my bedding, wash his clothes, change the trash, and spray some air freshner!! I put him in the bath, which he loved!!! He kept taking his little sand pail scoop and putting water in it and throwing it up in the air and yelling "Agua!!". Then he would laugh. The bathroom was soaked! I have alot of it on video and camera!

Then we played for a bit with some of his toys and decided to go down to the pool. We only stayed for about 20 minutes as he wasnt that interested in it. A little nervous. He looked cute in his shorts though! Then we went back inside and looked through some of the shops at the hotel. A woman gave him a little rattle thing and he liked that!

Then we came back up to the room and plated with bubbles, trucks, dinosaurs, and these little toys animals I brought. He colored his first picture for me!! THen wanted to try and "taste" the crayon. Then wanted to color on the tv cabinet. Too funny!! He threw a little tantrum when I said no and took the crayon away. That was cute, had to video that!! :) He loved the monkey I brought. He had the little baby one when he was little at the first orphanage. He kissed it, hugged it, pointed to its mouth and tried to feed it a cracker. He wrestled it and when I would try to move it, he got upset, he wanted to hold it, wrap it in a blanket and hug it.

Right now he is sleeping with it and his blankie. He looks so sweet! We will go have dinner later this evening downstairs just to get out of the room.

Tomorrow we will go to the zoo for Mateo's birthday and then have pizza! We will probably veg out at the pool after that, and then to a nap in the room. We have all day tomorrow with not alot to do, so it will be nice!!

If DOug and the girls were here , it would be perfect!! I will keep you updated day to day and with pix that I have taken!!

I made it to Guatemala

2009-03-01T20:27:00.000-06:00

I am sitting here at the hotel just anticipating my visit to get Mateo tomorrow! Claudia from Gladney will be picking me up in the morning to take me to the courts right when they open to meet with my attorney and hopefuly get a letter from the judge saying that Mateo can stay with me this week during my visit. There were some issues with another adoptive parent at Mateo's orphanage and because of that the director of the orphanage is requiring that we have a court order to be able to take him with me. So I am praying that we can! It will be hard not have him with me all week, but if all I can do is visit him at his orphanage, than that is what I will do. I had the chance to talk with the director last Thursday and was able to see Mateo on webcam again and talk with her about my trip. Everything went well, so hopefully it will all be good. I am praying that we get the resolution while I am here so we can present that to Mr Tecu in Central Authority. We have an apt with him to present him my case on Wednesday at 2:30. Claudia from Gladney is going to come here to the hotel to play with Mateo while I go.

For Mateo's birthday on Tuesday, Claudia is taking Mateo & I to the zoo and then to have pizza at Chucky Cheese. We will probably spend the rest of the day at the pool here at the hotel.

I will upload some pix tomorrow evening once everything gets settled ect.. Till tomorrow!!

YEAH!!! Finally good news!

2009-02-11T16:49:00.000-06:00

I talked with our attorney, ROberto today and he said the resolution was done and was being signed by Judge Mena today! He held it in his hands and read it himself!! He said he will be picking it up on Friday and presenting it to Mr Tecu at The Central Authority on Friday! Then scheduling an appointment to meet with him next week to discuss what we need to do to start the process. We have almost all the docs needed for CNA that I have been told I need by my yahoo group friends that are also transistion cases.
I had conacted the state senator last week and received a call from them over the weekend. They are planning to call the US Consolate today to have them request to have the letter I need from the Embassy sent to Mr. Tecu. So things are moving yeah!!!
Got update pix of Mateo and he look so big and happy! I am booking my flight to Guatemala tonight and there is a possibility tat Doug will come with me! If we can work it out with the girls sports schedules, and their cattle "stuff". Otherwise I talked with Claudia from Guatemala that works with Gladney and she said she will take me to and from places I need to go, take me shopping, ect. We are having a birthday party for Mateo with his friends on that Tuesday, so we will need to get a pinata' and toys for the kids. We will either order pizza or have McDs happy meals brought in, and get a cake! cant wait!! Mateo here I come! Keep us in your prayers! val

Busy day

2009-02-09T22:02:00.000-06:00

I am planning my trip to visit Mateo in March for his 2nd birthday!! I cant wait! I booked my hotel today, and will be purchasing my flight this week when I find a flight that works... I cant tell you how excited I am to spend time with Mateo by myself! I am going to get him his first swimming trunks so he can swim in the pool with me. There is a zoo next to the hotel so we will be taking a trip there too! I will get in on Sunday early enough so that I can go get all the supplies ready for Mateo's birthday party at the orphanage with his friends. I am getting a pinita' . Apparently he loves dum-dum suckers, so I am going to buy a couple of bags to put in the piniata' along with snack crackers, gummies, ect.. CAN YOU TELL I AM EXCITED! I know this trip will make things start moving for us, I can feel it. I have to do some birthday shopping for him this weekend, and for Adyson too. His birthday is on the 3rd and hers is on the 10th.

I will be scheduling an appointment to meet with Sr Tecu at the CNA and also with the judge. I was told that our resolution was almost ready, but the orphanage director today. So that was good news! Also, our senators office called and they are contacting the US consolate to help me to get a letter that I need for my file once my case is submitted into the CNA.

God will provide for us. I have turned this over to him. I have good days and bad days, but in my heart I feel mateo coming closer to us..and home! Keep us in your prayers!!! Val

Update on our NON PROGRESS???

2009-01-31T21:39:00.000-06:00

I have had so many asking me lately what is the newest with Mateo?? Well as of now, still nothing has changed. I was told by both my attorney and Dinora from the orphanage that Minors Court still hasnt had time to do a revision and printing of my final resolution. We need this in order to move forward into The Central Authority. They said they just started working on resolutions this month ( Jan). Apparently because of the month long holiday they all took from mid Dec through mid Jan, that affected the process.. As of now I have no idea when we will get it. Dinora mentioned possibly in two weeks, I dont know if that is what they told her, or what she assumes? Dinora has been very helpful with following up on our case, which I didnt realize she was going weekly getting updates, ect. So that is good. She also has a webcam and we have been able to talk with Mateo on ours to him a few times. He is so sweet, he has said ma-ma, and Hola! He has also laughed outloud! His 2nd birthday is March 3rd, and I am planning a trip on the 1st of March by myself for his birthday. We just got back from Hawaii about a week and 1/2 ago, so I dont think DOug will be able to go with me. The girls are doing basketball tournaments on the weekends now, and with having to care for the cattle every night, it just wouldnt be feasible for him to come with me. He doesnt like that I am talking about going without him, but anyone that knows me , knows I am stubborn when it comes to doing what I want when it is regarding my son. My 32nd birthday is this next month and all I want for my birthday is to see my son, and to have some progress. This last week or so has been very difficult for me. My best friend and Mateo's godmother was diagnosed with cancer. She will be okay, starts her treatments this week. It just puts into prespective how precious every moment is and how important it is to not take anything or anyone for granted. Mateo is in my thoughts all day. I see little babies I think of him. I see a toddler, I think of him. I see a cute little boy, or cute little outfit or toy, I choke back tears. I have had to walk away a few times from people that had a little baby in their arms, because I am having a harder time fighting back the emotions. The longer it takes the more I realize just how much of his life I have already missed. I see my best friends little guy and all the cute things he says and does, and realize that Mateo is doing all of those things too, only I am not there to see them. I am soooo blessed to have two beautiful daughters here at home that I can love and hug on all day. How can I be so blessed, and grateful , but them so sad and frustrated at the same time? Sometimes I wonder if this is my fault because we made the decision for DOug to have a vastecomy years ago, and its my punishment. That maybe this is just something that I will always have to hope an yearn for. THen I struggle with being mad at myself, because I believe that God provides. I know that I have to put it in GOds hands. ALthough, it is hard because nothing has happend for so long. I feel like we have been taking one baby step foward, and then 10 leaps back. I feel selfish because I want and need him here. I feel like until that happens, there will always be a big hole in my heart that no one else will be able to fill.
People as me why dont I just try to adopt another child? They dont realize that he is my son. I am his mom. I love HIM. He is suppose to be here with us. He is suppose to be able to enjoy his own room with his little crib and baby bedding, and all of his own toys waiting for him. I realize that this could quite possibly be the 3rd summer that I miss with him, and that only leaves another 15 more summers.
I know I am rambling, you can imagine poor Doug having to try to keep me in good spirits. If it wasnt for my faith, my family, my friends, and my business..I would probably be a crying mess everyday.
God, please wrap your arms around little Mateo. Keep him safe. Let him know just how much he is loved & protected. God please keep him in the thoughts & heart of those that are making the decisions & have the ability to move our case forward, and bring him home to his family soon. Give DOug & I the strength to continue to grow our faith in you, and to be the best parents that we can be for Rylie & Adyson. Give DOug & I the courage to do whatever we need to do to bring our son home. Amen.

No Answer from my attorney yet, once again..we are waiting

2009-01-07T22:18:00.000-06:00

We were told by our attorney that he should have our final verdict report back from the judge on Dec 29th, and then he said he should have it in his hands no later than Jan 2nd. Well it is now Jan 7th, and still no news... I am not sure if he is on vacation or what?? So once again I feel like nothing is being done.

I had emailed other adoptive parents through a yahoo group I am apart of that are in the same situation as me. Most of them are already in The Central Authority and have their paperwork there and have been waiting for about 3 months or more... Apparently no one at the CA speaks english, so I will have to have someone call for me to translate if I want to call them directly. Although, until they receive my file they cant help me, which of course I cant have my attorney submit without this report. One parent said that the 4 month estimated time that I was given by another adoptive parent for the start and completion of the CNA process , was not likely. She said she has been in there since Aug of last year, and just this week got notice of her empathy study scheduled.

I have to say I am very frustrated. I feel like this is never going to happen. I have faith in God. I believe that Mateo is suppose to be home with us, but still we wait. I dont get that. This little boy has spent his first two years in an orphanage. He has had a family to love him and willing to take care of him since he was a month and 1/2 old.

I feel so helpless. I feel like my hands are tied and I am not doing anything to help him come home. I cant call anyone that can speak to me in english, I cant get the embassey to reply by email or phone to my emails or calls, I dont know someone "who knows the right persons" that can help..

We are planning to take a trip to see Mateo for his 2nd birthday the 1st week of March. I think Doug stresses about the cost of all of this. He loves Mateo , he wants him home, but so far there hasnt been too many lights at the end of a VVEERRYYY long tunnel.

I go in his room and straighten his bed, as the girls always go in there and mess around. I vaccuum his room weekly, I made Doug set up his little tool set he got for his baby shower back in Sept of 07. I go in there and try to imagine that there will be a day that Mateo is able to see his room , and play in there. I look at the changing table, his diaper genie, his little towel hoodie, his superman bandaids, and think that more than likely by the time he gets here, he will have outgrown those things.

I received alot of pictures from my agency the other day and I will add those to my blog. I have been having computer issues lately, so we will see if I can do that.
I leave on Sunday for Hawaii, I was hoping to have some news that we were entered into The Central Authority before we left...but we will see...

I am sorry to be Debbie Downer, but I feel numb. My heart aches for him, I feel like I havent had a normal day in a long time. There is this void there, that can only be filled by his presence here , home where he belongs.

Please pray for us. We all need alot of strength and courage to continue our fight to bring Mateo home. He is our son. We love him and will continue to fight to bring him home.

Good Night and I will post when I hear any kind of an update... Val

We got good news yesterday!

2008-12-24T07:24:00.000-06:00

I got an email from my attorney yesterday and he said that the clerk at Minors Court woudl have my "final verdict report" done by the 29th of Dec. He said he should have it no later than Jan. 2nd! SO I am working on getting all the things that I know I need to do for The Central Authority now, so when I am submitted and my attorney talks with Jamie Tecu ( the 3rd in charge at The Central Authority)I will have as much already in hand as they need. SO I am trying to get it all together by this weekend.

I bought a webcam & headset yesterday so I could see Mateo!! I was so excited! I set up an account with MSN Messenger Live and I was able to talk with Mateo, he was able to see the girls & Doug & I. Since for some reason the volume wasnt working we had to type back and fourth. I saw him laugh, and smile. I cant wait to see that everyday.

We mailed a BIG Chistmas package to our agency so they could bring it for us last week. He was playing with the toys we bought him. I bought alot of clothes for him to wear, and then lots of toys for all the kids at the orphanage.

I am planning to see him for his birthday the first week in March, and would love to be able to have that trip count as our empathy study that we have to have while there.

I am praying that we get him home before summer! So he will be a little over two, but it looks promising. I am told once we are submitted into The cental Authority, it is taking about 4 months. Maybe if I get everything needed done ahead of time, I wont have to wait so long???

I will also post the new pix I got of Mateo... Please keep us in your prayers... Have a Merry Christmas! Val

Still waiting....not very patiently though

2008-11-04T17:38:00.000-06:00

Well it is that time of year, again. When you think you will have your first Christmas with your child..and yet, another holiday season will go by without my son here with us. Our 11 month long investigation in Minors Court was dismissed on Sept 22nd, and we thought surely we would have this "verdict" that is needed to be able to present to either PGN or The central Authority, whoever we end up going to...to say that the investigation was offically closed. I dont know what the hold up is. My attorney keeps saying that it is not done yet and that if it isnt in by the end of this week, than we will have to wait until mid-December. I remember last year when we were told that PGN shuts down basically from mid-NOv to mid Dec for holiday vacations for thier staff. I am tired of just accepting answers. I want my son home. I dont know what else I can phyiscally do. We have paid money out the ying-yang to everyone who wants paid for one service or another, and we have been twice to Guatemala to see Mateo, and I so want to go in December..although, I dont know if it will work out.

What is their deal???? I just try to stay busy and keep my mind off things not moving, but Mateo turned 20 months old yesterday, seriously...when are we going to get him home? I have talked with others in similar situations that are 6 years into the process. I just cannot believe that our US government wouldnt intervene and do something about this. I wish I knew someone who knew someone who could move mountains. I have been praying, I have faith that he will be home, but I dont know how long I will have to wait for my little boy to come home to his family.

It is just one of those days...

Newest Update from Our Attorney

2008-10-01T21:30:00.000-05:00

My attorney emailed me today to let me know that the director of the orphanage my son is at, said that we need to start paying for Mateo's care. I was told initally that we shouldnt do it because it could cause problems with our case? At that time it was in Minors Court still..now that it is not, I dont know if it would affect us negatively in anyway if I did pay. They want us to pay $350 a month..which I can do, but I want to make sure this is what I am suppse to do. I was told that Minors Court didnt give our orphanage any monies for his care the whole time he has been there since May. From what I have read and heard, I know that The Central Authority wants us to show "proof" of our connection to Mateo ( pictures, receipts, ect..) I didnt know if this would just help show that we do want him and have done everything we can to care for him as much as we physically could during these last 19 months.

Also, I talked with my attorney yesterday and he said that he would still represent me privately until I get Mateo home. He said that The Central authority doesnt make us have an attorney, as this is part of the new law?? I was initally nervious that I wouldnt have my attorney or an attorney for that matter helping me, since I am not there..and my attorney is. It is nice to know that he will stick with me.

Roberto said that the new birth certificate of Mateo is the only document pending to obtain the final veredict on my case, as he has delivered the other 2 requested documents, this is to say, the anulled birth entry of Mateo of Amatitlán's Civil Registry and the Report of Amatitlán's National Hospital certifying the he was indeed born there. The caretaker at Mateo's orphanage is taking him to a clinic tomorrow for the clinical test ordered to determine his age for his original birth entry was anulled by the judge, as I had explained to you. This is the last document that we have to have for the final verdict in Minors COurt to be done and then Roberto can take all of the documents to The Central Authority...hopefully that is all done this week so we can get this all moving.

I will keep you all up to date as I hear anything else...xoxo, val

YEAH!!! Newest Update from Court Hearing yesterday!

2008-09-23T16:34:00.001-05:00

I talked with Roberto today and he said the Minors COurt did release the investigation and closed the case. So, they are writing up their final verdict and when Roberto gets that he will take that along with a copy of our dossier ( he has to go to PGN to get a certified copy)and then our original registration form for the Central Authority that we had to apply for back in Feb. He will then have to register me again with The Central Authorty so that I can be "offically " linked to Mateo now that I will no longer be able to go through with the new law. Although I wont have to wait until the new law opens adoptoins either, because I guess The Central Authority has what they call "transitory" cases where those of us that cant do the old law even though we were grandfathered in because of complications with paperwork, ect.. and we we wont have to wait until the new law is in place in Guatemala...they will allow us to proceed and complete our adoptions. I am told that The Central Authority is wanting to"clean house" and get all of the in process cases completed so that when they new law comes into process they will be able to only do that. so that is good, because they want to complete this too. I am told that there will be like 11 things we have to do that were similar to our dossier..pretty easy stuff that we have to get for The Central Authority, and then they will schedule an "empathy period" where DOug and I amd possibly the girls will have to go to Guatemala for a week to a week and 1/2 to have a social worker meet iwth us, ect and then after that it will go to court and that is when they will offically grant us the parents of Mateo. Once that is done our file goes to the US Embassey in Guatemala so we can get his VISA and then bring him home..which I am old can take about 4 weeks or so, so it looks like Dec or Jan...on bringing Mateo home as long as everything goes as I was told.

I will keep you all posted. I am also going to post pictures of Mateo from the court hearing today...with my attorney and his caretaker. He looks like he has a bite on his cheek.

Thank you for all of your prayers!! Valerie

Update...countdown for Tuesdays news!!

2008-09-18T22:49:00.000-05:00

Good Evening,
I wanted to let you all know that our last court hearing for Mateo is Monday at 2:00 in Guatemala City. My attorney emailed me today and said he has everything that we need to present to the judge on Monday. The positive DNA Match was sent directly to the court a week and ½ ago. The correct birth certificate for the birth mom was re issued and Roberto has that and will present it to the judge on Monday.

I am praying for a miracle. This has been such a long process, Mateo is now 18 months old. We were assigned to him when he was only a month and ½ old. I was at an arbonne training coference in April of 2007 when I saw his pictures through email for the first time. Our family has had to watch our son/brother grow up in pictures and video. I have been blessed to have been able to visit Mateo in Guatemala, on his first birthday in March of this year, and again in July. We will definitely go back in December if we have not brought him home by then.

Little Mateo has grown up in orphanages all of his life. His first one was in Antigua, Guatemala of which he lived there from birth until May of this year. In May the courts had him removed from the home and he has been at the orphanage he is in now since then, living in Guatemala City. I know Mateo is healthy, happy, and well cared for. He is a big boy, with beautiful curly brown hair. He has full lips, a mouth full of teeth, and soft little hands. He has a raspy voice, and loves to kick around a ball. I am told he would do that all day if he could. He apparently does not miss any meals!  This little guy is my inspiration and has kept me going strong through many hard times. I can’t begin to tell you the journey that we have faced, because it is so long. The one thing I can tell you is this little guy has a family that loves him very much. He has two little sisters that pray for his swift return every night as they lay down to bed, and again in the morning in their school petitions.

As we come up on Monday , a very BIG day for us…I ask you again to keep us and Mateo in your thoughts and prayers. I will know on Tuesday what the update is. Where we go from here….

Thank you all again for supporting me, it really means so much! Xoox, valerie

New pictures of Mateo!!

2008-08-31T22:45:00.000-05:00

A sweet women I met online has a daughter that is at the same orphanage as Mateo. She visit her daughter last week and took pictures of Mateo for me as well as delivered some clothes and toys I brought for him. I cannot wait to get him home! He is so darling, I cant even begin to tell you how amazing it will be to have my son home! I will be calling Roberto tomorrow to get an updates that he has on our case, as far as I know we are still waiting for the DNA test. We had to update our homestudy to get an extention on our I-600 form, so we are waiting for our KBI, SRS, and FBI Background checks to come back and then when those are in they can schedule another homestudy and then we will have to expidiate it to make sure it is delivered to the CIS office in KS before the end of Sept. Ours expires in Sept, and if they dont have it then we will hav eto apply again, which costs us another $685 and 3 months of waiting.... I sent it in July but didnt get notice that we had to have a homestudy update done until a week ago....so Doug and I have been busy getting physicals, ect ...so we are just waiting to get the background checks back so we can proceed here. I would hate to be done on that end and then have to wait here beause of a glitch here in the US on our side.... Keep us in your prayers! xxo, val

New photos of Mateo today!

2008-08-20T21:57:00.000-05:00

The Gladney Center was able to have their Guatemalan representative, Claudia go to the orphanage on the 14th of August to get pictures of Mateo...he is getting so big! He looks great, believe me, the Sept. 22nd court hearing cannot come soon enough! We are having to get an extention on our I-600 form, this will be good for another 18 months. Although just got notice today in the mail from USCIS that they will not do an extention until we do another homestudy update, as in the state of KS the are very strict and want a new one every 6 months....even though our homestudy doesnt expire until Nov of 2008....so another $400! I will look forward to the day we have Mateo home and all of these kinds of things are done....

Below is the written update I got today from the Gladney rep....
& I will also attach pictures...

CHILD REPORT
Guatemala

Date of Visit: August 14, 2008

Name of Adoptive Family: EDWARDS

New Child’s Name: Mateo

Name of Child: David Manuel Morales

Age: 1 year 6 month (Born March 3, 2007)

Report completed by: Claudia, in-country representative

Description of Daily Routine:
a. Sleeping: Mateo sleeps in a room with other 5 kids that are more or less the same age. He sleeps in a crib. He goes to bed at 7:00 p.m. and sleeps the whole night until 6:00 a.m. Mateo naps after his lunch for 1 to 1 ½ hour. The rest of the day he’s awake.

b. Eating: Mateo drinks 8 ounces of Nido (Nestle) Growing formula mixed with a Guatemalan cereal named Incaparina.. He also drinks water once a day. For breakfast Mateo eats rice cereal with spoon, black blended beans with bread or scrambled egg. He eats a snack around 10:30 a.m. For lunch (12:30 p.m.) eats veggies mixed with chicken or beef. Mateo eats dinner at 5:30 p.m. and drinks a bottle before going to bed. Mateo also eats noodles, rice and tortilla. He’s a good eater.

c. Bathing: He takes a daily bath around 9:00 a.m. He likes water.

d. Health and Measurements: At his Aug. check up, he weighed 22 pounds, measured 78 cms. and had a head circumference of 45 cms.

He has 2 bowel movements per day.
Mateo has had good health but today he’s having a little runny nose.
He has 4 bottom and 4 upper teeth.

Mateo is well adapted at his new Home
He gets along well with the rest of the children at the Home.
He likes to play with a book that you brought him.
At the beginning of my visit he was a little shy but after few minutes he started to play ball.

We are still waiting...

2008-08-18T10:36:00.000-05:00

I tried to call our attorney today to see if the DNA test has come back...I wasnt able to get ahold of him. Hopefully later today I can. I did get new pictures of Mateo from the director of the orphanage. He looks happy, and healthy! This time of the year is always hard for me, I know that once again school has started, he still is not here , and then Christmas time comes shortly after that....I pray that he will be a miracle and we are blessed enough to get through all of this in a timely fashion and bring him home by Christmas!!! I will keep you posted! Valerie

Newest Update

2008-08-06T12:53:00.000-05:00

I talked with our attorney today. HE is working with a contact in Guatemala that has an attorney in Nicruagua that will be getting the new birth certificate for teh birth mom. She did admit to the judge shortly after we left Guatemala in July that she did indeed falsify her own birth certificate. The judge told my attorney that we should go ahead and start working on getting the correct birth certificate so we can process our paperwork.

He said that we will not know anything until Sept 22nd, when they make a final judgement on the case. I am not sure that will all depend on. I assume of course the DNA has to come back positive, which that should come back here in a few weeks. THen once that is in, I assume they will be doing a further investigation of the file. It sounds like because the file that was grandfathered in will be in question on whether or not to proceed because of the falisifed DOcument. THey have the choice to allow us to proceed with our adoption and separate us from the investigation of the birth mother that will be ongoing because of the falisifed document. Or they can say that this particular file that we have with all the paperwork that we have done up to this point is no longer valid, and we would have to wait until the new adoption laws took place which is suppose to be sometime in January 2009. I am of course hoping that is not the case, and we are allowed to proceed with our adoption of Mateo with the paperwork and file that we have currently. You would think it would make sense , as long as the DNA comes back positive and the correct birth certificate is sumbitted that we would be allowed to proceed...although we dont know if that means we would go back into PGN or if the CEntral Authority would have the last say on our case before we were offically approved.

I cant explain my feelings right now, it is hard to explain them when you have no control over the situation. Maybe a bit numb. THere are times when it is constantly on your mind..we have been doing this with Mateo since May of 2007, so it seems like you ask yourself "will this every be done and he will get to come home?" This is the closest thing I could imagine that there would be like a miscarriage or for a women to find out she cannot have children. THe hope, anxiety, or what will happen, what if, was there more I could have done?? I have the lose of this early years that I have missed out on, and feel like he was cheated as was our family. I know he will blossom when he gets home, it just makes me nervous of how much longer that will be.

This has been so much...lots of ups and downs. THinking we were close just to be back two steps..
I do feel like things are starting to progress with our case, which is better than nothing..but it is still hard.

I talked with the owner of MAteo's orphanage today, she is emailing new pictures of Mateo, so I will post them later this evening. I have an ARbonne show tonight in Manhattan...so I will have 2 1/2 hours in the car to think. Sometimes that is good, it gives me time to clear my head and get back into a good mindset.

SO as of now we are waiting on the DNA test to come back positive...we should know mid-August. We should fund out next week when we start the paperwork or money involved to get the corrected birth certificate for the birth mother.

COntinue to keep little MAteo in your prayers. Us too!! Take care!

Newest Video of Mateo in July

2008-08-03T14:08:00.001-05:00

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Video of our first visit trip

2008-08-03T14:05:00.000-05:00

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Newest Update

2008-07-26T15:14:00.001-05:00

I talked with Roberto , our attorney yesterday...he said that the birth mother did show up for the the DNA test that schduled for 9AM yesterday morning. A representative from Gladney picked her up and took her. So we will get those results back mid August. Roberto also mentioned to us that the birth mother did in fact admit that she had lied about bring born in Guatemala. She said that she was born in Nicuragua. I think whomever facilitated her previous adpotion of the child before Mateo had encouraged her to go through this civil registrar to get the birth certificate for herself redone to say she was born in Guatemala instead of Nicuragua , so they wouldnt have to wait for papers to come back from Nicuragua. I cant imagine that she would know where to even go without some information from someone that was familiar with that kind of a thing. When I talked with the Minors Court they said that the place where she had her birth certificate issued was known to falsify documents...and that is why they pulled our case into Minors COurt Section back in October, because that red flagged our file.

ROberto said that he had coffee with the judge after an appointment with them and she shared with him that we can continue our adoption of Mateo on their side, they will continue to investigate the birth mom. He said the next thing he is to do is to go on MOnday to put a request into the Central authority for us to complete our adoption of Mateo. So we will hear back from them on what is next for us to get him home. ONE really good thing is the Central Authority just moved to the same building where my attorney has his office!! So that means he can build a repore with the staff and go in there often to check on our case, ect... So hopefully I hear something back next week on that.

It sounds like things are good, so I will continue to pray and keep my fingers crossed. It is a weird feeling, I cant explain not having Mateo here. I know it is all a REAL situation because I feel it in my heart and Of course I have spent time with them now two different times. Although, It seems like a daze going that I am in,just going through motions. Sometimes I cant beleive that we have been through all of this. I wonder what Gods purpose of all of this is, what I am suppose to gain from experiencing this. I do know that there is no greater love than the love than the love of a child.( AND GOD OF COURSE!!) I cannot wait for Mateo to love us the way we do for him. I want him to know us. I want the girls to see their brother. I feel like they think this is not real because they havent seen him in person. They have fallen in love with the idea of a brother, one they see in pictures and on video, but until they have experienced his touch, his laughter, his smile, just his presence, I know they are missing out on so much.

I cannot begin to tell you how I want to complete our family offically, and bring him home. Words cannot express the emotion that I will have once we are on the plane and once we are FINALLY IN KC, HOME!!!

Thank you all for keeping our family in your prayers! xoxo,val

Our Wonderful Day with Mateo and a great surprise for Doug & I.

2008-07-16T22:09:00.001-05:00

We got to the orphanage at about 11:00 this morning and Roberto dropped us off and then picked us up around 2:00. Doug & I played with Mateo and all the kids at the orphanage. We were able to see what they do all day and were able to get to know all the staff. We talked with the director and the owner of the orphanage in detail about our case. After talking with us and seeing how DOug and I were with the kids, they trusted us. They offered to our surprise for Mateo to come back to our hotel with us for the night. We were very excited. Doug & I had already rocked Mateo to sleep for his nap after lunch and he was napping while we had to run to Minors Court one last time to sign papers from the meeting yesterday. They made copies for us of the papers and all the details on the court appointment for us to take home.

When we got back we woke Mateo up, they packed a bag with clothes that I had brought him, some diapers, wipes, bottle, formula, a few toys, and we headed out. We stopped at Wendys for lunch as DOug and I hadnt eaten since breakfast and it was already about 3:00. SO Mateo was able to eat french fries, which he loved..and a chocolate frosty. He liked dipping his ketcup in his fries and sucking the ketcup off.
We went back to the hotel for the night. We gave him a bath, which he loved. I hadnt planned on him being here with us for the night so I didnt have any Arbonne baby wash so I had to use my Arbonne stuff. Which was fine..Mateo was able to make bubbles with it. He loved looking at the photo album of himself and us on our visit trip in March for his birthday, and his sisters. We played quite a bit and then we had pizza for dinner..which he loved. He played hide and go seek with daddy, and ran around the room. DOug and I think he might be a bit bow-legged..it is cute. He looks like he just hopped off a horse. After his bottle, a lot of playing and diaper changing...I tried to get him to go to sleep. I rocked him and sang him all the songs that I sing to the girls each night before they go to bed. He liked them but didnt go to sleep. I finally laid him on the bed with me, and every minute or so he would sit back up and look around, and then lay his head down again. Finally Doug laid beside him and got him to go to sleep.

I cant begin to tell you how special this night was for us, and this day for that matter! MAteo is a doll and such a blessing. NO matter the length of the road that we will travel till we finally are able to bring him home, he is SOOOO worth it!

THey are issuing another DNA test and it will be done on Friday of next week. Then it will take about 2 weeks for the results to come back. SO we will know mid August if the DNA test came back positive. The last appointment for the final part of this case in Minors Court will be on Sept. 22nd. THen we should be able to move to the Central Authority for their part of the investigation. We dont know for sure what the details are, probably a month or so we heard today at the Central Authority. Nothing is as fast as we wish it to be. I only hope to get him home as soon as possible. I am praying now for a Thanksgiving or before arrival.

He doesnt have much of a vocabulary right now. He says all the basic things that babies say like ba-bah, ma-ma, and da-da. He said something in the bathtub but I couldnt understand him ..I am pretty sure it was in Spanish. THe girls said their first sentence at 18 months old...I dont think that will be the case for Mateo, but when he gets home and is around our girls for an hour or so, he wont be able to NOT learn how to talk.

I will load some of the pictures we took while with MAteo today...

The director will pick Mateo up at the hotel in the morning at 10AM. Our flight leaves at 12:15. I hope the next time we come is to take him home!!

THank you all for your support! xoxo, val

Our Day in Court

2008-07-15T18:40:00.000-05:00

We arrived at the airport yesterday around 1:30ish..Roberto was waiting for us ( he had tears in his eyes when we saw us!) I realized then just how blessed we were to have him as our attorney. He took us to the hotel to check in...very nice hotel and very affordable. We unpacked and then had a late lunch/dinner. I couldnt sleep at all last night as I was so nervous about today. Literally, I just laid in bed and couldnt shut my mind off.

Roberto picked us up at 9:30AM this morning and we headed to the court appointment. We got there and had to wait for an hour in the hall before we were able to even go in the office sitting area to where we would be seeing the judge of minors. Once we got in, a representative from PGN told Roberto that is was necessary that the birth mother be present during this appointment...this was not told to him or us before this appointment. LUCKILY Roberto called the birth mother , Yessica and he was able to get her to come in. We had to pay for her taxi to and from her home as well as give her a bit extra for medicine as she has been sick...she coughed the whole time.

The director of the orphanage where Mateo has been since the removal from Semillas came to this appointment along with a nanny and Mateo. He has gotten taller, but not very big...he is still small I think. His beautiful hair has grown back and it is curly!! He is the most beautiful little baby boy I have set my eyes on! I brought a bag full of toys, clothes, books, and a blankie. My sister Cherie gave me a toy sorter for him as I remembered that he loved that the last time we were here. He loved that! She also gave him a book that made sounds and had pop up pictures in it. He loved the music and kinda danced and moved his head to the music...VERY CUTE! I was able to talk with the director and she spoke very good english. She shared with me how Mateo has been doing. He has been to the zoo and has been out to eat pizza.

After about two hours of waiting to get into our appointment we were finally all in this room ( not what you would expect)the PGN representative, the judge for minors court, Roberto, Yessica, the director of the orphanage where he is now, and two other women...I think from either Minors court or PGN. Basically DOug and I didnt understand a lick of what they were saying, except we could tell that when they asked the birth mother questions, she looked like she was having to think hard about her answers. We assumed that she was lying about whatever it was that she was saying...because once she would say something the PGN lady and the judge would look at her like " YEAhh...RIGHT" and then they would talk really fast. Yessica looked very nervous. Afterwards I asked Roberto what all was said and he said that she had to think about her own parents names, and where they lived. She said that her other two children lived with her parent..near the ElSavador border...which is about 2 1/2 hour drive from here.. It was apparent that they didnt beleive what she was saying. SO because of everything, they still felt uncomfortable with her and didnt trust her, so they are requiring another DNA test... This test is set for FRiday. We gave Roberto money to make sure she gets there on time ( for her taxi, and a bit extra). It will take about 15 days to get the results back as this is a private DNA lab that Minors Court will use. ONce that is done and the results are positive that means that we are approved to adopt Mateo offically...this is the only thing stopping the adoption from completing. THe judge said that we will be able to proceed and they will reccomend us as his parents at that point. THey set the last appointment for Sept 22nd. THis is when they will have the previous attorney, the birth mother, ROBerto, and anyone else involved in our case to come and they will decide if they need to persue further investigation of the birth mother and the previous attorney. As long as the DNA test comes back positive....which we will know mid August, than at that last hearing on the 22nd of Sept...our file will be sent to the Central Authority for the last phase. They have to do their investiagtion of our file, ect...which shouldnt be long..a few weeks. At that point we will be issued as Mateo's parent legally in Guatemala's eyes. Our file will then go to the US Embassy for VISA< ect..

SO basically, I feel good because we have a date..we havent had anything but speculation this whole time. SO, I am praying that the DNA test comes back positive, if not, that will open up a whole can of worms. The birth mother does look like Mateo though. I have a pix of her & I together to give to Mateo when he is older if he wants one.

I was hoping that we would be able to get him home on this trip, but the judge and PGN is in our favor and I know that Mateo is hers, he looks alot like her...so for now Sept. 22nd is the day that we will wait for.

after the court appointment we went to the orphanage to bring Mateo, the director and the nanny back. It wasnt the same orphanage that we were told initally he was going to, so it isnt a Catholic orphanage. It isnt in a good area of town. Although it is locked and you have to have access to get in. THere are only 29 kids where Mateo is. I had 50 dolls that SHadow Buddies donated in KC, and gave them to the orphanage. The kids loved them! THey kept kissing me and saying thank you. Mateo had some lunch, he loved it. He and DOug kicked a ball around for a bit. He looked very happy. THe director said that I could give her my email and she would give me hers and she would send me updates on Mateo (pictures, ect). I will also give her a disposable camera that she will make sure that we get to take home when we pick Mateo up for good the next time. She said she will get different ones with different activites that they do. I feel very comfortable with her.

Roberto is picking us up tomorrow at 9:30AM and we will spend the day with Mateo at the orphanage to play with him. I am so excited about that. You would all just fall in love with all these DARLING little kiddos there!!! I cant wait to see them again!! I will take lots of pictures and video tomorrow to share with you. SO I will post again tomorrow.

Oh, Doug cried when he saw Mateo. I cant tell you how awesome it was to see the look of Doug when he looks at Mateo. When we first saw Mateo he cried abit, and I showed him the scrapebook of all the pictures that I took of us the last time we were with him. THat calmed him down. He looked at a pix of him and Doug and then would look up at DOug like "oh, I know you". The judge loved the scrapebook I did of Mateo..the whole staff looked through my pictures. I beleive that they know he is meant to be with us and that we will make great parents!

I cant wait to bring him home...You will all fall in love with him! Till tomorrow!! THank you for your prayers. It was a good day! Oh, I will also post pictures of our visit! Val

12 more days and counting!!

2008-07-02T21:10:00.000-05:00

It is Wednesday night and I am thinking about how close I am to seeing my son again! Our court appointment is on the 15th at 10:15AM, and then we will go see him after the appointment. I wonder if he will recognize us at all, it has been over 3 months since he has seen us. I wonder if he will cry when he sees us like he did when he first met us, as we were strangers. I want this little guy to know that we have done everything in our power to bring him home. I want him to know that we didnt forget about him, and he has been in our hearts and on our minds since the first email we received with him. It is amazing how when you think you are so blessed with a perfect life, two great children, a wonderful husband, a business you love, a beautful home, two dogs, God in my life, but yet...something felt like it wasnt right...that is because our son wasnt yet with us. I cant imagine what it will be like to hold him in my arms once we are home and know that I dont ever have to worry again about what is our next step, because at that point..it will just be life. Raising our family, loving this little guy, and providing him with an amazing life & experinces. I am sure he will teach me a thing or two about what boys are made of...I thought Rylie & Adyson broke me in good, but from what I hear boys are a little loud and boystrious!! I cant wait! When I hear moms talk about their babies not sleeping at night, and about their toddlers jumping out of a tree and breaking their arm...I catch myself thinking, how many times did I take each life experince with my girls for granted. If only I would have the opportunity to experince that with Mateo. I have missed out on so much with him. I go to the pool each week with the girls and see the little toddlers running around as I am laying out getting a tan...and oh, how I wish that was me ( white skinned and running all over the place trying to catch those little guys that keep running off)..but instead I am laying out watching my girls grown diving off the diving boards, not wanting to be with their moms anymore..it isnt cool.... I long for the moment that I an take him to the pool , and see him play in water.

I long for the moment we land at the KCI Airport and I see the reactions of Rylie and Adyson when they see and hug their brother for the first time. Everyday he is in my thoughts and I cannot seem to get "it" out of my mind....when is "it" going to happen for us. Mateo deserves to live his life, he deserves to be loved by his family that very much wants him.

The fair is coming up in our home town in a few weeks, and I catch myself wishing her were able to be here to see the cows and watch his sister compete. To watch the parade for the first time.

Last summer I said, this is the last summer I will be without him, and here it is summer and I am still waiting.

God, you know my heart, you know that we want him and are willing to do great things, whatever it takes... to bring him home to us. Please enlarge the judges heart, please allow the birth mother to come in and do her DNA test, for it to come back positive, for them to allow Doug & I to bring our baby home. I beleive in miricles and beleive that you can do all things. I am attaching some new photos of our family just recently taken, and soon Mateo will be with us too....thank you all for sharing this journey with me...xoxo, valerie

We are heading to Guatemala!!

2008-06-29T17:22:00.000-05:00

Our court appointment is on the 15th of July at 10:15AM. We fly out on the 14th, and then leave to come home on the 17th. We are going to be able to go visit Mateo too on the 15th and the 16th at his new orphanage. I cannot wait to see him! The last video and pictures I got were in in early May...and he was big then! I was told her started to walk last month, I cant wait to see that! We will be bringing a bunch of stuff to donate to the orphanage, so I will be shopping before we leave to bring lots of gifts! I am praying for a miracle and they decide that we can take him home, you never know!!! I am expecting that they will give us an idea as to what our time frame is and what we need to do to bring him home, and when....I will keep you all posted as I find out more!! Valerie

Some good news!

2008-06-21T09:51:00.000-05:00

It looks like we will be heading to Guatemala in July. Our case is so unlike any other case that our agency has dealt with that no one can really give me any idea as to what I am to expect. Below is an email I received from our attorney yesterday. I am calling him today, as the date he gave us for our court appointment is on a Sunday, and I cant imagine that is correct. The birth mother didnt come in for a 2nd DNA test so I am praying that our attorney can meet with her so she will come and we can get the 2nd one done to confirm. I knew that a 2nd DNA test would be required and I am surprised when she was in PGn that they didnt request it then. I do know that this is something that is now required through the new Central Authority, and that they typically ask for it right at the end before you get yoru baby. I dont want to get my hopes up, but i think it would be a miricle if I can take him home with us in July. Please pray...read the email below, I will keep you posted! xoox, val
DEAR VALERIE:

I saw Mateo this morning. He es beautiful and doing well. By the end of May, he started to walk, according to information provided by the foster mother. I had a Court's employee take 2 pictures of Mateo and I and expect to send them to you on Monday.

Our petition was accepted and you were admitted within the process as interested parties. The judicial appointment for you in Guatemala was schedulled for July 20 (10:00 a.m.). Should you have a problem with this date, please let me know it, so I can talk with the judge and see IF IT IS POSSIBLE TO POSPONE IT.

The birth mother didn't attend the DNA judicil appointment. I hope she is not afraid of being sent to jail because of documentary legal problems. Thanks to the previous DNA test the other Notary gave me at PGN in April, this document was presented (including its translation) and so, this requisite was deemed as completed. However, the representative of PGN who was invited to the hearing said to me that, ir order to avoid further complications before the Central Authority on Adoption (CNA), it will be necessary to request another DNA test from the birth mother, in order to confirm the identity of her. So, I'll have to request it next week and it won't have any additional cost for you. INACIF (Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Forenses) will absorb the expenses.

REGARDS

ROBERTO

YEAH!!! FINALLY SOME GOOD NEWS!!!

2008-05-11T14:01:00.000-05:00

YEAH!!! I am so excited! Xox, val

Subject: Last actions at PGN.

DEAR VALERIE AND SUSANNA:
At last I received Mateo this morning and had a PGN Public Relations young lady officer take a few pictures of him, his birth mother and me in the premises of the institution.
Thanks God everything worked out well, as expected! I showed up at 8:30 sharp and everyone was there, this is to say, Mateo and his birth mother, Lubia Cabrera (from Love Seeds) and attorney Blas Enrique Díaz Pérez. Although Lubia and my colleague were somewhat distant and serious, we began the meeting being headed by the PGN attorney representative. He explained the purpose of the activity and we all agreed that we had something in common: the fact that we are foremost mindful of the welfare and needs of Mateo.
OH GOD ... what a beautiful boy!
A legal document was subscribed in which the boy was officially delivered to PGN authorities because of the legal problems that arose in the paperwork. There was no argument from anybody, at all. Attorney Díaz Pérez handed out to me some important legal documents, among them I found the DNA test results, which is something they hand't attached to the paperwork yet. After that, the birth mother was interviewed by the Psycologist of PGN and, again, signed a personal declaration in which she confirmed her consent to give Mateo for Adoption. She didn't seem to be emotionally afected and didn' cry a single tear during the 2 meetings she held there. During the waiting time that I could spend with her a few minutes, I took advantage to ask some key questions, one of them being where was she originally born, and she said: JUTIAPA, but I know she is not from there. That is the place where she had her birth certificate issued.
So, I'll have to present it and other papers to First Court for Minors (Juzgado Primero de Menores) next week. The lady Judge was not in Court today due to Mother's Day hollyday and, therefore, other judge had to sign the judicial order to transfer Mateo to his new foster home.
As to the foster home, there were some unexpected changes which are to be informed to you. First, the boy could not be transfered to Hogar La Esperanza (from Juan Carlos Rodil), as I had suggested or proposed because the Court's personell said there had been a serious problem with custody warranty there. In fact, they said that, last year, five (5) minors were ilegally taken out (kidnapped) from that place and were scaterred all around diferent sectors of Guatemala City. They said to me: Didn't you read it in the newspaper last year? It was a whole scandal! I know it may seem embarassing to learn for Susanna, but facts are facts and it's better to learn them now.
As a result of that, Mateo was transfered to HOGAR SAN JERÓNIMO EMILIANI, which is run by Catholic Nuns. It's in zone 1, Guatemala City. I am familiar with the sector, thoug I haven't been there yet. They are reliable.
I'll e.mail to you the pictures of Mateo. I am just waiting for Gabriela from P.R to send them to me.
Once I present some legal documents before the Court, I will ask for permission to visit Mateo in his new home and tell one of my sisters to accompany me in order to take some pictures and meet the Nun Director.
The next step is to contact CNA (National Adoptions Council) in order to asses the posibilities of getting Mateo to be asigned to you. Anyway, I will do my best (lobby) at CNA in order to determine what has to be carried out to meet our goals.
REGARDS and ... PRAY!
ROBERTO

GREAT NEWS!!!

2008-05-06T18:59:00.000-05:00

Good News, Mateo is being moved to another orphanage on Friday of this week!!! The orphanage will also be cooporating with our attorney on providing all information on the birth mom!!! Please keep us in your prayers! Xoxo, val

Email from our agency:

Good Afternoon Luvia – thank you for sending this information. We have been in contact with Lic. Gonzalez and are also aware of what is happening with the case of Mateo. We send our sincere appreciation for the good care that David has received while he has been at Semillas. We also appreciate your cooperation in providing help with contacting the birth mother and in getting David to the PGN on Friday. I know that in the end we all just want to make sure that the baby gets home to the Edwards family as quickly as possible. They love him very much. Regards, Susanna

Email from assistant to the director at the orphanage
Good afternoon Mrs. Susanna

I would like you to know that today, we received a notification from PGN ordering to transfer DAVID MANUEL MORALES to another
place while they decide what will be the next step on his adoption.

I contacted lawyer Roberto Gonzalez Perez (the lawyer that the Edwards family hired) to find out if he was informed from these
procedures and he said that he was aware and then, he will proceed with this adoption.

We wanted to know before we proceed because if he did not know anything, Mrs. Nancy was not willing to proceed, but since
he recommended that this is the best for the child in order to continue with the adoption, we will proceed to do so.
We will bring the child on Friday morning to Guatemala city. We will contact the birth mother since the lawyer said that they will
need her help in order to continue with the adoption.

We wanted you to know of this situation and we will proceed to pesent DAVID MANUEL MORALES to PGN on Friday. We do not
know where he is going to be transfered to.

Please contact the new lawyer for further information.

Thank you

Luvia

UPdate..sounds like good news!!

2008-04-16T13:28:00.000-05:00

I talked with our attorney yesterday. He met with PGN on Friday of last week, and they said that they will be making the previous attorney come to PGN along with Mateo ( so I assume he will be picking him up at Semillas) and then also making him give whatever information that he has on the birth mom at that time. They are a government office, he has to do this. So it looks as if Mateo very soon will be with a foster mom. I just got the information on her today. She is a divorced mother of two, lives with her two daughters, and her mom. Apparently my agency has used her before, and she is very good! Our attorney is meeting with the man at PGN that is in charge of the criminal case on Friday at 3:30, so I am looking forward to seeing when everything will take place, and what happens when they get the birth moms info. I was told initially that she would have to do another DNA test to confirm her being Mateo's birth mom, and they would have to interview her to get the extent to her involvement of the birth certificate being falsified. So assume, that is what they will do with her when they get her info, bring her in to do all that.

I dont know how long it will take to get him in there, I am hoping all of this happens this week, or next week at the latest. I have asked that a representative from our adoption agency that lives in guatemala City that knows Mateo, she sees him once a month, along with our attorney be present when Mateo is brought to PGN...that way it isnt so scary for him.

My fingers, & toes are crossed. I am praying constantly for his safety, protection, and best interest to be served. Please again keep us in your prayers..val

Latest Update on our situation..sounds positve

2008-04-08T10:11:00.000-05:00

Well I got an email last night from our attorney and he said that he has spoken with PGN and that he will have an appointment with them on THursday or Friday of this week. He said they are acting very compassionate about our case and that he thinks it will not be a problem to take him out and put into a private foster care family. He said that Nancy has no legal right to cancel our adoption of Mateo. They could also force her to give any information on the birth mom that she can. They also suggested that we start the abandonment process paperwork without the signature of the birth mom or the director of Semillas. This would basically intel them putting an ad in the paper of where the birth mom lives that we no of, and also in the paper of where the birth family lives ( in another country) and seeing if anyone of them want to adopt Mateo. I was told on our visit that 99% of the time no one comes forward, as they cannot afford to travel to get him, or cannot afford his care. Also they said that since he has been in an orphanage since birth that more than likely the birth family doesnt even know about the child. In addition the birth family lives in another country. Im I am not sure of the time frame that this takes, I have heard a year at the long side, but if you have an attorney that stays on top of things, it could be a few months,or 6..

It sounds like this option maybe what we have to do.

In addition to this information, we received an email from our agency. I had asked them to see if there Guatemalan contact that works for them would go check on Mateo to make sure he is okay and still there, and when she called to ask about another case...the assistant to the director told her that she cannot talk with our agency at all on any of their cases. Including the 8 other pending cases that Gladney has there. can you believe that! This woman claims to do what is in the best interest of the child and she is not allowing any communication with with our agency on any cases. I was told that the president of our agency will be taking a trip in the next three weeks to Guatemala and will be meeting with Nancy. He is also sending her an email today, requesting that she act professionally in this matter...so we will see what we find out.

I leave for our arbonne conferene tomorrow and dont get back until Sunday. Our agency leaves on Wednesday for a conference for them and they dont get back until Sunday, so it may be beginning of next week before i hear anything more.

I think the hardest part for me is the unknown. Although I do have a sense of PEACE now. I do beleive that Gods will is in our favor. He knows our hearts & he can hear our prayers. My faith has grown more this last year than ever before. I cant explain why all of this has happened, but it has stregthened me in this way... I told Doug last night that maybe this was a test to test my faith, when so many would have become frustrated and turned their backs on this whole thing. I think if we can get Mateo moved into a foster care family that we will have all access to see him when we wanted, get as many updates as we wanted. THey could even show him our pictures everyday, and even teach him their names, ect... I have heard of some adoptive moms reading stories on a tape and mailing tapes with stories and me talking to him..and his family...when he goes to bed at night...so he becomes familiar to them.

I worry about the adjustment for Mateo being taken out of a place he has known since birth, although I think to be in a one family home, will be the best case scenerio for him, until he can come home for good with us.

If they are able to move him into a foster home, we will still plan to go in June to visit him, I cant wait to see him.

Again, keep us in your prayers...we are doing everything now FOR THE LOVE OF MATEO

Thank you & GOd Bless, Valerie

Very Frustrating Time Right Now..

2008-04-05T09:24:00.000-05:00

Well needless to say, yesterday was not a good day. It started out great as I was able to spend all day scrapebooking Mateo's pictures from our visit trip into an album, and that was awesome. Although, afterwards I came home to an email from the director of the orphanage. We will fight this, and are hoping that our attorney goes to PGN on MOnday, and requests to have Mateo taken out of the orphanage. I have never known of anyone to be so cruel. This is a child, and she is all about the money. She even adopted a child from Guatemala herself and runs and orphanage...I cannot believe this. Doug & I were physically sick last night, I woke up this morning feeling numb. This is the hardest thing I have every had to go through in my life. DOug & I 's love for Mateo has only grown stronger, and our anger towards her has turned into strength for us to fight to have done what is right for the sake of Mateo.

I am going to copy and paste the emails that went back and fourth so you can see what has happened. It will be too hard on me to explain this to everyone over and over again. We still have faith that Mateo will come home to us.

The first email is from our Attorney to the director of the orphanage notifying her of the change of POA, and that we will no longer use her attorney and that we have hired him. The 2nd is her response to him. The third is my response to her. The last her response to me. I did reply to her again, but I dont think that it makes much of a difference, she probably deleted it at this point.

Mrs. NANCY BAILEY, Director
Semillas de Amor
DEAR MRS. BAILEY:
This is to introduce myself as the new notary of Mr. and Mrs. Douuglas Earl Edwards in Guatemala, according to a Power Of Attorney (hereinafter referred to as "POA") granted by them on early March, on ocassion of their short stay in Guatemala City.
I am also informing you that previous POA granted on behalf of Lic. Mayén, the former and original guatemalan proxy, was cancelled too and he was notified through a letter of mine, yesterday afternoon.
As a result of a legal introduction of myself, PGN's Section for Minors is also aware of this substitution; so, please be ware of any further steps to be followed. I will soon be in touch with you by phone.
According to this institution's authorities, what I need from you is INFORMATION on how to reach the biological mother (YESICA DEL CARMEN MORALES) for they need to interview and ask her some questions, and depending on her answers and cooperative attitue, they'll be able to define what are the most valid opitons to take.
It' 10:50 a.m.and, so far, Lic. Mayén (former proxy) has not called me. So, I would expect him to communicate this afternoon. He must have information on how to reach Yesica.
Please feel free to call me. I take for granted that all necessary cooperation will flow smoothly between both parties for we are foremost mindful of the needs and welfare of DAVID MANUEL.
Hoping to hearing from you soon, I remain
Truly Yours,
ROBERTO GONZALEZ PEREZ
Attorney at Law

As you can see his email was very poliete...

Here is Nancys response:

Dear Lic. Perez,

By canceling the power of attorney for the Edward's family you have cancelled their adoption. We will not be giving you any information on the birth mother or on the child.

Since the family has decided to hire you as their attorney I recommend that you find them a child to adopt.

Nancy Bailey

Very cold, this is how she has been the whole time!

Here is my response to her:

Nancy,

When we met with the had of minors court section of PGN while on our visit trip , she told us where our file stands now, it is in the best interest of Doug, Mateo, & I that we cancel the POA with the attorney that you had hired, and hire our own. She said your attorney , as well as the birth mom, and the civil registrar were all under a criminal investigation. She also stated that the attorney that you hired had been linked to other investigations that were also questionable…and if we wanted this adoption to proceed, (because it would not, if we would have not done anything)…to cancel the attorney that you hired. She told us this. We saw our file, we saw the falsified birth certificate..it was obviously falsified, but yet the attorney that you hired allowed it to be completed and put in the file. Our DNA test is missing out of our file, why is that? PGN has to now have another DNA test done to prove that she is even indeed the birth mom. For five months we waited and listened, and took the information we got from you as the truth..and then when told by Susanna that more than likely it would not go through, right before our visit trip..so she questioned us coming…we had no choice but to fight for our son. We went on that trip on a leap of faith that it would work out, and when we were able to get right into PGN, we felt that was GOD listening to thousands of our friends & families prayers.

PGN said that the only reason Mateo had not been moved at that time was because our file hadn’t officially been moved into Minors Court, which we were told by you, that it had been. I assume that , that is the information that your attorney had given you..but it was not true. We were also told that our file was at Misterio Pubilico ( SP??) but it wasn’t…it will go there because it will because it is now a criminal investigation…they would have pulled Mateo out already, if it wasn’t for us saying we wanted to keep him there. We can tell he is well taken care of, we can tell he is loved.

You have adopted a child, you know what this is like, how could you be so cruel? You have taken our money, you took the gifts we sent, you took all the stuff we donated with no question…but yet, stayed outside when we came to drop Mateo off, and didn’t come up and say anything to us? We had never questioned anything you were doing or had done, until we found out that we had been told lies for 5 months..whether you knew that they were or not. The head of PGN minors Court section said that the attorney was being investigated, and more than likely he wasn’t following up or working on the case because he knew that it was.

I love him, he is my son…..

Valerie Edwards

The last email I am posting is what she wrote back to me. This is probably the most insensitive email I have ever read.

Valerie,

I find it interesting that you believe everything that this lawyer has told you and that God opened the doors to PGN for you. First you need to know that David Manuel is not your son and that you have no legal right to him until the Guatemalan government approves the adoption.

David's birth mother came to us to place him in adoption and not to the lawyer. She had placed one other child in adoption with the exact same paperwork. I am glad you are such an expert in Guatemalan paperwork but we did not know she was lying. She lied because she is from El Salvador and wanted to place her child for adoption and most likely did not want to go to the effort of getting the needed paperwork from El Salvador. I guess she fooled everyone on her first adoption with her paperwork because it was not picked up by either the Guatemalan or US governments.

Because you are now such an expert as is this "new" attorney on David's case I feel as though there is little information I can give you. But I will tell you that if the Guatemalan courts want to take David away from us that there is an appeals process and we have been through that before and won each time. We would not permit David to be taken from us.

And yes, David's case was moved to the ministerio publico because we paid a criminal lawyer to meet with them and see what our next steps might be. We told Gladney that the case was a criminal case and that the birth mother risked going to jail for lying about her paperwork. Our lawyer is not lying nor is he being investigated. Miguel Angel is an honest man and went to the ministerio publico several times to talk to them about the case. They would give no information. Which is why we hired a criminal attorney. I suspect it is in the best interests of the new lawyer to take on your case and bad mouth our attorney.

The donations that you brought were for the children and not for me. I am sorry if you weren't thanked enough for them or that you expected that I would meet with you. Had you wanted to meet with me you only needed to set up a time for that but I can see you had already made a plan to hire the other lawyer.

You were NEVER lied to.

Cruel? Well, I would like to see you do what I have to do everyday and the amount of work that I do and for free. I doubt you would last a day.

Please do not write again. We will not be working with this lawyer. Had you wanted to discuss options for your case you should have done so when you were in Guatemala instead of sneaking around and finding a new lawyer that will only complicate things.

PLEASE keep our family in your prayers. We have a long fight ahead of us....

Valerie

Update on Progress

2008-04-03T12:04:00.000-05:00

Well it has been awhile since I have posted on here and everyone is asking me what has been going on, so here goes. I just talked with our attorney today to get updates on what he has been doing this whole time since we got back.

He sent a petition & a copy of our registration with the central authority, to ask the central authority that if we end up going into the abandonment process that we will still be linked to Mateo. We were told that they are allowing this, as we were told that wasnt the case first. He is calling the director of the orphanage to get as much information from her as possible on the birth mom and the previous attorney. He has a contact at PGn that he use to work with that is assigned to the criminal investigation for the attorny, birth mom and civil registar that were incriminated with falsifying the birth certificate, ect....anyway, he called him and has him looking into our options. He offically registered our POA with the Supreme Court, so now he is offically our attorney. He is also meeting with the previous attorney today to give him a copy of the New POA with him as the attorney that we hired, and to try and get as much info as he can from him. At this point we are waiting on what is said and done. I asked him to update us weekly, so I am hoping to hear back from him with new news when I get back from NTC ( our Arbonne conference in Atlanta next week.). I will attach some of the new photo's I got of Mateo from the orphanage. He looks tired or sad, I dont know. I could be reading more into it. He just doesnt look as happy as he did with us. I did also get a DVD last week, bawled throughout watching it twice.. He looked happy in that, as they were playing with him. I think he might walk soon. I sleep with his blanket that we used when we had him with us, every night. Doug thinks I am a nut...maybe he is right, ha...

I do pray and end up crying myself to sleep most nights still, it is very hard. I got his bedding in last week, and his room and us are offically waiting for him. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. I enjoyed getting the pictures we took of him printed and put into frames around our house, he feels apart of us here daily, but without his actual presence. I will keep you posted on any new news..thank you! God Bless! val

2008-03-08T20:38:00.000-06:00

We are back in Kansas!!

2008-03-08T09:36:00.000-06:00

We left Antigua on Thursday & had an overnight flight in North Carolina. We stayed the night at the airport, which I wouldnt reccomend for future! We bought Mateo a beautiful Myan made blanket for him to keep when he gets here. We also bought two beautiful handmaded Myan pillow cases for our living room. We love the at we will be able to bring some of Mateo's culture in our home.

We talked with our agency yesterday to fill them in on everything we found out in PGN & through our new attorney. So we all have a conference call on Monday at 4Pm with Gladney ( our agency), our attorney, & Doug & I, to discuss everything that will be happening. Susanna from our agency suggested that we move Mateo from the orphanage to the best private foster home the have used. This would just be a family that would care for Mateo until we can bring him home. We would just go ahead and pay them directly each month. I am excited about this as I know he will have more one on one time. This does mean he will be moving from Antigua to Guatemala City. We will still be able to have him stay with us the whole time when we visit. We will just meet up with the foster mom at the hotel and she will meet us there. This way I can give him things and know that he will benefit from them directly. We were nervous with us rocking the boat at the orphanage that they would not want us to have to deal with the director there anymore as she will be very upset that we went over her head to get things done and got another lawyer.
I will keep you all updated with anything knew I find out.

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

2008-03-05T20:37:00.000-06:00

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

Day 1 of my visit trip to be with our son

2008-03-03T21:54:00.000-06:00

Words cannot describe the emotion that I felt seeing my son for the first time. He was waiting for me in his room with one of the nannies. He started crying at first, so between him & Doug..lots of tears. He only cried for about 20 minutes and then he warmed up to me. Doug gave him the monkey that I had gotten him, and that is what helped him stop crying. He held his hand to my neck, and loved on the little monkey. We are staying at the Chosen Childrens House during our stay, and ..it is beautiful! We have the whole place to ourselves, it is like a resort. I gave Mateo his bath last night. We used the Arbonne baby care products, and I mistook the oil for the wash..so he had shiney hair today..didnt realize why until I have him his bath tonight and saw that the wash had not been open. LOVELY! He loved bathtime! HE was up off & on last night, not crying just fidgety. I had him sleep with DOug & I, and it felt so great to finally have him in our arms. Today is his birthday. I made him cereal & a bottle, and then made him cupcakes. We went around Antigua today, Doug was a basket case...he gets so nervous and thinks everyone is staring at him..haa. Had a great lunch on the square, kind of like a central park. It was great. Mateo has suh a personality! HE laughs & like to throw things on the floor and wait for me to pick it up, just so he can do it again. He got a sofy blanket from Grammie Loar for his shower in November, and loves nuzzling his face in it. We finally went to the grocery store and bought stuff for dinner, I made an amazing dish with fresh chicken, noodles, fresh veggies...DOug loved it! We also picked up fresh bread at a bread market..it was delicious!! We had Mateo's birthday party tonight, just us..it was great! HE liked the frosting a little, but was more interested in squishing it all over the place. He opened his presents from us and Grammie Loar...and loved all of his toys!! I loved all the clothes that Grammie got for him. My favoriate says Mommy Loves me, I had to take him out of his pja's to put this new one on him. RIght now he is laying between DOug & I, all warm & snuggly. THis is heaven!!!
We talked with our attorney tonight and we might be able to go to PGN tomorrow on an appt. with the head of PGN to discuss our case and hopefully get more information! God blessed us with Scott & Reoberto...we are so grateful. I feel confident in the outcome. I hate to think that we would have to be away from MAteo longer than a few more months.. I will keep you posted on where we go from here as well as the rest of our trip. OH, it was so cute today!! DOug & Mateo fell asleep in the hammock ..of course I had to sneak pictures!!

The Journey to bring our son home

2008-02-24T12:27:00.001-06:00

My husband Doug & i have two beautiful daughters Rylie & Adyson. We live in Paola Kansas...a town of about 5000 people. I have an in home based business, and Doug is an electrician by trade. About a year & a half ago we started the journey to complete our family..which led us to the adoption of our son Mateo. Doug & I received our referral in May of 2007. Mateo was 1 & 1/2 months old at the time. I remember like it was yesterday opening the email with his pictures and seeing my son for the first time. The love was instant. People ask me if it is different feeling, as my daughters were biological. No it wasn't any different. The love was just as strong. It was a moment I will always treasure. He is in an orphanage in Antigua...Semillas de Amor. His birthday is March 3rd. We are going on our first visit trip this next Sunday, march 2nd. We get to be there for his 1st birthday, and I get to have four days with him...to soak him in kisses & let him know how much he is loved. We are really facing alot of "Giants" right now in this process. We were entered into PGN August 3rd, but didn't find out we were even there until mid Sept. Then in Oct, we were told that there was a question regarding the birth moms birth certificate and because of that they were moving our file into Minors Court Section of PGN. We were there for two months with " no new information"..week after long week. Then in Nov..the Friday after Thanksgiving we were told that our case was moved into Minors Court for further investigation. We we were not given any information as to why specifically. Finally after hounding my agency to get more info from the director of our orphanage, they emailed her and got some specific answers. Apparently the birth mom had adopted out another child prior to our son. She was born in Nicaragua, but was told that it would be easier and speed up the process if she had her birth certificate altered to say she was born in Guatemala. So they did, and the adoption was completed without any problems. So when she gave up Mateo for adoption, she used the same paperwork. Nowadays things are more scrutinized , and in PGN they red flagged the name on the birth certificate was that of a civil registrar that had been linked to falsifying documents in the past, and that is how it call came down. So, finally, last month an attorney interviews the birth mom and found out that she had falsified this...she admitted it finally. So now we are told our case is in MP ( Misterio Publico ???) I am not sure what that is, or where we will go from here. We were told by our agency that it doesn't look good. That they worse things that could happen for a case is to have something falsified. She even suggested that they could just wash their hands of it, say the adoption cannot complete and he would spend the rest of his life in an orphanage. I cannot imagine that a government would not do what is in the best interest of the child, as this is a issue the the birth mom should have to deal with , not us. We shouldn't be punished, and especially this innocent baby for something that we had no control over. My agency also suggested that there is the possibility that we would have to start the abandonment process, although right now there is no new adoptions, so no rules, so we would have to wait until they reopened adoptions and then would have to see where we go from there... I am in this for the long haul. If it means I have to fight for this little guy because no one else will, then that is why I will do. He is my son, we love him. I believe that God has big plans for us and for him. I am basically giving this up to God, but fighting the "Giants" as they stand in my way. I am doing this for him and I want him to know that he is loved....and wanted. I am sending new pictures we just got of Mateo, isn't he beautiful! I will keep you all posted as I get back from my visit trip, I am sure it will be an emotional week!!! Please keep our family in your prayers...we are needing a miracle at this point! Thank you! val