Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Hearing Was a "GO"

Yes, today's hearing did take place. And yes, we saw Olivia. She is beautiful, but looked very sad. This whole thing is so confusing for her.


Everyone who was supposed to, showed up. We are very thankful for that.


The doctor who was there to draw blood for the DNA samples, determined that they could get a result if they got samples from Olivia and the boy (her potential bio. brother), by testing for a sibling relation. So "grandma" wasn't needed after all.


The samples were taken, and handled very carefully so there would be no question about mis-handling.


The judge set the next and dare I say "final" hearing where we will have the results and his decision, for May 8th, 10 weeks from today. And of course, we will be here for that. We won't be able to see Olivia again till then.


So, that's pretty much it. We were able to give her, her Valentine's gift we weren't able to give her 2 weeks ago, and took 2 pictures before she rode off in the hogar's van. Praying for a negative DNA result and for the next 10 weeks to fly by.




Sunday, February 26, 2012

Today We Hit the 5-Year Mark

Today is the 5th anniversary of the day we started Olivia's adoption. This week we received some very good news regarding all the pending Guatemala adoption cases. Here's a summary from our Guatemala900 group: 


February 25, 2012
The Guatemala900 met with the Guatemalan Minister of Foreign Affairs Harold Caballeros in Washington, DC yesterday.  The Minister outlined a general plan for implementing a new, transparent process for the pending adoptions within the next 100 days.  The Minister asked for G900 support in helping him as he works to draft legislation within the next two weeks for the Guatemalan Congress will then begin to consider and hopefully pass.  Many thanks to G900 executive board member Tracey Hoehn, Guatemalan Waiting Parents Support Group Co-Founder Christina Watson, and Joint Council President and ally Tom DiFilipo, who all passionately represented the campaign.  Also the G900 would like to thank Guatemalan Minister Counselor Fernando de la Cerda, who has always been a champion to the children with pending adoptions in Guatemala and was instrumental in making the meeting come to be yesterday.
Basically, by the beginning of June, there will be a law implemented that will allow a definite path for our children's adoptions to be completed. Of course we don't know what the law will entail, but hopefully it will eliminate all of the problems and roadblocks that have plagued our processes for well over 4 years. The Guatemalan government has said they are committed to making this happen.
Meanwhile, we head back to Guatemala for our rescheduled hearing. If all goes according to plan, and everyone who needs to, shows up, and DNA samples are taken, and the RIGHT tests are done at the lab, and the results come back negative.....we should be on track so that when the 100 days in early June are up, we'll be ready to follow the path that the new law will put in place to lead Olivia home.
As always, prayers are appreciated! We'll update again soon.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Gearing Up For Rescheduled Hearing


Okay, so last week's hearing didn't happen, but we were there. It has been rescheduled for next Tuesday the 28th and we will be there. This week, at home, we are trying to rest and re-group.

The TV interview we did last Tuesday did not air while we were down there due to the prison fire in Honduras. I've been told that it will air tonight on Telecentro 13 in Guatemala and Directv channel 428 (I think) here in the U.S. (8:30 - 10:00pm CST or 9:30 - 11:00pm EST). If anyone sees it, please let me know.

We didn't get the opportunity to see Olivia at all last week, but should see her at this next hearing. We're hoping and praying that all parties will show up. This hearing will still not be a determining one, but will hopefully result in finally getting DNA samples from those in question so that we may once and for all know (probably in 3 months) if we have a shot at adopting our little girl.

Once again, we're asking for your prayers. It's no small feat to travel to Guatemala twice in two weeks. We hope that God brings all things together this time so we can truly see some forward movement in our case. We also hope that the TV interview will air and that it will open eyes of people who may have some influence in getting the 350+ children home to the families that have waited so long for them.

We'll keep you posted.




Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Today's Hearing Was Postponed, But........

We are here in Guatemala and even though hours after our arrival yesterday, we found out that the hearing we came down for was postponed by PGN, we have had a VERY productive day! 


Not only did we go to the Court in Escuintla and speak with the judge, but we were interviewed for this evening's news program on Telecentro 13! 

Brief history; we have been waiting since June 2010 to determine whether a lady found by PGN is the bio. grandmother of Olivia. She showed up at the hearing in 2010, and after the wrong test was run, has not come back to Court to provide more blood samples (we found out today that was because PGN never informed them of the hearing dates). Here we are 20 months later and PGN postpones the hearing which we thought was because they couldn't find this lady to bring her in. We showed up to Court and guess who was there? The woman and her grandson came to give samples. PGN of course couldn't come because they said they were understaffed and had other hearings today. Uh huh.....

So...after we met with the judge and were interviewed by the reporters, we drove over to PGN and with cameras rolling convinced them that they needed to show up for the next hearing two weeks from today. Funny, at first one guy our attorney spoke with said they couldn't say one way or the other whether they would be able to come. Once our attorney demanded to talk to the guy in charge and we all were standing in front of him in his office with the news crew there, he suddenly cleared his calendar and agreed to be there!

We are so thankful to our attorney who's husband, (who just happens to be the general manager of the TV station) came up with the whole interview idea! They said this could be very big for all the waiting families. 



We didn't see Olivia today, maybe we'll get a chance tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning, we have a meeting at the U.S. Embassy. We'll see what we can do there.

Prayers are appreciated!