International Adoption - Guatemala

My husband Paul and I have been married for 11 years. We met in high school (1988) and knew right away we were meant to be together forever. We always talked about having children and what they would be like, what their names would be, from the time we got together at 17 years old.

Life without children was incomprehensible. We knew we wanted to make sure we were old enough and stable before we took on such an awesome responsibility so we decided to wait until Paul served his 5 years in the US Navy. In July 1994 Paul was honorably discharged from the Navy and we said ok now we can begin to start our family!! It seemed like such an easy thing to accomplish. We were both still very young at 25 years old and healthy non-smokers and non-drinkers. We just knew we'd be expecting within the year. Oh, how wrong we were.

At first we were in denial for about a year and a half. Then in 1996 we knew we were in for a long battle to have a child. At first we started clomid through my long time Gynecologist. We were sure clomid was all we needed. After a year of that we decided to go to a infertility specialist, Dr. Houserman of the ART Clinic at Brookwood Hospital. It was determined that I had moderate endometriosis. I had a laparoscopy in early 1998 and we were told that everything should work out fine with clomid and IUI's after the surgery.

It was around this time that I met Charlotte and we started going to Resolve meetings together. It was so nice to have someone who understood what I was going through and to have a friend with me at the meetings. The Resolve meetings really helped me to decide that we were meant to adopt our child. There were a few couples at the meetings who were going overseas to adopt and every time I heard their stories and heard about their wonderful children my heart would leap. Every fiber in me was saying this was going to be our path to take.

To be honest with you I had had those feelings for quite a while, but the thought of actually going through the international adoption process scared me to death. It seemed like such a hard journey to finally getting your child home. I wasn't sure if I was strong enough to go through the emotional up and down roller coaster ride. We prayed about it for many months and finally decided in late 1999 that we wanted to stop all infertility treatments and begin the adoption journey.

First thing we needed was money. We had spent a bundle on infertility treatments, and knew we had to build our savings back up. In early 2000 we put our house up for sale and hoped like heck we'd have enough equity to cover the cost of the adoption. Sure enough we sold our house and had the exact amount we needed to begin the process. BUT we didn't have a home now. So we decided to build our home in a very rural area and save as much money as we could by doing a lot of the work ourselves. We wanted to make our home "child friendly", so no stairs, large open great room and large kids bedrooms. In March 2001 we had our home built and ready for the large family we have always wanted.

During the spring and summer of 2001 we were researching adoption agencies and countries we would like to adopt from. In Aug. 2001 we had narrowed our countries down to Guatemala and Cambodia and finally decided to adopt from Cambodia. Mainly because the babies were well cared for by individual nannies and the babies usually came home between 3 -5 months old and the cost for the whole adoption was about $15,000 (about what it would cost to adopt an infant domestically).

Guatemala had a lot of the same good aspects but the cost was way over our budget (costing over $10,000 more than Cambodia). In both countries the children were absolutely beautiful to top everything off.

We decided to use Villa Hope as our homestudy agency and decided to use Reaching Out through International Adoption in Cherry Hill, NJ as our placement agency. Our decision to do this came from over 6 months of research over the Internet and over the phone. Choosing your adoption agency is one of the most important decisions you will make when you decided to adopt. I recommend everyone choose wisely. The Internet is a very valuable tool and word of mouth is the best way to find out if the agency you are interested in has the credentials to make your adoption process as smooth as possible.

Our first homestudy visit was on Sept. 16th 2001. It was a very pleasant experience. The social worker does ask a lot of personal questions, but it is done in a professional and pleasant manner and it's feels rather good to go into such detail with your social worker. I found it to be very therapeutic.

Our second homestudy visit was on Sept. 25th, 2001 at a local restaurant with our social worker and it was basically a question and answer session on how we would parent our child and if we understood that we were adopting a child of a different race and how we were going to incorporated his or her heritage into our lives. If you are going to adopt internationally this aspect is very important and one that should not be ignored. You have to be willing to learn about your future child's heritage and know deep down in your heart that you can embrace it as you would your own heritage. I was aware that Cambodia had a lot of negative aspects about it's past, but the culture and heritage was incredibly interesting and beautiful. I read a ton of books and visited just about every website about Cambodia I could find. I couldn't wait to travel !!

On December 5th 2001 we received our INS approval to adopt an orphan overseas. This is a huge hurdle to getting the referral of your child. We were thrilled to say the least, but there was a dark cloud hanging over the excitement because we had been hearing rumors on the Internet and from our agency that Cambodia was about to suddenly close it's adoption program. The local Embassy in Cambodia suspected fraud by some adoption agencies and thus was about to stop issuing visas for the all the children regardless of which agency handled the adoption. Our agency was not one of the ones being investigated, but our agency coordinator did say that they would hold off giving out referrals until the agencies in question were dealt with and the INS threat to stop all adoptions was taken care of.

So here we were during Christmas 2001 ready to accept the referral of the child we have been dreaming of and we were told "hold on for now". It was a huge let down, but we decided to wait and see what would happen. On Dec. 21st, 2001 the INS announced that it was not going to allow visas for orphans adopted by American citizens until further notice. That meant the adoptions would be legal in Cambodia, but there would be no way to bring them home to the USA without visas.

After much discussion with our agency in NJ we decided to bite the bullet and find the extra money needed to adopt from Guatemala. I knew God would not abandon us during this hard time and sure enough a few weeks later we received a generous loan from my father. On January 17th, 2002 we called our agency to say we were ready to accept the referral of a baby boy born on 12/26/01. His name was Jose Eduardo and we decided to name him Jacob Tyler.

We had to rush and change our dossier from Cambodia to Guatemala. This was no easy task because Cambodia's paperwork requirements were nothing compared to what Guatemala required (twice as much paperwork and everything had to be notarized, certified by the state, and authenticated by the Guatemalan Consulate in Miami). It took me almost 4 weeks to get this dossier down to Guatemala before the ball could start rolling with our adoption of Jacob. On Feb. 4th our dossier was Fedex'd to our lawyer in Guatemala, and we were officially on our adoption journey to bring our son home. We were told by our adoption agency that we could expect everything to be done by June 2002, all we had to do now was get ready for Jacob's arrival.

On April 5th, 2002 we got a call that we never dreamed we would get in a million years. Paul took the call from our adoption agency at home while I was out shopping. I came home to my husband, who was noticeably distraught, and I couldn't even begin to imagine the news he had for me. At 13 weeks old, Jacob had died of pneumonia early that morning in Guatemala. Jacob was in a loving foster home (we had pictures and video, so we knew he was well taken care of and loved) but we could not believe that such a healthy infant could die so suddenly. Our lawyer explained that the foster mom told him that Jacob got ill very suddenly and that he died on the way to the hospital.

At first I was very angry at the foster mom and our lawyer. How could they not know Jacob had pneumonia!? I did research on pneumonia in infants and found that it's very common for babies as young as Jacob to show no signs of pneumonia until it's to late. Most parents think they have the common cold. This didn't help to easy my grief of Jacob being gone, but it did help with my anger towards the fostermom and our lawyer. Jacob will always be our first born. He is an angel in Heaven now and we hope we get the privilege of meeting him one fine day in his perfect form. I firmly believe he is our guardian angel and I talk to him on a daily basis and tell him how much we love him.

We were told by our agency that they had 2 baby boys waiting for loving homes. Of course we were not going to give up our dream of being parents, but I was so worried about bonding to another child and loosing him too. My agency emailed me the information on the 2 baby boys a week later and we could not decide which little one would be our son. I very soon regretted that the agency sent both boys information to us at one time. We just could not decided which one to accept. A week later I called the agency and told them we could not make up our minds and if they could please provide us with some additional info. on the birthparents of each little boy. The Guatemalan coordinator whom I was speaking to said, "well we just got information on another little boy today from the lawyer you were using to adopt Jacob (The other little boys had different lawyers representing them) would we like to see the information on this little one". Of course I could not say no. I had to see who this little boy was.

His name was Nestor Mauricio Perez Morales, born on January 25th 2002. They emailed me several pictures, medical information, and information on the birthmom. My heart leapt! He was our son! I emailed the information to Paul at work and he felt the exact same way. I cannot tell you why it felt so right. It just did.

I called my agency right way and said yes we want to be his parents! They faxed me all the paperwork for Paul and I to sign, and they ask what we will name him. Oh gosh, I hadn't thought of that until now. We spent all night going over baby boy names and decided on Joseph Daniel. We would call him Joey for now (and probably Joe when he gets older). Once all the paperwork was sent to Guatemala we were back in the waiting mode and the reality hit me.... how was I going to survive these next 4-5 months scared to death that something would happen to our little boy. I finally put it in God's hands and asked him to give me the strength I needed to trust Him and wait for our son to come home.

One wonderful aspect of adoptions from Guatemala is you have the opportunity to visit your child while the legal process is taking its course. Paul had just started a new job so there was no way he could travel anytime soon, so my wonderful mom and I decided to fly to Guatemala on July 14th to visit little Joey. He was 5 months old by then, and I wanted to see how he was developmentally, physically (he had been very sick for about 3 weeks during the month of June), and of course just to meet this little guy who was to be our beloved son.

What a trip, and what an experience!! We stayed at the Marriott Hotel in Guatemala City and we were treated us like royalty. The hotel was very lavish with 3 restaurants, heated pool, spa, exercise room, Internet cafe and large comfy rooms with a crib. Joey stayed with us at the hotel from July 14th until July 19th. It was an experience I will never forget and it gave me an opportunity to get an idea of what a wonderful child we were blessed to call our own and a chance to kind of see how it is to be a mom for the first time. It was very hard to give him back to his foster mom, Carol, who is a wonderful lady and loved Joey very much. I could tell by his demeanor and his physical health that he was well taken care of . It was a huge relief for me to know Joey was in good hands.

A week after coming home, on July 24th, I get a call at work that the legal proceedings were over and Joey's birth-mom had signed the final adoption decree. Joey was officially ours! WE WERE FINALLY PARENTS! I was useless the rest of the day and could not stop crying from joy, relief and excitement on our impending travel to get our son. With international adoption it is a true roller coaster ride, and a few days later we get a call from our agency that the US Embassy had rejected our paperwork because Joey's passport and amended birth certificate had errors on them. It would take another 4 weeks to get those corrected and submitted back to the US Embassy for approval.

At the time the US Embassy had a huge backlog of approvals to look through and we were finally given the OK to travel on Sept. 10th 2002. We quickly booked our fights on the earliest day available which was Sunday, Sept. 14th. We landed in Guatemala City late that night and crashed into our bed at the Marriott Hotel, both realizing this was our last night together as a married couple with no child under the same roof. We were soooo... happy!!

The next morning we went to the wonderful free breakfast offered by the Marriott and anxiously awaited 10am to arrive when the foster mom was going to deliver Joey to us. The meeting of the fostermom and our lawyer was very emotional and we cried, hugged, talked for about an hour, and finally said our good-byes. Joey's foster mom was so reluctant to say goodbye, it was very emotional. I have to give the foster mom's in Guatemala credit for what they do. It must be so hard to care for a child for 5-7 months and have to give them up to total strangers (and foreigners a that). They have huge hearts. We will always be grateful to Joey's foster mom for taking such good care of him and loving him like he was her own child. I firmly believe it has had a huge impact on his ease of transition into our family.

The next 3 days were a whirlwind of visits to the US Embassy for Joey's visa, shopping in Guatemala City for items of his heritage. We bought a darling traditional outfit, a hammock, colorful tapestry to hang in Joey's room, colorful stuffed animals and of course worry dolls (all these items were handmade). We also bought souvenirs for all our family, like table cloths, picture frames, clothes and jewelry. I splurged and bought a beautiful jade and ruby pendant with a gold necklace as a keepsake for when Joey gets married one day I can give to his beautiful wife as a keepsake from her husbands place of birth. (Guatemala has the largest jade mine in the whole world).

On the last day in Guatemala we decided to travel to Joey's place of birth, San Jose Pinula, about 30 miles from Guatemala City. We wanted to get pictures for Joey's life book and also get an idea of where he would have lived if he had stayed with his birth-mom. We saw the "true" Guatemala on the trip to San Jose Pinula and while visiting. The poverty is so indescribable. My heart ached for all the dirty little children on the sides of the road and rummaging through the garbage dumps. My heart ached also for Joey's 4 siblings (still living with his birth-mom) because they were doomed to a life of hardship and hunger that Joey will never know about. I so wanted to meet Joey's birthmom and thank her, hug her, and let her know how much we loved her son. We didn't get to meet her unfortunately, but I can write letters to her and let her know Joey is well and very much loved. It's the least I can do for a woman who gave us so much.

The trip home was uneventful. Joey slept the whole way from Guatemala to Houston. Woke up for a bottle and playtime while we were waiting on our plane in the Houston Airport, and fell asleep again as we were taxing down the runway to Birmingham. My heart was overflowing with joy having my son in my arms and my wonderful husband beside me fussing over what I needed or what Joey needed. We were welcomed by tons of family and friends at the Birmingham Airport on Sept. 19th 2002. I will never forget that homecoming. Everyone was delighted to finally see Joey and to have us all safe and sound. We spent the evening at my parent's house with folks coming and going and Joey was a real trooper. He was not fussy or cranky and would go to just about everyone (he did prefer the ladies over the men).

It is now December 2002 and we have settled into a wonderful family routine. Joey is happy, bright, energetic little boy who is learning something new just about every day. When he first came home in Sept. He could barely sit up on his own at 7 months. A week later he was sitting all by himself and by October he was crawling and now he is pulling up and cruising the furniture. He loves being outside with the animals and with the sun in his hair. He loves to be tickled and having his feet rubbed by Mommy or Daddy. He loves chasing the doggy in his walker and slamming into furniture at full speed. His laugh is so funny it makes you laugh even harder.

He loves taking a bath and pouring water over his head. He loves to be rocked and cuddled (all the while playing with my hair or my face) in his quite room before bedtime. This is my favorite time with Joey as I have his undivided attention and the bonding process is palpable. There have been many times tears have come streaming down my face as I look at Joey tucked under my breast with his eyes fluttering from sleepiness and contentment. Life is so good! The thanks be to God, our loving Creator.

~Laurie Burns