Research and Speculation

First of all, Ray and I are excited about the upcoming trip -- 11 days from now! We're counting down, making our final shopping lists, getting luggage together, and trying to pin down our adoption agency long enough to ask them the 5 million questions we've thought of about the trip! We're going to practice with the video camera tomorrow. We want to make sure we can bring back loads of video to show off! YAY!

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Secondly, we've been trying to pin down where we are in the process. Everyone keeps asking: have we heard anything yet? When will we get the boys? Etc. To all of the above: we're as lost as you are.

BUT we've been trying to do some research to figure this out.

Here's the layout, from what we understand:

1) Family Court (where we are now) is when a social worker checks out our paperwork, meets the boys in foster care, meets the biological mother and interviews her, etc.

2) PGN then looks at the case and tries to determine if there are irregularities or signs of fraud.

3) The birth certificate is redone, with our names listed as parents and the boys' last names marked as "Moore"

4) The Guatemalan passports are made for the boys.

5) We get a "Pink Slip" with our Embassy appointment

6). Voila! We have the boys. Just like magic! (Long, complicated, very pokey magic).

Here's my hope:

Ideally, we'll be out of family court in a couple of weeks around the time we see the boys. Then, I'm hoping another two months for PGN, which would put us around around the end of Nov. (but may, realistically be three months). The birth certificate, passports and pink slip should come within a couple of weeks after that. I'm hopeful we'll get our pink slip around Christmas, which will mean will get the boys about the first of the year.

It's all up in the air. Everyone may take a long Christmas holiday and not get around to helping us with this adoption, or PGN could take 4 months by itself. It's all hard to say, but we've told you what we know.

It'll just be so great to see the boys in 11 days. Get ready for pictures and video!