Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's in my life. I hope that you have a wonderful, relaxing day.

I have not posted anything on the current situation in Guatemala lately and wanted to give everyone an update. The new president in Guatemala and the government have "cleaned house" in PGN (the area of the government that approves all adoption cases.) PGN is where our case was reviewed, taking at that time, twelve weeks to get us through. At the beginning of 2008 all adoptions currently in process had to be re-registered with a new Central Authority in Guatemala. This Central Authority will be the new entity to handle all adoptions, I should also add that this Central Authority is not yet up and running and therefore there are no children currently being placed for adoption in Guatemala. Over the past few weeks many employees, including the Attorney General and Sen. Barrios (the man who signs off on all adoption cases) where let go and replaced with new staff. PGN has decided to do an internal audit of sorts and will no longer review current PGN cases until yet another birth mother interview takes place. What this means is that those cases (about 3000) cases still waiting to be approved from PGN are at a stand still. PGN is saying it will take about 4 weeks to do these birth mother interviews on all 3000 cases. We all know better and our agency says to be prepared for more like 12 weeks until cases start being reviewed by PGN again. Tack on another 8-12 weeks for an approval after that. Many of you may wonder why this is of concern to us now that C is home. Two reasons: C's cousin was placed with a family back in September. He is now 9 months old and his case is one of the cases "stuck" in PGN. His adopting family here in the U.S. are beside themselves with grief. It will be many, many months before his case is approved and he gets to come here to his new family. The second reason is that I feel a deep connection to this country and these children. I pray every night that these children will soon be with their forever families here in the U.S. I also pray for the situation in Guatemala and for so many children that will be affected.

I ask you this Mother's Day to stop and say a prayer for the Mother's here in the U.S. that are separated from the children they wish to adopt and for the birth mother's in Guatemala that chose life for their children.

I am so thankful that C came home when he did. Today I feel incredibly blessed by the great gift I have been given.