It's A Boy!!

We have a received a referral of a baby boy, born on May 1st. We are excited, scared, amazed, numb and overwhelmed. Pretty much just how we felt when we got Emmy's referral.


The referral process for the Guatemalan program is different than China. With China you receive your referral at the end of the process, so all of the waiting happens and then you see your baby's face. Several weeks later you travel to China and it's all official. With Guatemala you receive a referral after you are "paper ready" and then you wait to finalize the adoption. You receive monthly updates, usually photos and medical information. You go through many different stages for approval from both countries. In addition, the birth mother is involved in the process, including DNA testing and a family court system.


All of this means we are happy but also cautious. His birth mother has many opportunities to change her mind in the process. Also, with the continual issues with the Hague Treaty, the process could change at any time causing delays or even the program closing down. To end all of this adoption reality on a positive note: Our agencies says that while birth mothers do change their minds it usually happens in early in the process. And the political issues will hopefully be slow in transpiring (as are all political changes) and won't affect us in a catastrophic way. So the phrase of the day is CAUTIOUSLY HOPEFUL.


Having said all that, my mommy heart really wants to start loving him. I want to tell Emmy that he is definitely her little brother. I want Dave to buy him a baseball cap. So get all those prayers and good vibrations heading his way. Because even if we aren't to be his forever family, he is a beautiful little soul who needs all of our support.


He is in foster care and my understanding is that the babies remain with the same foster mother until the adoptions are finalized. It looks like if all things go well without any hitches, we could have him home in around eight months. The worst case scenario (other than the adoption not going through for various reasons) would be a time frame of year or even longer. The reality is it's not really predictable. Unlike China's program where things happen fairly uniformly among most families, Guatemala's program varies individually.


I have been laughing when I compare his referral day to Emmy's. Since we knew that we were in the next batch of China referrals, I was "High Alert - Category Red" for about a week. I would spontaneously burst into tears and other crazed behaviors. The day of her referral seemed almost surreal and we were all talking about it and seeing signs everywhere. This referral happened so fast, and much sooner than I expected. We had finished our paperwork on Tuesday. On Wednesday I made the comment to Dave that I would get caught back up on all the things I had been neglecting (laundry, gardening, grooming) in a few days. Well - no rest for the weary. We got the referral the next day! We were sitting outside while all the neighborhood kids were playing. Emmy and her friend Kayla were playing very nicely together, but cute little Matthew was being quite the terror and had just dumped out the third dish of bubble soap. I commented to our neighbor's mom "I don't know what I'll do if we get a boy. I only know how to raise girls". A few minutes later the phone rang and our adoption coordinator said "It's a boy!"


Introducing Jose' Julian, new name to be revealed at a later date!