A longer wait than expected

We received some 'not so great' news today. Both Jason and I were thinking we would be traveling soon to get our little Reed. It will not be real soon but closer to the end of May, as speculated by our agency. They had mentioned at the beginning that it might take as long as into the month of May but we didn't want to believe them. We were very much hoping for March sometime.

I will give you a run down of what the process looks like. First of all there are about 6 steps to the adoption process for Guatemala. The first step is the homestudy and applying for approval to bring an orphan into the country. Step two is completing a dossier, which includes many more forms to fill out according to the Guatemalan guidelines. In step three the dossier is completed and it is sent to the Guatemalan Embassy in the US and the Secretary of State which then gets submitted to the Guatemalan rep/attorney. We then wait for a referral. We received our referral in November when we accepted Reed as our baby boy. When we accepted our referral, Reed was given a DNA test along with his biological mother. After the DNA test the case is either referred to investigation or approved 60 days after the DNA results were received by the Department of Homeland Security. Once the case is approved it is submitted to PGN. PGN is the Guatemalan governing body that approves the adoption under Guatemalan law and is an independent government process. This is where our case is currently. Apparently there is only one person handling the cases so this process is rather slow. The representative from the agency doesn't believe our case will be finalized and out of PGN by the end of April. She felt the earliest would be late May. She has no way of predicting this time, however she says it all depends on PGN.

After this step there are two more steps, one being the final approval with the Department of Homeland Security and we will be notified of any further documents that will be needed. The final step is when the case is passed to the Consular Section (in the Department of State). Once the file is received we will be notified when we need to travel. Appointments will be set up for a medical exam and the immigrant visa interview. We will then be able to bring our baby home.

We are both pretty devastated by the news and hope this will clear up some of the questions you may have about why this is taking so long. We do not have very much information nor do we understand all we are given but will keep you updated as more news comes our way. We are hoping they will keep up with the pictures on a regular basis and of course we will post them on the blog.