8/??/07 - DNA supposed to take place...birthmother doesn't show
8/27/07 - 2nd attempt at DNA...birthmom doesn't show again!
9/20/07 - 3rd attempt at DNA...same story, birthmom doesn't show
~BIRTH MOTHER HAS DISAPPEARED~
11/15/07 - Little Olivia's 2nd birthday
12/9/07 - We inform agency that we'd like to pursue an Abandonment Decree
12/15/07 - Agency agrees, needs to confer with Guat. attorneys
12/17/07 - After conferring, we are advised not to pursue AD, due to process changeover
1/1/08 - All new Guatemalan adoptions cease - grandfathered cases (like ours) can continue
2/8/08 - Agency has hired a private investigator to search for birthmom...............................
3/3/08 - Received confirmation of CNA registration
4/08 - Private investigator comes to a dead end in finding birthmom
5/23/08 - Renewed USCIS fingerprints
6/11/08 - I-171H approval...again.
7/9/08 - Home study agency says we need to update our home study
8/14/08 - Assigned to our 4th attorney who will plead our case for abandonment
8/17/08- New attorney means new POA
10/24/08 - Homestudy update complete
10/27/08 - Request USCIS for I-600A extension
11/9/08 - Completed the 10 hour course of newly required Adoption Training Education
11/15/08 - Olivia's 3rd birthday
1/13/09 - Attorney meets with CNA for approval to present to Court
2/4/09 - Former atty. receives summons from CNA that he has to present Olivia in front of a judge within 48 hours! (We also find out she has the chicken pox!)
2/6/09 - Olivia is taken to Court, chicken pox and all! Judge allows her to remain with her FF, but calls for one more search for Bmom. Next Court date in June to determine Olivia's adoptability. We're given the go-ahead to finally be able to go to Guatemala and meet our little girl!
4/6-9/09 - Our first trip to Guatemala...we meet Olivia!!!
4/7/09 - Meet with Jaime Tecu @ CNA to discuss our case
4/21/09 - OLIVIA'S BIRTH MOTHER IS FOUND!!!
4/22/09 - Birth mother does not show up for meeting with attorney, Beyla. Won't answer phone.
6/10/09 - 2nd Court hearing. Beyla was made our Mandatory attorney, we were accepted as part of the process. Adjourned until Nov. 17th. We're told we need to redo our dossier. Judge issues an order for the police in birth mother's town to find her and bring her in for DNA test.
8/31/09 - "Brand new" dossier complete. Will take to Guatemala and hand deliver to Beyla.
9/5-9/09 - 2nd visit trip to see Olivia!
9/8/09 - Met with Beyla for 2 hours, gave her our dossier and got up to speed on what's happening in our case and what we can expect at the hearing in November. As we suspected, Olivia's bmom is again on the run. Praying that she'll be found again before the hearing.
11/14-18/09 - 3rd visit trip
11/15/09 - Olivia's 4th birthday! We're celebrating WITH her!
11/16/09 - 3rd Court hearing. A surprise "grandmother" has told PGN she wants custody of Olivia. So the judge sets the next and FINAL hearing for June 9, 2010, to allow enough time to investigate this person and hopefully find her unworthy.
1/15/10 - Olivia starts pre-school!
3/17-22/10 - 4th Visit trip
6/5-10/10 - 5th Visit Trip
6/9/10 - FINAL (not) Court Hearing ~ DNA test taken between Olivia and potential grandmother. Olivia ordered to go to an orphanage. Definitive "FINAL" hearing in 3 months, on Sept.9th.
9/9/10 - F~I~N~A~L Court hearing ~~ NOPE, POSTPONED due to lab mistake on DNA test. Judge calls for new test, new final hearing.
11/15/10 - Olivia's 5th birthday.
12/13/10 - We were told that 2nd DNA test run in Sept. on "grandmother" is in sufficient and judge orders new samples and test run with the inclusion of an alleged "uncle" in January.
5/3/11 - It's now May. We are still waiting for DNA samples to be taken. The "grandmother" apparently stopped cooperating back in October. We've asked all the people we can think of to help with this situation. To date.....nothing.
6/21/11 - Court hearing with new judge. ~ Update, "Grandma" did not show, hearing POSTPONED until August 8th.
8/8/11 - Court hearing...POSTPONED AGAIN! "Grandma" was a no-show. Not sure what the judge will do now...
8/19/11 - CNA decrees to resolve remaining adoption cases.
10/7/11 - Judge @ 3rd Court turns our case over to judge in Escuintla Court
11/15/11 - Olivia's 6th Birthday
2/14/12 - Court hearing ~ POSTPONED!
2/28/12 - Rescheduled Court hearing
5/8/12 - Hearing to get DNA results and judge's decision ~ POSTPONED. No DNA results yet...
8/17/12 - Court hearing. We've heard DNA results came back inconclusive. Judge to make decision on where to go from here. ~POSTPONED~
9/3/12 - Court hearing ~ CANCELED ~
11/15/12 - Olivia's 7th birthday
1/11/13 - Court hearing with new judge ~POSTPONED~
3/1/13 - Rescheduled Court hearing ~ Judge calls for 3rd and final DNA to be taken on March 21st. Will get results sometime this summer
3/21/13 - DNA samples taken. Alleged birth mother is found and gives her sample!
6/2013 - Case sent to Appeals Court
5/14/13 - We're told that our case has been moved back to Guatemala City Court
8/19/13 - Official word that after 3 years, 2 months & 10 days the DNA results for the Guatemalan family in question, are NEGATIVE! They are NOT related!
8/2013 - Appeals Court sends case back to Escuintla Court
9/4/13 - Hearing for adoptability ~ NO ruling
9/18/13 - FINAL hearing. ADOPTABILITY!
11/15/13 - Olivia's 8th Birthday
1/30/14 - CNA Referral!!!!!!!
3/5/14 - Empathy Visit Invitation
3/16-31/14 - Empathy Study
4/15/14 - CNA Approval!
4/29/14 - File submitted to Family Court!
5/19/14 - Adoption Day! Family Court approval! Olivia is officially our daughter!
Two years ago today we officially embarked on this adoption journey. At that time we were excited at the prospect that we could potentially have our new daughter home with us by years end. That wasn't to be. Now however, we're excited once again because in 39 days we will be meeting Olivia for the first time! Bryan, Emily and I will be flying down to Guatemala on April 6th and Olivia will come to stay with us at the hotel while we're there.
Meanwhile, we're scurrying to learn some Spanish! Hopefully we'll learn enough to be able to communicate with her and not scare her off!
We're learning a little bit more about what will be required of us after the June Court hearing (where hopefully it will be decided that Olivia is "adoptable"). There will be a lot more paperwork to do on our part, potentially more visit trips and one in particular where we will be observed (with Olivia) for an undetermined period of time by a social worker and a psychologist to see if we are the right family for her. And oh yes...... more waiting.
So, as we have been since the first day we saw her picture, we are committed to this child and will jump through all the hoops they ask us to. Guatemala...here we come!
Well, our prayers have been answered, praise the Lord! Today's court appearance went very well.
First and foremost, Olivia will be able to stay with her foster family!!! We're actually thankful that she has the chicken pox, it helped with the judge's decision to keep her with the family! Isn't God's timing amazing?
Secondly, he ordered that there be one more attempt at finding someone in her birth family before he would grant us a Certificate of Abandonment (CoA). We assumed they were going to do this. This means, they have until June to locate them. The next court date is in June, (not sure the date yet). If no one is found by that time, the judge will then declare Olivia as "adoptable" and grant the CoA. From that point the case will be turned over to the CNA and they will process it from there.
The other awesome thing is, that we've been given the greenlight to go to Guatemala and visit her!!! FINALLY!!! We're hoping to go either in March or April, we haven't pinned it down yet. We're so thrilled! We finally get to meet our little girl after almost 2 years of waiting!
This is really the beginning of our process and we have a long way to go before she comes home, but we are ready to do what we need to, to make that happen. Today was a huge hurdle and with God in control, we cleared it.
Thank you for all your prayers, keep 'em comin', we're not done yet!
To update our post from yesterday. Olivia will be presented to the Court tomorrow, chicken pox and all. We've been told that our former attorney Mr. Gallo (who has not been on our case for about a year), will be taking her and presenting our case, not our current attorney, Beyla who has been preparing for almost a year for this appearance.
Anyway, apparently the following will be decided at this hearing:
That the case will immediately proceed to an abandonment ~OR~ they will once again continue the search for the birth mother.
Also, that Olivia will be able to stay with her current foster family through the duration of the process ~OR~ that she will be removed from that home and put into an orphanage. (This could really happen, and would be devastating to her.)
We are praying that obviously we get the go-ahead for the abandonment and that she's able to stay where she is. We also pray the judge is compassionate and will make the right decision.
Olivia needs all the prayers we can get right now!
Today we found out that Olivia is sick with the chickenpox. I feel so bad, because we should be there for her, poor little thing. We do know she's being well cared for though, which is a comfort to us as well as to her, I'm sure.
So, after finding this out and feeling sad that we can't be with her to nurse her back to health, we got another email from Lymaris, our agency director stating: " ...I wanted to let you know that after my last email, I got an email from your previous attorney saying that he had gotten a citation to present her (Olivia) within 48 hours. It seems the CNA is going over all the registered cases and so I immediately called Beyla (current attorney) to ask what we need to do...She is trying to talk to the CNA head person today and hopes to have some guidance later on today as to what they want and what we should do. This is where I will really need your prayers, that this is not an attempt to move her to an orphanage and that it is merely their verification of the existence of the child, etc... However - I do not want to get ahead of myself although I am worried, and of course the timing could not be worse with her sickness and all. I will be getting back to you as soon as I have some concrete info..."
It sounds like this may be a very big deal or no big deal. If you would, please pray very hard for the latter to be the case. If they have to take Olivia out to meet with officials while she's so sick, I'm very concerned. If they don't take her out to meet with officials because she is sick, could be even worse. Our hope is that this is just part of a verification process and that they don't use this as an attempt to take her away from the foster family.
Anyway, not the best news. Hopefully we'll get more info soon. Thanks everyone for your on-going prayers and support!
We are finally a family of four, no longer waiting for our little girl Olivia to come home! Our process of adopting her from Guatemala was well over 7 years, but on June 8, 2014, our beautiful little girl came home. I'm Sue and I've been married to my best friend and husband Bryan for 30 years. We have a wonderful 14 year-old daughter Emily, who we adopted from China in 2001. She's in the 8th grade and I home school her. Our sweet Olivia is 8 1/2, we'll be home schooling her as well.
Our family is complete, to God be the glory!
Ephesians 1:5
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will ~
PROVERBS 19:21 Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.
On January 1, 2008 adoptions in Guatemala abruptly changed from a privately run system to a government run entity. Our adoptions were already in process at the time and were “grandfathered” to finish under the laws in which they began. The children's cases were promised to be expeditiously processed in a timely and reasonable manner, but now almost a four and a half years later approximately 350 children are still waiting to join their families.
This page tells our story, through some of our personal stories. We have done much (see timeline) to work to bring our children home. But they still remain.
These are our children, stranded in orphanages and foster care all over Guatemala. We have worked tirelessly, only to discover that it is a political problem that keeps them there, so we need the help of a politician to help us. We will not stop until our children are safely home, snug in their beds.
Two years ago today we officially embarked on this adoption journey. At that time we were excited at the prospect that we could potentially have our new daughter home with us by years end. That wasn't to be. Now however, we're excited once again because in 39 days we will be meeting Olivia for the first time! Bryan, Emily and I will be flying down to Guatemala on April 6th and Olivia will come to stay with us at the hotel while we're there.
