Gotcha Day Anniversary

Six years ago today--on Dec. 14, 2003--we became parents. Our son was placed in our arms and we became a family.

It had been a long, tumultuous and difficult year and we nearly lost him forever. (Try googling "Guate.mala adoption 2003" to get a feel for the drama that involved thousands of families caught up in a bureaucratic international mess that year.) I can't adequately describe the pit of despair we found ourselves in that year. After our 5 years of infertility before this--it seemed so unreal that God would also have us endure such a turbulent adoption experience.

We received his referral on January 10, 2003 almost a year after we signed up with our agency. He had been born in December and was a mere 3 weeks old at the time.

We eagerly sent out this picture and announcements to everyone we knew and naively expected to have him home in a mere 4 months. But the weeks dragged on and soon we realized we weren't making quite the progress we had hoped for. What was worse, now that we had a picture and a face to look at and gaze upon, we were busting at the seams with the desire to meet him in person and hold him in our own arms.

In April, we decided to fly down to meet him. He was 4 months old at the time. The foster mother was 2 hours late in arriving at our hotel and I'm sure I wore a path into the floor from all the pacing. We anxiously stood up every time someone with a baby walked through the hotel lobby. (There were lots of families who were also adopting staying at the same hotel so LOTS of babies came through that hotel revolving door that morning.) Then from down a different hallway, we saw an older woman holding a bundle of blankets and a diaper bag flung over her shoulder. She was with a representative from our agency who translated and verified that this was in fact our son.

His foster mother greeted us and was eager to introduce him to us. She must have known the drill because she was quick to place him into my shaking arms. I could barely see him through the tears in my eyes.

(note the people in the background who were also meeting their child for the first time)

He charmed us with those big brown eyes and adapted easily to us that week.


Spending that week with him and experiencing for ourselves the country in which he was born was sheer babymoon...sheer happiness. We grew to know each other and had only just gotten into a groove of knowing his likes and dislikes when it was suddenly time to say goodbye. I don't know how I remained standing as they walked away with him and how we headed in the opposite direction to the airport. It was the single most difficult thing I'd ever done up to that point. But we went home with great hope that we'd be back in just a few short months to bring him home for good.

If only...

By May we knew that there was serious trouble brewing with all Guate.malan adoptions and everything screeched to a halt. We anxiously waited, hoped and prayed for good news, but we're eventually told that the government was forcing a moratorium on all adoptions until the "necessary" changes to the system were in place and the Guate.malan constitution could be amended and then ratified. We were warned that it could take weeks, months, years or even not at all. I live with a constant desire to want to throw up from that point on.

June dragged by. Then July. We scheduled another visit trip but it was cancelled at the last minute due to rioting in Guate.mala City over political changes taking place. By August things had settled down enough that we rescheduled our trip...this time visiting for only a couple of days.

My, had he grown! He was able to sit up unassisted now and had two teeth. I tried not to grieve too much yet another milestone I had missed.

Once again we reveled in every moment we had with him and didn't want to think about saying goodbye one more time. But we managed it...somehow.

September, October and finally November rolled on. We were making plans for a third visit trip...this time to spend Christmas with him. If we were going to miss his first birthday, we at least wanted to be there to celebrate Christmas together. By this time we heard rumors that they were starting to slowly process some cases but I was too numb, too depressed, too accustomed to the black cloud that seemed to be ever present over our heads to even allow myself to hope. Then on December 10...11 months after first receiving his referral, we finally got the call we'd been praying for. His case was complete and we were ready to fly for the actual pick-up trip! No more leaving him behind! We couldn't buy our flights fast enough.

We boarded our plane in an ice storm in Maryland but landed in tropical sunny 70 degree weather in Guate.mala City. He was just 3 days shy of his 1st birthday now. We were in utter disbelief that the long wait was finally over and that we'd actually get to celebrate his birthday with him. We met the foster mother as usual in the lobby of the hotel. She was crying. Understandable. This time it was her turn to say goodbye. We gave her as much time as she wanted.


We spent the next day at the US Embassy swearing our oaths and signing the last bit of paperwork. It was surreal and I'm sure my feet didn't touch ground the entire time. We woke early the next morning for our flight home. Home to the United States. Home to our family. The home we feared he might never see.

A crowd of our friends and family braved the snow and ice to greet us at the airport. Tears were in every eye...even strangers who were traveling through the airport stopped by to greet us and wish us well.

Finally though, we were in our own car, with a carseat strapped in a the back...and what's more...a BABY was in that car seat. Our baby. And we were a family of three now. Heading to our home and with plans to wake up the next day and every day after that knowing that we were a forever family.


The best part was knowing that he was here to stay. Never again would we have to say goodbye to him and leave him behind.