We are almost done now!!!!!! At 8:00 a.m. this morning we entered the U. S Embassy in Guatemala to await our turn to meet with the man behind the door at window #10. For those who have been through the process, you know exactly what I'm talking about. For those who have not, let me explain. As each group of families come into the Embassy they sit in a room that has the capacity for about 45 people, although there were more than 45 there today. If a seat is available, you sit and wait for your name to be called and make your way up front to wait in line to see a man who is sitting behind a window in a "little" room (and when I say little I do mean little). You enter the room and the door is closed behind you. The man checked our passports to see if this was our first trip to Guatemala since receiving Lili's referral or if we had been to visit previously. He then verified some other information and paperwork and sent us on our way to wait again. This process takes about 5 minutes.
During our meeting with the man behind window #10, Lili begins chattering away and sometimes when Lili begins her chatter, it sounds somewhat bossy. For those of you who know Dave and I, you'll soon make the connection that she is sounding a bit like her mommy. LOL So, Dave makes the comment to the man that Lili is bossy. The man starts to make a comment and quickly decides that he shouldn't say anything, to which I reply "I know what you were going to say because I see the ring on your finger." This got quite the laugh and you just don't hear much laughter coming out of that little room. Not that it's a bad or scary meeting with the man behind window #10, but because it's "get down to business" and move everyone along.
After our meeting at window #10, we go back to find a seat and wait for our names to be called again. Unfortunately, we were #32 out of 36 families today, so we had a bit of a wait. During this time, Lili entertains all the woman sitting in the seats behind us, has a couple mini temper tantrums because mommy wouldn't let her go take the toy truck from the little boy, plays the game of back and forth between mommy and daddy and throw the toys on the floor so daddy can pick them up game. Not so bad, except for the fact that we arrived at 8:00 a.m. and now it's approaching 11:30 a.m. A long time for a baby girl to wait, so all in all she hasn't done too bad.
Finally they call our name and we approach window #8. The woman behind the window has us raise our right hands and swear that we are going to answer all her questions honestly to the best of our ability. She asks us when we first met Lili and we tell her in October. She checks our passports to see that we did in fact visit in October and she tells us that Lili will comes home on an IR3 visa, which means she is a U.S. citizen once her little feet hit U.S. soil. She looks at Lili and looks at her photo in their file to see that it's the same baby. At this point Lili begins her bossy chatter again. The woman smiles and acknowledges that Lili has been waiting quite awhile has me sign a couple of documents and then tells Lili that she is approving her visa and we can come back tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 p.m. to pick it up. After that point, we are free to travel home. YEAH!!!!!!!
One of our attorney's daughters was at the Embassy waiting for us when we arrived. She gave us all of Lili's paperwork which included her new birth certificate. This was the first time we had seen the birth certificate and it was an awesome feeling to see Weeks listed as her last name. The folder of information also included our PGN approval, along with the final adoption decree and some other documents. After going through all these months of processing, I'm anxious to find time to sit down and go through all the paperwork. Of course finding time to do much of anything will be limited now.
Sorry that there aren't any pictures posted yet, but we neglected to bring the chord necessary to upload the photos, so I won't be able to post pictures until we get home. So, please be patient a little while longer and I'll get them posted by Friday night.
