Joanie at the store today

Shopping. :) Gotta love shopping!

I was in the store today shopping for Ryan, who turns 9 tomorrow. (9!!!) It's so fun picking out stuff you KNOW he'll love! :) - A new watch... A science set to make your own soda pop..... A book that teaches how to make the coolest paper airplanes.... A couple of pairs of pants for his skinny little butt... (not an easy task - why exactly do "they" not make size 9?!! Sizes jump from 8 to 10! 8 slim - too short. 10 slim- too long. Ridiculous!)

Then the eyes wander to the little kids section... Oooo!! Little dresses for Wilma - on sale of course!! And little shirts and shorts for Nelson!!! Awww - that one has a frog on it! Oh! The fun!!

And THEN..... The plush Dora and the plush Diego! Yep, those are coming with me! I actually caught myself gushing "oh how CUTE" out loud - made a quick check to see if anyone was watching.

I made my way to the checkout. Oh, I just HAD to share the joy at finding these adorable things for my soon-to-be niece and nephew that my sister is in the process of adopting from Guatemala with the check out person. She was a pretty Latino girl. "Oh really?!" She said, "How cute! I'm adopted. How old are the kids?" I told her that the little girl was three, and the boy, 1. She said she was adopted when she was three.... stranger yet.... she AND her brother were adopted by her parents! He was 5, she was 3. She went on to say how grateful she was for her parents. How wonderful they were to them, and what a great thing it was for her and her brother to be adopted. She said she would like to do the same some day.

How about that! Now THAT was a great day shopping! Some strange coincidences!

How to Talk About Adoption - Resources

My recent post about Vilma's friend Alara has made me think a little about how to best explain adoption to my nephews in Colorado and Texas and the friends of our children. I'm sure this will be a conversation that we will have many times in the future and the nature of the conversation will change as our children, friends and family mature.

My first inclination is always to check the library, or more often than not, the bookstore. (Yes, for Harry Potter fans out there, if I was a character in the Harry Potter books, I would be Hermione!) There wasn't really a terrific selection of books available for children, but I was referred a site by our adoption agency when we first started on our journey http://www.tapestrybooks.com/ that specializes in books about adoption, including children's books, which may prove to be a useful resource. I've also added a link to our blog site where you can find some online courses about adoption that I thought were incredibly useful.

I invite anyone who has experience talking with their kids about adoption to comment on their experience and to share best practices. If you have read any of the books, please share with us which ones you thought were particularly good.

Wishing everyone happy reading!

Vilma’s Best Friend, Alara

Last night, Alara and her parents and grandmother came over for dinner. Alara is three years old, and is very anxious to meet her friend Carolina (she calls Vilma by her middle name, Carolina –the whole name thing is getting very confusing!) Shortly after she arrived at our house, she discovered some toys that I had bought for Carolina and Nelson. We had purchased so many things for our last trip to Guatemala – I didn’t have room to bring everything and some things that I brought to Guatemala, I brought back so we could use them repeatedly between trips and establish some sense of familiarity between trips). In particular, she noticed the cups that we had used in the bathtub and the swimming pool with Carolina and Nelson. Alara’s mommy, Guler, has been very persistent about showing Alara the pictures and the videos of her new friends, Carolina and Nelson – so Alara recognized the cups. After a short while, Alara asked whether she could see my room. At the time I thought that surely she meant Carolina’s room, which she had seen before when it was filled with toys that we were getting ready to take with us on our first trip, but as I think about it, I think she was looking for the room and bathroom that she had seen in the video…

She investigated the bathtub very closely – we have a rather large one – deep and wide with jets for a whirlpool effect, very different from the standard bathtub we used at the hotel. She asked me to pick her up and place her in the tub – she stretched out, jumped up and down, thoroughly investigating. This was our conversation:

“Is this Carolina’s bathtub?”

“Yes, but she hasn’t tried it yet…. She doesn’t live in our house yet.”

“Where is she?”

“Well, right now she is in a different country. We can’t bring her home right away because we have to fill out lots of papers and talk to lots of people before we are allowed to bring her home. But when she comes home, she’ll live with us in this house all of the time."

“Where is she?” (Apparently an inadequate answer!)

“Right now, she is staying with a very nice lady who is taking care of her.”

“Her mommy?”

“No, this lady is just taking care of her until she is ready to come home with us. Do you want to see her room?” (Diversion technique – very successful!)

“Is this Carolina’s bed?” (I have a crib in the bed at the moment. I wanted to demonstrate some semblance of preparedness for our homestudy. At the time, we hadn’t even heard of Vilma and Nelson.)

“No. This bed is too small for Carolina or Nelson. We are going to buy some new beds for them.”

"Would you like to see some of her toys?”

And with that, we proceeded to investigate the toy cabinet. Hopefully indirectly Vilma is making a good impression on Alara by sharing all of her toys! They both seem to like PlayDo a lot – they have at least that in common – and, we learned they are the only three year olds we know who like to have their grapes peeled!

Oma's point of view...1st day meeting Vilma and Nelson

It is about time that I tell my side of the story! It was August 3, 2007 and we were following Jim and Yolanda on their way to Guatemala City! Yolanda had called me on the way to the airport, from then on in our minds we were traveling with them all the way. Luckily I knew from the Continental web site what the flight number was and with the help of www.Flighview.com we were able to follow the flight all the way! They left about 10 minutes late, but would arrive a half hour earlier!

FLIGHT TRACKER
Departure
Airport:
Houston, TX (Intercontinental) (IAH)
Scheduled Time:
9:30 AM, Aug 03
Actual Time:
9:39 AM, Aug 03
ArrivalStatus: In air
Airport:
GUA
Scheduled Time:
11:24 AM, Aug 03
Estimated Time:
10:58 AM, Aug 03
Track This Flight Live!
Time To Arrival:
2 hr 2 min
Flight Details
Aircraft:
Boeing 757-200
Ground Speed:
396 KTS
Altitude:
15600 feet

In our thoughts, we followed them to the hotel..... would they REALLY see the children that afternoon? We'd had so many disappointments, it was almost too much to hope for... How would it go? Would the kids be scared to death to be left with strange people? Just imagine a 3 year old in that situation! How would they communicate? All these thoughts were running through our minds. We were on pins and needles. Would it be possible to find out anything? Maybe we could call? But how would we find a phone number? I remembered Jim mentioning the Guatemala City Marriott, so I went to the Internet and found a phone number!! Should we call? We really wanted to... what time is it there now? Are the kids there and are they in bed... are we going to wake them up........so many questions.. We finally just DID it.. the suspense was too great.. First we got the desk....oh oh.. Spanish.. what is he saying? Do you have a Jim Phillips staying?.. We do not know a room number........ring... ring... ring.......Jim's voice.....hello? JIM!!!! we just about shouted his name... are the children there??????? Well, we need not have asked, because we could hear them laughing in the background, that was a good sign! Yolanda came to the phone and between peals of laughter we gathered they must be doing OK!! How is everything, are they scared... are you taking lots of pictures.. yes, Jim is taking video as we speak... Are the kids not in bed yet.. it is late already... no, Yolanda is going to give them a bath in a minute.... and all this between fits of laughter... do you want to say OLA.. say ADIOS.... we heard their voices, everybody sounded so happy, it was just great! Yolanda said that things just could not have been better, and Jim and Yolanda sounded sooooooo happy! After Jim and Yolanda came back to Houston, they sent us the videos and pictures... then we really felt we had almost been there with them! What a happy telephone call that was! After we hung up the phone, dad and I had a glass of wine to celebrate... that night I would sleep well!!

First Trip to Guatemala - Day 3

Well, if I was tired the morning of Day 2, it was nothing compared to the morning of Day 3. I had another night of fitful sleep, zooming out of bed each time Nelson moved to make sure he was adequately covered and wasn’t about to fall out of bed. I learned over the weekend that while it’s easier for him to fall asleep, he’s much more mobile in bed when he is asleep than Vilma. Vilma hardly moves an inch – when she’s out, she’s out. Conversely, each night Nelson ended up perpendicular to the bed, sleeping lengthwise between the pillow and the covers. I was persistent about covering him with the blanket we had brought him, but he was equally persistent about pushing it off. To give myself more piece of mind, I moved the arm chair to one side of his bed and wedged a pillow between the night-table and the bed on the other side of the bed. I needn’t have worried, he ended up doing just fine.

Day 3 began much like Day 2, with Jim and I welcoming our children to the new day saying “buenas dias, ti amo Nelson! Ti amo Vilma!” My conclusion from our short time with them is that they wake up happy from a good night sleep. After I had removed Nelson’s diaper, I rummaged through their clothing drawer to find something that would fit… my fingers landed upon a cute little set of overalls – those at least wouldn’t fall off! As soon as I pulled them though, Vilma announced “mio!” (mine!) I thought to myself, well this will be interesting… The tag on the overalls said 18 months. I pulled out a very cute white shirt with ruffled sleeves and a pretty embroidered heart and proceeded to dress Vilma. The overalls fit her perfectly! Good thing I had two pairs…

After we had them dressed, I lifted Vilma to wash her hands and face – over the course of the last couple of days this had proven to be one of her favorite activities. Each time that she had to go potty, she was very good about washing her hands, and often times, she would simply say “Manos! Manos!” (hands). She’s so little; I have to pick her so she can reach the faucet with her hands. She’ll smile at me and giggle while she rubs her hands together under the water, then asks “shampoo, shampoo!” scrubs her hands with soap all the way to her elbows, then places the soap back on the soap dish and after rinsing them, she’ll start splashing and scrubbing her face. Takes you by surprise the first time she does it, that’s for sure! That morning, I decided to try the toothbrushes I had brought for them. They watched me brush my teeth that morning and seemed interested. They both managed this remarkably well – first brushing their smile and then opening wide – giving me the impression they had had their teeth brushed before, which I took as a good sign.

When we had them dressed and ready to go we headed for breakfast using the strollers which by now we had become quite attached to – thank goodness for strollers! That morning, they each got a cup of yogurt, which they absolutely loved. This was a perfect opportunity for Vilma to feed herself with the baby spoon that I had brought. She was definitely more selective with the food that morning, electing to pass on some things and indicating specific things that she liked in particular. Interestingly, she really liked grapes, but was very particular about having them peeled. I had to cut them in half and some of the time she would scoop the meat of the fruit out of the skin with her teeth and other times, wait for me to peel the grapes. Both kids ate whole bananas that morning. It was pretty funny watching Vilma – she kept putting the banana back together again and pretending to peel it and seemed quite impressed with her accomplishment.

After breakfast, we thought we might take the kids to the zoo. The zoo is pretty close to the hotel and we thought it might be nice to get out with the strollers and have a change of scenery. As Jim was asking directions, I was strolling Vilma around the lobby. She saw some kids running around with balloons and was anxious to get her hands on one herself. The convention for mothers and babies that we had noticed on our first day was still open. I had thought that the convention was specifically oriented towards pregnant women, which I immediately dismissed as irrelevant. But we decided to investigate. I asked whether we could have a balloon and the attendee explained that you could get one if you went inside, that inside they had lots of booths for kids and a play area…. That sounded interesting indeed! Once we went inside, we couldn’t believe we had ignored this terrific resource for two whole days! The place was jam packed with things for kids – computer games, toys, children’s photographers, booths on different preschools, strollers and other equipment and once we weaved our wave through the aisles, a playground for kids!

This ended up being pure heaven. Vilma and Nelson hesitated at first, but after a while of making a fool of myself bouncing around and falling on the soft cushions and after watching other children at play, Vilma was ready to explore. We played chase around some big cushions that you could slide down, jumped into a bowl of colorful balls and had a ball throwing war with Pappa that illicited an eruption of giggles, and after that, Vilma needed no encouragement at all - everything was fair game. Nelson soon followed and before you knew Jim and I were running around trying to keep up with the two of them running up and down slides, sliding down slides, crawling through tunnels and playing peak-a-boo… we were having a blast!

Jim left the kids with me and reviewed the products available at the convention more closely. He found a double stroller that was reasonably priced that we could use with the kids and leave with Jessica, thereby fulfilling one of her wishes and our commitments, and he found a few other things that the kids needed. All in all, a goldmine! We couldn’t believe that it had taken us so long to investigate. Good thing Vilma wanted a balloon.

After lunch Jim set out again to find some clothes that would fit. Most of the clothes that we had brought and the clothes Jim had bought were too big and we didn’t want to leave without having provided some decent clothing for them. While Jim was out, we played in the room and after a while, decided to try out the new stroller. I took them outside and we just went back and forth just outside the hotel. The kids were absolutely mesmerized by this… it was so relaxing. We kept passing the same people and each time we passed, they would smile understandingly. It didn’t take long for the two of them to fall asleep. Finally, a nap that was reasonably timed during the afternoon… we were getting better at this.

Jim came back and we headed upstairs. After last night’s meltdown in the restaurant, we decided it would be best for them to wake up in our room. This meant that we needed to take them out of the stroller because the stroller would not fit through the door. I carefully lifted each child out of the stroller and placed them on the bed. They were sound asleep.

If memory serves, I think this was the time that we talked to mom and dad again. It was a comfort knowing that everyone was getting timely information about our trip and it was neat to share our experiences with them on a real-time basis. After doing some preliminary packing and putting aside the things we planned to leave the children, we got a phone call from our lawyer, he was downstairs in the lobby and asked if we had any other questions and whether he could come to our room. We were surprised to hear from him, but it was really nice to have an opportunity to ask additional questions now that we had been with the kids for a few days.

Both Vilma and Nelson have been very itchy, so we asked whether he had information about any kind of skin condition that they may have. He called Jessica on his cell phone and inquired and we learned that they have scorosis. Jessica had not been able to purchase the medicinal cream they needed for this condition to be treated. We also asked about some scars that we found on Vilma’s arm and leg that looked like she might have been burned at one point in time in her past. We learned that they had been in poor health at the time that they entered foster care, they weren’t really sure what had caused the scarring. No matter – we would take care of our precious daughter and make sure nothing like that every happened again. We also asked what the magic secret was to bedtime. Jessica’s answer, only a one hour nap in the afternoon and at bedtime, turn out all the lights, kiss them goodnight and leave the room. Well that explained things! We had left a desk light on at Vilma’s request and I never left the room – not once the whole night! The good news, we learned what techniques to use to bring them to bed, the bad news, they had already been sleeping for two hours! Oh well, we would do our best. Live and learn.

After speaking with Osskar, we woke up the children by playing some very soothing music. I had brought some little teddy bears that played music when you pulled the handles on both ends. This turned out to be the perfect way to wake them up – no crying, no meltdowns. Hurray! Once they were thoroughly awake, we went for a final tour through the convention and spent some time at the playground. After that, we headed to the dining room for our last dinner.

There had definitely been a shift in their eating habits over the course of the last few days. Initially, they seemed ravenous. But each subsequent meal, they seemed to eat a little less and became a little more particular as to what they wanted to eat. They still seemed to like everything, but they had their favorites and didn’t eat everything to the same degree. They also got the itch to get out of their high chairs earlier. That night, we let Vilma and Nelson run around a little. The dining area was pretty empty and we were sitting outside. The kids were running and squealing with delight just begging us to come and get them, and then peeling with laughter when we got them and threw them in the air and kissed their bellies. We were the evening’s entertainment – people couldn’t help but watch and laugh – their giggles are just contagious. We had come a long ways over the last few days earning their trust and maybe even some of their love and affection. It was bittersweet when we took them back upstairs to get them ready for bed.

When we got to room, we cycled through some of our favorite activities, standing on the balcony watching the cars go by, calling out the colors, playing peek-a-boo around the edge of the bed, taking our last bath, having our last snuggle session all wrapped up in the towel. Both Jim and I were trying to soak in every last moment. Jim finally got frustrated with Nelson’s pajamas and cut about five inches from the legs with scissors – aah! Freedom! No sooner had Nelson been freed from this burden when Vilma asked for the same in spite of the cute little ruffles on the cuffs of her pants. She was willing to make the sacrifice. Then finally, it was bedtime.

Now we were armed and dangerous… we were informed! All the lights went out and we laid them in bed and explained that it was bedtime. Before Jim could escape and leave me trying to get them to sleep, I left the room. Let him try it for one night! I was pooped! But shortly after I exited the room, Jim followed, and immediately, the crying began. Jim made me promise to wait 10 minutes before going into the room. I paced back and forth listening to Vilma yell “Mommy! Mommy!” Ugh… heart wrenching! Nelson expressed some initial cries, but quickly fell silent, apparently happy to let Vilma carry the message that they were unhappy. We tried peaking through the door to see what was happening, but that just made it worse because she could tell by our shadow that we were there. Wouldn’t you know it, after nine minutes Vilma was quiet. I crawled underneath the desk to peak through the door. I had to squeeze my nose shut to keep from making any noise I was laughing so hard. There those kids were, sitting up in bed talking, and wouldn’t you know it, eating! You could hear the crackle of the cereal bags as their little hands sought cornflake after cornflake… for our two snuggle-muffins, absolutely typical!

Finally, I had an opportunity to get to bed on time! But you know, after all the events that weekend, I just couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about how much I love these kids and what a great dad Jim was proving to be… what an amazing weekend this had been. After lying awake for a while, I snuck out of bed and packed my suitcase, hoping to buy some time the following day. Then finally, I fell asleep.

A sister's point of view

Ah yes! The week leading up to the moment when my sister and brother in law met their children for the FIRST TIME EVER! I told everyone! I have lots of friends who have adopted children internationally. Vietnam, China, Kazakhstan... the list goes on. The ladies in my Bunco group - most of them have adopted children. One of the bunco ladies, even does home studies for a local agency that handles adoptions from China. Well, I told all of them. I told my boss... my high school friends.... the lady behind the register at the grocery store where I get groceries... you get the idea.

I would be at a campground with several other families and our 3 sons, while my beautiful younger sister was meeting her children for the first time. Mom had told me that Yolanda wasn't bringing her computer, and I was sure that we wouldn't be able to call, to I thought I'd excruciatingly had to wait the ENTIRE weekend, plus Monday, before we'd learn how everything went. I took my cell phone just in case. Ironically this is reminiscent of last year at this time, when my family and I, and the same group of friends were at the same campground, and I was waiting with my cell phone to see if the in-vitro procedure had taken. Sadly, that weekend was not so happy. This particular weekend, I knew, would be much better! A great memory will replace the sad one.

Camping at a campground at elevation of 10,000 + ft above sea level. I kept my cell phone plugged into the outlet on the camper thinking maybe the attached wiring would give sort of extra antenna...(apparently not, but I wanted to try anything!) Just so that if Mom heard anything at all, she could get a hold of me. Well, Friday night my phone gave that goofy sound that means I have a message on the voice mail. Geez, I tried to call that voicemail probably 10 times. Couldn't get in. Tried to call technical support. Nothing. It never occurred to me to call Mom (duh!) until way too late at night. So, had to wait 'till morning!

Saturday morning, I walked around our camper a few times to see where I could actually get a signal. Barely! Mom answered - and the tone of her voice told everything!!! "Oh yes! They are absolutely beautiful! Yolanda said it couldn't have gone any better!" (Tears streaming down my face!!! - again now, as I write, at the memory of it..) "We could hear them giggling in the background! And we said "olah" and "adios" to them!"

And the cup runneth over with joy. Big bountiful cup runnething over like there was no tomorrow. (Excuse the English.) I could not contain myself!

Not that I didn't KNOW it would be fabulous. My sister has a way with kids. My sons think that she is just an angel that has dropped out of the sky above. Perfect in every way. She sings them songs, tells them stories, has patience beyond comprehension, plays with them, loves them with abandon. Better than Mary Poppins! Yes, she will be a great mom.

First Trip to Guatemala - Day 2

Morning is such a wonderful time of day – so quiet, so nice to be warm and cozy in bed, and so nice not to be in a hurry to get out of bed. I had just started waking up when Jim quietly tip-toed through the door from the adjoining room. It was just so neat to be there, greeting the morning as a family. I gently got out of bed – both children were still sleeping. I gently moved Nelson into Vilma’s bed as I thought it might be reassuring for them to see one another when they woke up.

Nelson was the first to stir. Slowly opening his eyes, blinking, changing positions but not quite committing to sitting up – looking at us, looking at his sister. I wondered what this would be like – would they be disoriented, would they be distressed to find themselves with these strange people in this strange room instead of their familiar surroundings?

We quietly reassured him with greetings of welcome – “Buenas dias Nelson. Ti amo.” (good morning Nelson, I love you) and gently rubbed his back. A smile crept across his face when we nuzzled his stomach, we sighed with relief. Slowly, Vilma started waking up and, like her brother, slowly took in her surroundings. “Buenas dias Vilma, ti amo…” accompanied by a gentle rub on her back and tummy. I love this moment – you can see it in the video also – she skirts passed the potential moment of fear and disorientation and after sitting up for a bit, allows herself to sink contentedly back into the pillows with a smile. Ahhh!

Next, we needed to change Nelson’s diaper. “Pantalones succio” (pants dirty?)…”oooh, pantalones muy succio!” I forgot to mention the first diaper change in my summary of Day 1 – and I don’t particularly remember one from the other – they all generally followed the same process which was pretty humorous. Jim had never changed a diaper before and experiencing it first hand brought new meaning to the phrase “shock and awe!” Fortunately, I don’t have a particularly sensitive sense of smell, particularly for bad smells, and I’ve changed plenty of diapers before in all my years of babysitting, so no big deal. But Jim absolutely treated Nelson’s diaper as if it were nuclear waste. He somehow managed to procure a plastic bag from somewhere for each of these events and as quickly as possible, removed the dirty diaper from the premises. Come to think of it, I have no idea where these diapers disappeared to… but they didn’t stay in our room for more than two minutes! Nelson handled these sessions like a trooper – no fussing at all – he was happy to have his diaper cleaned and in no time at all, find himself all nice and clean in a brand new diaper and clean clothes.

After watching her brother get dressed, it was Vilma’s turn. On Day 1, we had elected to keep them in the clothes they were in to avoid alarming them by changing their clothes and to provide some sense of familiarity. On Day 2, their Day 1 clothes were dirty, so it was time to try on something new. I pulled out a brand new outfit and some proper panties for my big girl. I held them up and said “Oooh, bonita! Buena?” She happily nodded. If I recall correctly, she only had a dirty diaper one morning, with just a little pee-pee and I think this was on the first day. The other two mornings she was completely dry and clean – almost ready for big-girl panties all night long!

With Vilma and Nelson properly dressed, albeit in clothes they were struggling to keep on their little bodies, we headed downstairs for breakfast. Our mealtimes fell into the pleasant routine of Jim procuring some “quick win” food to keep them occupied, me holding down the fort at the table, Jim piling food from the buffet onto two plates from which we would all eat and Jim spoon feeding Nelson while I spoon feed Vilma and periodically with us reaching across the table to provide a special morsel of something to the other child that was slightly out of reach from the primary food provider. Again, they seemed to love everything! As our bags of “comida” had already significantly diminished over the course of the day yesterday, I grabbed a couple of little cereal boxes to replenish the supply. We proceeded to open the Frosted Flakes at the table and watched Vilma as she very carefully extracted one after another flake and dipped it into her little packet of butter to eat… “hmmm!”

Our table was placed next to a large group of missionaries who were just concluding their trip. Jim volunteered to take some group pictures for them and they proceeded to ask all kinds of questions about Vilma and Nelson and snapping pictures of our beautiful children. As we were concluding our breakfast, the people at the other table next to us approached us. The family at the other table included two Guatemalan young adults – a young man of 21 years and young lady of 19 - and their adopted parents. They had come to Guatemala to retrace their past and were very curious about our family, which appeared to have some interesting parallels. The young man and young lady were biologically related, but in their case, had been adopted by different families. Somehow, their families learned of one another and encouraged a relationship between the siblings as they grew up. This was their first trip back to Guatemala. They encouraged us to maintain the children’s language and return to Guatemala so our children would know the country of their birth. A very interesting and unexpected encounter… I wondered if they felt any sense of regret about what their life would have been like. Surely they wondered… Too intimate of a question to ask over breakfast, particularly while our children were beginning to squirm. From our limited experience, it was obvious that there were some very nice things about this country… We will need to make sure that our children are given the opportunity to benefit from both worlds. Fortunately, Guatemala is only a short flight from Houston and a beautiful destination… we will find a way.

Given that the clothing we had purchased for the kids had turned out to be far too big and they really did need new shoes, Jim set out that morning to find a children’s clothing store and get some necessities. During this period, the kids and I played in the room. I discovered that they loved being on the balcony. It wasn’t enough for me to pick up just one child to see the view, they both wanted to see it at the same time. I tried holding both of them at the same time, but that consumes a lot of energy quickly – I just couldn’t sustain that position. So, I reluctantly placed the desk chair on the balcony thinking to myself, I’m going to regret this, placed it a distance from the wall and sat both children on my lap. But, predictably, this just wasn’t high enough to see over the wall. I stood up and held one while supporting the other on the chair, but Vilma had a better idea and pushed the chair against the wall and clamored up. I was nervous about this, but kept a close eye while we watched the activity on the street. Again, our limited vocabulary came in handy as we exclaimed over the colors of the passing cars and counted how many white, black, red and green cars we saw. When Jim returned, he had been successful finding shoes but unsuccessful finding clothes. Once again, the clothes were way too big. But the shoes were an instant hit.

The activity we planned for the day was to take the kids to the pool – an obvious favorite destination among the other children staying at the hotel. Last night, I had walked Vilma by the pool and we had dangled our feet into the water, kicking and splashing. I had wanted to build up to the pool and create some positive associations. She asked about “la piscina” (swimming pool) and last night I had answered “manjana.” Even when we finally went to bed, I reassured her again “ci, la piscina manjana”and she seemed excited. With the positive experience with the “piscina chico” (little swimming pool – the bathtub) under our belt, we thought we would try it out.

Back in the room, Jim and I changed into our swimming suits while intermittently playing with the kids. Then, it was their turn. I followed the same process that seemed to work earlier – held up the swimming suits and said “Buena, la piscina!” If my memory serves me well, I believe Nelson wasn’t particularly excited about being changed into his swim diapers and swimming suit and Vilma was upset with me for making him do so. Not quite sure, but what I do remember clearly was Vilma being very unhappy about me taking her clothes off to put her swimming suit on… As soon as we got her clothes back on on-top of her swimming suit, she was okay, but she did not like being changed. With some toys, the bath toys, float vests and sippy cups in hand, we headed down to the pool for our next adventure.

There was clearly some hesitation on the part of Vilma as we headed down to the pool. The pool area was packed with families and children. We managed to find a seat for our things and we sat the children by the edge of baby pool – a shallow area no more than a foot deep. I sat down in the water and proceeded to splash Vilma and Nelson’s feet, similar to what we had done last night by the pool and in the bathtub. Vilma enjoyed this and she even tried to push Nelson’s feet in the water so he could experience this too, but his little legs were struggling to reach the water. After a while of this, we thought we would try to advance things to the next step and tried to lift up Vilma and take the bottoms of her outfit off. Again, she did not like us messing with her clothes. At this point, we decided it really didn’t matter whether she got her clothes wet or not. Next, I sat Mr. Easy-Going Nelson on my lap, as I had done in the bathtub and eventually Vilma permitted herself to be placed in the same position. With each passing moment, they became more comfortable and relaxed and carefully observed the other children who were enjoying the water. I could see them debating to give up the security of mom’s lap when toys drifted a short distance away. I am confident that with more time, they will develop an affinity for the water. All in all, I thought they did great for their first swimming pool experience.

Before we knew it, it was lunch time. We sat at a shaded table beside the pool while Papa went to get some food. The hotel had a festive air that day, with a live band playing local music perfect for the pool and had set up a buffet of traditional Guatemalan favorites – taquitos, tamales, chicken, plantains, rice and for desert, sweet potatoes, cinnamon crisps, fried plantains, donut-like pastries, and a creamy custard. We tried it all. At one point, I made the mistake of feeding Vilma a pepper with her chicken – it was obvious she did not like this, but having tried one myself, I was amazed she didn’t cry – it was hot!

With lunch finished, we headed back to the room and pulled out some new toys. I had brought a Leap Frog toy named Lilly who sings and counts in Spanish and a Leap Frog toy that helps teach colors and matching. We also developed a game where the kids would run across the room from the door to the balcony and land in our arms to be thrown in the air… as one child was being thrown the other would run back to the door with giggles all the way as they ran back and forth and begged “una mas” (one more, again) as they were being thrown in the air. Jim went on a second shopping expedition and was more successful finding some clothes that fit perfectly and Pediasure formula for Jessica.

That afternoon, we rented a pair of strollers from the hotel. We had seen several other families with the same strollers and this sounded like a great idea. The kids immediately wanted to crawl into them and Vilma was very conscious of making sure she was properly strapped in. While we waited for Jim in the hallway, we knocked on the door and said “donde es Pappa?” Jim would open the door and peak out – “Es Pappa!!!” while he was rummaging around doing some last minute supplies gathering and going to the bathroom. For the kids and I, the anticipation was delicious – knock, knock, knock “donde es Pappa?”… and finally, “Es Pappa!” When we were all ready to go we headed downstairs. We went to the poolside and before we knew it, Nelson fell fast asleep. Vilma got out of her stroller and cuddled with me on the lawn chair while Jim got us lemonade. We shared the lemonade and wrapped ourselves in a warm towel that had come straight out of the drier – delicious! After a while, Vilma and I walked some circles around the pool with her in the stroller. Each time we were on the opposite side, I would say “donde es Pappa?” and she would point to Jim! I can tell, she’s gonna love her daddy! She loved watching the other children in the pool and every once in a while wanted to touch the water. After walking several laps, a woman commented, “I just had to stop you and tell you, I’ve never seen anyone look so happy!” A comment we heard repeatedly and couldn’t have been more appropriate – definitely, this weekend represented the happiest moment in my life. I have never known such contentment and joy delighting in every new experience with our children.

After spending some time at the pool, we decided to walk around outside the hotel. Vilma was anxious to see the “calle” (street). We didn’t want to go too far so we basically walked to the end of the block on each side of the hotel. No sooner had we completed our first roundtrip when Vilma was asleep. After getting very little sleep last night and playing with them all day, this was a blessing. Jim and I sunk down on the couch in the lobby, treated ourselves to a latte and relished the moment – tired, but unbelievably happy parents at last!

Looking at our watch, we knew we were inviting disaster. They had fallen asleep around 5:00/5:30… not an ideal time to take a nap. They usually ate dinner at 7:00pm according to Jessica. It was definitely a late nap…. Should we let them sleep through dinner, or wake them up? After seeing how much they ate at dinner there was no way that I thought they could skip a meal.

Finally, we decided to gently wake them up in the restaurant. I don’t know why that sounded like a good idea… as I think about it now, I can’t imagine what we were thinking, but anyway, that’s what we did. First, we woke up Nelson, Mr. Easy-Going. Good choice… it took him a while to get his bearings, but eventually he allowed himself to be pulled out of the stroller, placed in the high-chair and started eating. Now it was Vilma’s turn. I gently called her name. She slowly peeled open her eyes and tried to take in the situation. She was content to sit in the stroller for a while, but as we were approaching the conclusion of dinner, I tried to engage her in eating. “Comida?” “Ci?” As she debated what she wanted, you could see the storm approaching…. Slowly, she dissolved into tears. I picked her up, held her close and walked out to the pool area and rocked her back and forth. She settled down, but each time we started to change positions, she started crying. Jim and Nelson were ready to go and he was starting to squirm. We packed up a piece of bread and some fruit and exited the restaurant.

We went upstairs and walked some circles with strollers in the hallway. We were afraid that if we stopped, Vilma would cry. At each turn-around, one of us would take the opportunity to read the facial expressions and try to decipher the status of things. We even tricked them by keeping the momentum of the strollers but switching strollers so the other could see Vilma’s expression at the turn-about. She was calm, but she wasn’t interested in going back to the room. Jim and I couldn’t help but laugh as we did circles in the hallway thinking that if any of our friends could peer into our predicament they would be laughing themselves silly – ah! Such novices!

After walking around a while, I brought Vilma back to the restaurant and walked by the buffet and asked again, “comida?” This time, an affirmative yes. The buffet was closing down, but while I’m sure I was the target of some glances of disapproval, I went through and got another plate for my little girl – she was going to get her dinner if she wanted it. Jim and Nelson came back to the table to see us with another plate of food. No sooner did Nelson see the food, when he indicated he wanted more also. So, we sat down again while I fed Vilma and Jim fed Nelson, dinner #2. When they were finished, we headed back upstairs with a bowl of fruit thinking Vilma may want more later. As soon as we pulled them out of the stollers, they headed to the bowl of fruit and ate every last bite. Vilma in particular like the watermelon and was very careful about removing all the seeds.

At this point, we were back in good terms and we proceeded with bath time, following the same routine as the night before. This time, Vilma asked to go pee-pee before stepping in the tub, smart girl! And I got the baby shampoo before getting in the tub so it was in easy reach, smart mom! On day 2, I managed to gently wash Nelson’s hair with the baby shampoo. He was a little sensitive with his eyes, but all in all, proved he was a trooper. Vilma enjoyed her bath as much as the night before and showed more independence by wanting to be the exclusive water dripper and cup pourer – you go girl! I snuck in some cupfuls of water to help complete the process and snuck the baby shampoo onto her head, but she basically did the rest. We had a little snuggle session when she was tightly wrapped in her towel and got them dressed for bed. Jim had already dressed Nelson. And thus began bedtime, day 2.

After a long day, we were both tired. Jim had no intention of patiently waiting for them to fall asleep. We attempted our routine again of placing them firmly on the bed, singing songs and avoiding eye contact. But each time I peeked between my eyelids and Jim stole a peek in the mirror, they were staring right back at us with smiles on their faces. I started laughing – I couldn’t help myself. Jim expressed some frustration that I thought might scare the kids and sent him packing. Now I had two children who were wide-awake to put to bed all by myself… oh-boy!

We played for a while with the Leap Frog toy and eventually, I focused my efforts on Nelson. Vilma was pretty good about being quiet if she knew Nelson was asleep, so getting Nelson to sleep not only achieved getting one child to bed, but it helped get the other closer. After a short while of rubbing his tummy while he was in a sitting position (which he seemed to thoroughly enjoy and leaned into like a dog getting a good tummy rub), I gently made him lie down and kept rubbing his tummy or back, whichever was facing up. In about 10 minutes, he fell asleep. Vilma wasn’t ready yet. One by one, we explored more toys in the toy drawer and she became fascinated with a card game (color and shape matching game). The cards spilled out and she proceeded to place them all back in one at a time. I was impressed by her perseverance and dexterity, but at the same time, I thought this is never going to end! Eventually, she got all the cards packed into the deck. Then I said “Vilma y Mama y pastina cama, ci?” Basically, Vilma and mommy and playdough in bed, okay? She nodded, and with that, I picked her and we went to bed. She fell asleep within 10 minutes. Not bad if it hadn’t been for the time…. About 2 am in the morning!

First Trip to Guatemala - Day 1

Jim and I left on Friday August 3rd for Guatemala. I had a full day at work on Thursday and basically packed all night. Jim and I both brought medium sized suit cases for ourselves, and one large suitcase of things for the children. We had asked the agency what we could expect in terms of things the foster mother would pack for the kids such as a bottle, pajamas… the answer, “Expect nothing but the clothes they are wearing.” That was all I needed to hear to feel perfectly entitled to launch a major shopping spree. Preparations included clothes, pajamas, underwear for her (she’s potty-trained, smart little girl!), diapers, diaper cream, baby shampoo, baby lotion, baby forks and spoons, sippy cups, bottles, pacifier, bath toys, swimming suits, goldfish crackers, cheerios, books, pictures (birthmother book that I created for domestic adoption), Leap Frog learning toys, playdough, crayons, coloring books, shoes, socks, sweater, DVD player, DVDs in Spanish and English, swim vests, you name it, I packed it!

We left the house at about 7:00 AM – I was bursting with excitement, Jim was being more level headed. We had barely gotten to the border of our neighborhood when I determined we had forgotten the DVD player. This time when we left, there was no turning back. I talked to my mom and dad on the way to the airport to share last minute thoughts about the trip as I knew they would be envisioning our every move. At the airport, we determined that I had been upgraded to First Class – lucky me! I asked, but no bump to first class for Jim. I was happy to be able to sit in first class as we plan to travel first class with the kids when we return as a family to the US and I wanted to photograph various aspects of travel by plane so I could prepare them in advance of our trip. I embarrassed myself a bit taking pictures of the pilots, the flight attendants, the in-seat television sets and the food. I’m sure the people around me thought that this must be my first flight ever! If only they knew…

The flight itself was pretty uneventful. I tried to cram as much Spanish in my brain as time allowed until we neared Guatemala. As we began our descent, I took advantage of the window seat to take in the land of our children. Guatemala is absolutely beautiful. I actually felt a twinge of guilt for removing our children from this beautiful country. Very lush and green and covered with undulating hills, with rivers and crevices running between them. The city of Guatemala is situated near a beautiful lake and is guarded by the peak of volcano. I look forward to future opportunities to explore the country as a family.

As we got off the plane, I was still snapping pictures for my children’s story about air travel. Jim exited the plane with a beautiful young woman, a native Guatemalan, who was just returning from six weeks of travel in Europe. She told about neat places that we should visit in Guatemala and even offered to meet us on Sunday to show us around. I was amazed by her warmth and generosity – a sensation that would be repeated over the course of our trip based on various encounters.

The airport itself is fairly small and is under heavy construction. We were able to retrieve our bags quickly and proceeded to walk outside to await our hotel shuttle. Because we had arrived about 20 minutes early, we had an opportunity to observe the people around us. Several individuals were dressed in the traditional dress of the people of Guatemala. Generally, the people around us were generally of a smaller build. Several people approached us and asked whether we needed directions or assistance hailing cab and even offered to call our hotel for us. I felt embarrassed by the volume of our suitcases and the idle treasures they contained. There was one other Caucasian family and we stood conspicuously near one another until our shuttle arrived. As we headed for to load our bags into the shuttle a small boy appeared out of no when to help us with our bags. He appeared so quickly I thought he was with the shuttle service. But it quickly became apparent by the way he was tugging at his worn and dirty clothes that he was looking for a reward for his efforts. We rewarded him handsomely.

The hotel itself was only about 10 minutes away from the airport. The buildings we passed were functional, not particularly ornate, generally had flat roofs and were protected by high gates and barbed wire. There were trees planted and growing at regular intervals along the road. We pulled into the hotel and were impressed by the expansive lobby as we entered. As we checked in, our bags were taken by the bellman and we were given a tour of the facility. As we walked around the hotel, we were surprised and in my case, a little disconcerted by the number of families staying at the hotel for the exact same reason we were staying at the hotel. Everywhere you looked were Caucasian families cradling Guatemalan children.

Once we were alone in our room, our nerves started building as the count-down began – we had about 3 hours to go before we were going to meet our children. We went downstairs to take a better look around the hotel and had lunch by the pool. Some of you may know that Jim has a habit of taking his time reading a menu and has no issue “leaving the waiter hanging” while weighing his options before placing his order. This time was no exception, only he was taking an even longer time. I pointed out at that the menu was written in English on the right hand side (just in case he hadn’t noticed!) but he told me he was trying to practice his Spanish. Pretty funny – he admitted later that he attempted to order a bacon-hamburger without tomato, and instead, ordered a bacon-hamburger without bacon! Definitely not what he meant to do!

We decided to go to the nearby shopping mall to purchase additional memory for our camera as I had already consumed a lot of my memory taking pictures about airline travel of all things!

We returned to the hotel and were now getting seriously excited. At 3:15 pm we headed down to the lobby to meet the foster mother, our lawyer and most importantly, our children!

We sat in the lobby waiting. Each time I saw someone with small children, I looked expectantly at them. Would I recognize them from the photos we had seen? There was convention taking place in the hotel for mothers and their children – so annoyingly enough, there were women passing with children all over the place. Finally, there was Jessica leading our incredibly cute kids. Jessica was holding Nelson and Vilma was walking by her side. She was so small! I came around the grouping of chairs to greet them. I didn’t want to overwhelm the kids – and really, I was just delighted! – they were so cute! I gave Jessica a hug and we tried some basic communication. Mostly, we were trying to figure out where our lawyer and translator were who were supposed to meet us.

I had brought two little cars and two Little People figures for the kids to play with and after some basic attempts at communication with Jessica, I focused on the kids and showed them the cars, pulled them back, and let them go. Vilma was instantly engaging and laughed when the truck almost rolled off the table. She kept looking up at me shyly and smiling while I played with the truck. Nelson was a little more non-committal, content to sit back and observe. Jessica surprised me by placing Nelson on my lap, which I thought might cause him some distress, but Vilma was intent on showing him the truck and playing with the Little People who we referred to as “la nina” and “las ninas” and that seemed to distract him.

Oscar, our lawyer, a second lawyer (we never understood who he was) and a translator arrived shortly after our initial encounter with the children. Oscar suggested that we meet in our room, which surprised me a little because in the US, even a bell man or room-service attendee hesitates to enter a guest room and will ask that you keep the door open, but after a moments hesitation, we headed to the elevators. Jim later shared with me later that he was certain that this was the beginning of the “shake down” and that we would be asked for money. As it turned out, we had nothing to worry about. Oscar explained to us, who he was, that he would be representing us with the court proceedings, he worked with Isabel, the primary contact between their firm and our agency, and answered various questions that we had. We learned the following from our interview with Oscar and Jessica:
Oscar did not know whether the documents had been received by Isabel yet, but committed to work through the process as quickly as possible upon their receipt
Vilma is potty-trained, but wears a diaper at night. She indicates when she needs to go to the restroom by saying “pee-pee.” She wears a diaper at night.
Nelson drinks formula from a bottle. I showed Jessica the bottle and cups I had brought – “perfecto.”
The doctor said both children needed vitamins for better nutrition – the formula in particular was needed for nourishment, if we could purchase more, that would be helpful
They wake up at 8AM, take a nap at 4PM and go to bed 9PM
They like to eat everything and eat all the time
Yes, we could ship toys or clothing directly to Oscar instead of through the agency (he wrote down his address, which was completely illegible and we had to ask the translator to re-write it)
We received telephone numbers and addresses from both Oscar and Jessica
Jessica was certainly willing to write a note and provide a momento for Vilma and Nelson to remember her by
Jessica had met the birthmother, she was committed to her adoption plan for the children and was eager to proceed with DNA testing and family court (my impression was that she saw this as a signal that Vilma and Nelson were indeed being adopted)
Jessica would ask whether Vilma and Nelson’s birthmother would like to write a note or provide a momento for the children to remember her by
Based on the fact that Vilma and Nelson had been in foster care for over 6 month, the birthmother was precluded from regaining custody
We asked whether Vilma and Nelson needed anything – the answer, vitamins, clothes, shoes, a double stroller (they liked to go outside, but Jessica had a hard time doing this without a stroller) and a bicycle for Vilma. We promised all these things – we just weren’t sure whether we would be able to find all of these things on our trip. I showed Jessica the clothes, toys and shoes we had brought and indicated we would be leaving these things with her for the children.
The children had been swimming once before with Jessica

Also, I walked Jessica through our birthmother book which I intended to leave behind so that she would understand what the pictures represented. She was very impressed with our neighborhood and our house in particular.

It sounds very orderly, but it was rather chaotic. The children were investigating the room, I was eager that their first moments be enjoyable to avoid a potentially difficult moment when Jessica departed, Jim was asking questions to the lawyer at the same time I was trying to communicate with Jessica – and there was only one translator! One of the first discoveries of Vilma and Nelson was the bag of Goldfish crackers and Cheerios – an instant hit. We would hear their agreement “comida buena?” (food good) repeatedly through the visit based on a surprised exclamation of “hmmm.” Vilma very carefully distributed the crackers to herself and to Nelson – she was clearly very protective of her brother, part sister, part mother. We proceeded to count the fish and talk about their colors – basic vocabulary that came in very handy indeed! Our overall impressions were that Oscar was very committed to working through the process, patient with our questions, Jessica obviously cared deeply for the children and was doing her best with her limited means – all in all, our impressions were very positive, which was a relief.

Jessica gave the kids a quick kiss and with that, they were gone. No tears, no drama – another good sign. Together we explored the room and opened the toy drawer. Hands proceeded to investigate and pull out one item after another. I subtly returned discarded items back to the drawer. I had unpacked all the toys from their packaging prior to our trip to conserve space and placed them all in individual Ziploc bags. One of the first items we tore into was the PlayDough – every canister had to be opened and Vilma was beside herself with pleasure. She set aside several colors for herself and designated one ball for Nelson. I tried to demonstrate how the playdough could be used with the accessories I had brought – but she wasn’t interested and she didn’t particularly like me taking any of it away. Ultimately, I demonstrated one tool that could be used to squish the playdough through to make spaghetti – or a least a bumpy piece of playdough – this she liked very much.

We oscillated between playing tickle, playing with the Playdough and eating “comida.” At one point, I pulled out of the stuffed animal drawer the two stuffed dogs that I had brought that looked like Spanky and Pancho (complete with individual dog tags that said Spanky and Pancho – a nice touch I thought!) Evidently, the kids did not particularly like dogs – Vilma pulled away from them immediately. I cuddled the dogs to show that they were nice, but put them away as I didn’t think now was the time to familiarize them with dogs they wouldn’t be seeing for some time. Interestingly, I had also brought a book about animals that you could touch and feel different textures – the hair of a dog, the fuzz of new born chick, the wool of a lamb – again, this did not appeal to Vilma at all. She clearly does not have positive associations with animals. Nelson was non-committal, but quick to mirror Vilma’s reaction. I had also brought book about potty-training which included a very nice button that made the sound of a toilet flushing and a girl giggling. This they also liked very much.

Somewhere during this period we also got a call from my mom and dad. Vilma and Nelson were happily playing and exploring and I was thrilled to report that everything thus far was going perfectly. I was glad for the call and glad that my parents had an opportunity to hear the kids laughter in the background. At one point, Vilma sat beside me and said “hola” on the phone – when I raised the phone back to my ear I heard nothing but eager attempts on behalf of a proud Opa and Oma to say “Hola” and “Adios” – very cute.

Eventually, we headed down to the dining room for dinner. Another adventure for Jim and I – we had no idea what to expect. Amazingly, they showed nothing but eagerness for dinner to proceed. They each got a high chair in which they were perfectly delighted to be placed. We gave them each a half roll to keep them occupied while Jim went through the buffet. Jim’s approach – pile as much food on one plate as possible of every kind and see what they like. Answer: everything! I must say, this whole experience was so much fun – Jim and I sitting their feeding our children, and them, totally enjoying every bite. Our conversation was peppered with “Mas?” (more) “Fruita?” (fruit) “Pollo?” (chicken) “Carne?” (meat) “Comida Buena?” (food good) and the positive response of “ci” and “hmmm.” Even Nelson was quick to say a very expressive “hmmm” (as in yummy!) Jim and I were just reveling in the experience – laughing in surprise at their positive response and marveling at their insatiable appetite. A couple from another table had been watching us and approached us as they were leaving saying what a pleasure it had been to watch us and that we all seemed incredibly happy. Happy indeed!

Once we were back in our room, we initiated bath-time. Jessica indicated that she sometimes bathed them more than once a day. I hadn’t asked how she defined a bath, but assumed she used a bath tub. I filled the bath with warm water to an appropriate level and began to undress Nelson. He started to panic and Vilma was none to pleased that I was causing him distress. I held him close to me while sitting on the toilet. He was literally shaking. I decided to put my swimming suit on and demonstrate. I had a brought a couple of bath toys – cups with holes in them – sat down in the tub and played with the water. Vilma instantly understood the purpose of the toys and began playing with them herself as she stood by the bathtub. Jim gently lowered Nelson into my lap and again, I just held him close until he felt secure. From that point, we had no issues. I gently let the water from the cups wash over him and eventually, soaped him up and rinsed him off. I decided to pass on washing his hair – the bath seemed accomplishment enough.

By the time Nelson had completed his bath, Vilma was ready to climb in – she started pulling off her clothes all by herself. As I helped her, I noticed she had several layers of clothes on – an undershirt, a t-shirt, and an overall dress – wasn’t she hot? And her panties consisted of panties that are meant to be worn on top of a diaper. I also noticed scars on her right arm and leg, extending from her elbow to her shoulder and her knee to her hip. What had this poor child experienced?

I picked her up and gently placed her feet in the tub – immediately, she peed in the tub – and looked up at me with surprise. “No problema” I told her… what are you going to do? I placed her on my lap, just as I had Nelson, and she took absolute delight in playing with the cups. She loved having one stacked above the other creating a cascade of dripping water through the holes in the cup. As Vilma and I were enjoying our bath, I heard Jim rummaging around looking for Nelson’s pajamas. He was certain I had left them behind, I was certain I had brought them. Out of frustration, he scooped all the clothes out of the drawer and brought them to me – ahh! Men! My neat little clothes drawer! Oh well, we found the pajamas and Jim proceeded to dress Nelson and get him ready for bed. Vilma eventually asked for the “shampoo” – which I assumed was soap. She very carefully and thoroughly soaped up her body, every nook and cranny – and proceeded to rinse herself off with cups of water. I was then shocked to see her proceed with her hair. In no time at all, she had doused one after another cup of water onto her hair, with both of us counting “uno, dos, tres, quatro…” I was so impressed! Both of us were enjoying every moment – each cupful was thrown with increasing vigor – and, quite a bit managed to go over the side. And, before I knew it, she took the bar of soap and started scrubbing her own hair! I had brought baby shampoo – you know, the gentle, tears free kind – apparently not for this kid! She had no issue with the soap or the water.

As the water was slowly dropping in temperature, I started to gesture that our bath was finished. She had other ideas in mind. Eventually, I climbed out and started dancing around with the towel, making “out of the bathtub” seem as fun as “in the bathtub” – with my next attempt, she was ready and willing to be lifted out of the tub. I wrapped her up tightly and brought her into the bedroom. After some tickling and blowing bunnies on various parts of her body, I pulled out her pajamas said “Bonita! Buena?” She nodded hear head with a happy smile. She loved her new purple pajamas. For Jim and I, it was further confirmation of how small they both were. They simply swam in these pajamas – they were way too big!

Jim and I settled them on the bed and tried to help them wind down. They both wanted to crawl off of the bed. Eventually, Jim and I each took a post on one side of the bed. I had watched Super Nanny plenty of times, I was ready to apply her technique. I told Jim to persistently place them back on the bed and to avoid eye contact. After several attempts of escape, they got the message the message they needed to stay on the bed. I had my back facing Vilma and started rocking back and forth and making my way through my repertoire of children’s songs – always a favorite among my nephews and the kids I had babysat for, so why not give it a try? After quite some time, I turned back around and discovered Vilma still looking at me, wide awake. After gently rubbing Nelson’s back for a while, he fell asleep. But Vilma simply wasn’t ready. Jim retired to the adjoining bedroom while Vilma and I played until after midnight. Amazingly, after that enormous dinner, she was still interested in the fish crackers and cheerios. Eventually, she and I crawled in the other bed together, with the bag of cheerios and fish crackers, and settled down to go to sleep. I still have a vision of the two of us lying side by side, facing one another, and her smile and contended sigh, happy that I was going to bed with her - melts my heart when I think about it.

Through the course of the night, I carefully jumped in and out bed each time I heard Nelson move, careful not to awake Vilma, but worried that Nelson was either cold or at risk of rolling off of the bed, although he had demonstrated amazing sensitivity earlier slowly, slowly controlling his slide off the side of the bed. There was no incident once each of them had fallen asleep, but I didn’t particularly get a good night sleep. Morning came all too soon.

Where our Journey Began...

Jim and I started down the path of adoption about 1 year ago in the summer of 2006. We had tried various infertility treatments over the period of two years which culminated in a single attempt to conceive via invitro-fertilization. It was during this last procedure that Jim and I couldn’t help but ask ourselves why we would go through this intensive and expensive process when we only had a 30% likelihood of success when adoption was an option. When we failed to conceive and after some period of soul-searching, we concluded that adoption was the right choice for us.

Just deciding to adopt is a far stretch from actually doing so. While we had become experts at infertility – follicle production, viability of eggs, motility of sperm, injections, gonadotropin, etc – we were complete novices when it came to adoption. Even though Jim himself was adopted, the process of adopting had changed substantially from the time Jim’s parents adopted he and his siblings. There were closed, semi-open, open, and international adoption options. We read up on each, talked with various people we encountered who had recently adopted a child, talked with various agencies and finally elected to work with Caring Adoptions, an agency managed by a contact from our church, who seemed to apply a very practical, no-nonsense approach and had experience with domestic and international adoption which we valued since we were still struggling to decide which path to take.

We completed all of our paperwork for Caring Adoptions over the course of the fall and submitted our dossier to Caring Adoptions at the beginning of January. We then waited for our home study to be scheduled and focused our energy on scouring every nook and cranny of our home. My Christmas presents that I had asked Santa for – a Miele vacuum and a Hoover steam cleaner – came in very handy! We purchased fire escape ladders for the upstairs bedroom, fire extinguishers, cabinet locks, door knob protectors and socket protectors, assembled John and Stephanie’s crib and changing station – the whole nine yards - to illustrate that we were “ready.” I had members of my team from work come to my house over the weekend to practice ringing the doorbell and answering the door in such a manner that the dogs would refrain from their usual naughty behavior of trying to bust through the door to greet our guests.

Amazingly, the dogs were on their best behavior. I was just returning from a brief walk to relieve some of their energy to find that our social worker had already arrived and Jim was doing his utmost to play the part of host and offer a drink and cookie. Over the course of the introductions, we learned that she had been conducting home studies for quite some time and had even conducted home studies for Hope Cottage, the agency in Dallas from which Jim and his brother and sister were adopted. More on that later…

Consistent with the agency she represented, she applied a no-nonsense approach to the whole interview. She immediately started in to the questions and it quickly became apparent what the differences were between Jim and I. I gave lengthy, introspective responses to the questions while Jim pretty much stated the obvious – I think she was amused, as were we. She asked us to describe ourselves, what we loved about one another (which I couldn’t wait to hear Jim’s answer since he doesn’t often reveal these things!), how our parents raised us, what we planned to do differently from how our parents raised us, how we expected to talk about adoption with our children, the approach we expected to take to punishment and other questions.

At the conclusion of our interview, we took a tour of the house. Fortunately for us, she chose not to investigate the garage, I breathed a sigh of relief because it was still pretty messy. Then she basically packed up her things and started to head out… Jim and I looked at one another and then rushed to ask, “Well, how did we do? Did we pass?” and she quickly responded with a little surprise and humor, “You got and A+!”

January led to February and we were anxious to make progress. We had to make a decision. At a certain point, you reach a fork in the road and have to decide domestic or international, and if international, which country because the process is different for each one. We wanted to adopt internationally because we weren’t comfortable with open adoptions and in the US, the majority of domestic adoptions are open. We thought about China – but the process was taking 18 to 24 months from the time of referral – too long for us. We thought about Russia, but the program there was unstable, all the agencies in the US had recently been de-listed and were required to re-certify themselves. We thought about Guatemala, which really appealed to me because of the foster care system which typically provides better care than institutional childcare, the shorter time frame from the time of referral until the time you bring your child home, the proximity of Guatemala to Houston allowing more opportunity for return visits and the opportunity to visit your child while they are in foster care until such time that the process has been successfully completed and they are ready to come home with you. And to top it off, the idea of Guatemala and what I perceived to be the warmth of the culture just appealed to me.

We had basically decided on Guatemala when we learned that the US Embassy had issued warnings about concerns about ethical practices around how children are obtained that are available for adoption. At this point, we basically gave up on the international front and started down the path of domestic adoption. In domestic adoption, the birth-mother chooses the family for her child based on her review of a picture book that each family prepares. Being the perfectionist that I am, I set out to create the ultimate birth-mother book. This took quite some time sorting through thousands of pictures and selecting just a few and then impossibly, trying to squeeze a lifetime into a few pages of 8 ½ by 11 sheets of paper. Finally, in April our birthmother book was ready for review. Our first opportunity came late in April. A birthmother had narrowed down her choice to three books; ours was one of the three. Ultimately, she selected another family.

While the outcome of this first review was disappointing, we were encouraged that eventually, the process of trying to become a parent would end and we ultimately shift our focus to being a parent.

Now that we had completed all the necessary steps to make ourselves eligible for domestic adoption, we reached out again to our agency and asked them to advise us on the international front as we still considered this our preferred path, we were simply confused by what was and what was not available. On May 18th, Jim and I arrived at Caring Adoptions for a meeting where we expected to discuss our options internationally, review the various features and requirements of the adoption programs of different countries and expected to use this information to consider which country we wanted to pursue. I remember being quite emotional on my way to the agency that day, thinking, that I really didn’t want to do anymore research or develop anymore expertise in how to adopt, I just wanted to move past the process and focus on how to parent.

Amazingly, when we arrived at the agency, Pat showed us three pictures of children who were available “now” just waiting for families….

It was a dream come true. We were shown three pictures, one of a boy who was 6 months old, another a baby who was only 15 days old and finally, the picture that touched our hearts of Vilma and Nelson, a sister and brother three and a half and a year and a half old. In less than 6 hours, we made our decision. The children who had touched our hearts – the son and daughter we always wanted – we committed ourselves to them.

I busied myself that weekend buying Spanish language CD’s, Spanish and English language books but the excitement quickly settled as we began to comprehend the volume of additional documentation required by Guatemala. Initially, we thought the documentation we had prepared for Caring Adoptions would meet at least some of the requirements for Guatemalan adoption. We ultimately learned that none of our documentation had been prepared to meet the Guatemalan requirements. At this point, a very focused effort began to grind through all the documentation requirements which included physical medical examinations, homeland security clearance by the FBI, local police and city police clearance, original birth and marriage certificates, clearance by immigration to initiate immigration of an orphan, certificates of profession and income, letters of reference, legal witness declarations, copies of passports… this list went on and on. All documents needed to be notarized, sent to the secretary of state from the state in which the document originated to be certified and sent to the Guatemalan consulate to be authenticated and from there, documents were sent to our agency who reviewed them and sent them to Guatemala to be translated.

We encountered some set backs and surprises. We learned that Caring Adoptions hadn’t reviewed the documents we had submitted in January and, in order to complete our homestudy, required some additional documents including completion of a 9-hour CPR course, delaying the completion of our homestudy. We learned that International Family Services would have conducted our homestudy at no additional cost based on the completion of the documents we prepared for our Guatemalan dossier, so we could have saved ourselves time and money had we better understood the process. The mailing and receipt of our completed homestudy was delayed by three weeks because of a change in personnel at International Family Services that hadn’t been communicated to us or to Caring Adoptions. And, most importantly and heart wrenching, we learned the process would not likely be completed until next summer when we had thought we would be bringing our children home in the fall.

The intensity of the period of time in which we tried to pull our documentation together as quickly as possible, in conjunction with some of the frustrations we encountered with misinformation and poor communication did take a toll on our spirits. But a new ray of hope arrived with news that we were finally able to travel and meet our children.

The conditions that had to be met that would allow us to travel were unclear. Finally, Jim sent a message to our agency contact indicating that we had booked our travel and needed to know how we could contact our lawyer in Guatemala. Amazingly, she said “Great, I’ll make all the arrangements for you.” With that response in hand, we scheduled our flight and began preparations for our trip.

Yolanda and Jim's Blog

This is Yolanda and Jim's blog about adopting their kids from Guatamala.