Cloud Eight

Every once in a while, in the midst of arguing about trying to figure out where we’re going to live and how we’re going to make this work, Pili and I look over at each other and one of us says: GB is coming home.  He’s coming home!  And we bust out smiling, almost as widely as this: 

I think he’s smiling because so many of you were happy to hear that he was OUT of PGN!

For those of you in the “that sounds like good news, but what does it mean?” camp, PGN stands for Procuradoría General de la Nación. It’s akin to the attorney general’s office. PGN can approve cases quickly, or it can be a royal pain in the tuches, picking the world’s tiniest nits and making people redo documents over and over again. There’s very little rhyme or reason to it and no clear timeline.  I have heard of people getting out in three weeks, and people who have been in for over a year.  It’s totally unpredictable and absolutely miserable.

Once the case has (finally) been approved by the PGN, the firstmom signs off one more time. At this point, Guatebaby will be legally part of our family. This may very well have happened already by now.

The lawyer will request a new birth certificate with our last name on it (I really wish they didn’t do this – it’s as if they were trying to erase the people who brought him into this world) and apply for a Guatemalan passport for him. These documents are translated by an approved translator and submitted to the U.S. Embassy along with a ton of other paperwork to apply for a visa. The visa approval is issued on pink paper, so getting the visa approval, along with the date of your formal embassy interview, is often called “getting PINK.” The Embassy can, of course, do its own nit-picking and make you jump through a few more hoops before issuing the visa approval, but we’re hoping this doesn’t happen.

Hopefully within two or three weeks, we will know when the Embassy appt. will be. Then we will hie ourselves down to Guatemala, take custody of the Boy, and wait for the interview to happen and the final paperwork to be issued (another day or two). Then… homeward bound – possibly as early as mid-July.

We were under the impression that our file had been “kicked out” and resubmitted June 1. Normally, it takes 6-10 weeks from a resubmit to get OUT. So we were not expecting this phone call AT ALL.

So why not Cloud Nine?

As I mentioned in my deleted post on Tuesday night, our sweet boy has a big smooth bald patch on the back of his head. It’s not from lying on his back as he rolls over like a madman. We’ve gotten about six different explanations from the doctor, agency, and dermatologist they took him too, none of which really make any sense. [cradle cap, reaction to medicine for cradle cap, reaction to medicine for a rash on his neck, and “something fungal”] And we haven’t been able to get the full medical history we’d like to have in order to be able to bring the pictures to a pediatrican or pediatric dermatologist here. (If you are a medical professional who might know something about this and you’d like to take a gander at the pictures, please email me). Pili took the pictures with her when she went to the dermatologist today, and he said it looked like alopecia areata. This wouldn’t be the end of the world, by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s worrisome, and we’d like to figure out what’s going on.

Geez, this kid isn’t even biologically related to me and he may have autoimmune issues. Am I a bad influence or what?

Plus there’s the aforementioned two mortgages, one and a half jobs, situation to argue about discuss respectfully.

Oh My G-d!!!

I just posted this horribly mopey post which you might read on bloglines and then deleted it because… we got a phone call and…

WE ARE OUT OF PGN!

And Operation Lifeboat is going swimmingly!. We have raised enough for TWO MONTHS RENT FOR CHERI & ERIN. We are keeping the raffle and donations open ’til Friday and then we’ll announce the winners. Thank you all so so so much for your generosity.