July 2007

July seems to be a big month in our lives with Rudy. I think that July 2005 is when we actually started the whole adoption process - fingerprints, autobiographies, interviews, etc. But July 2007 is when we found out that Rudy was finally, legally our son and finally, soon going to be coming home.

After our trip to Antigua, my friend, Damaris, continued calling PGN for us every few weeks. On Wed. July 11, she called and was told our file had been ready since Monday to be picked up. This could mean one of two things - either we were out - meaning our file was approved, or we had a kick out - which meant there was something that had to be fixed. Obviously we believed it should be approved but would not know until the file was in the hands of our lawyer.

Coincidentally, Wednesday nights were when we got our weekly update from our agency. For almost 9 months our updates had always said "You're still in PGN" so we were hoping that finally we would have a different message. (A side note here, we were not happy with our agency - obviously - and I would have no problem publicizing its name, except it's no longer in business. However, if in the adoption community, you come across a woman named Kerry Palakanis - go the other way.) So late that night we got our emailed updated and it said the exact same thing as always - "Your case is still in PGN." Here's where it gets tricky. According to our contract, we were not to have any contact with anyone in Guatemala without our agency's approval. We had not told anyone that we were getting information from Guatemala. We decided that we couldn't just sit around waiting and hoping that maybe any day now our lawyer would go check on our file. So early the next morning, before work, I emailed Kerry and told her we had reason to believe our file was ready to be picked up and could she please ask the lawyer to go there. Then I went to work and Paul went to work and neither of us were by computers for the next few hours. I hoped that we would receive a phone call if our file was approved but that didn't happen.

After a stressful day at work, I came home and checked my email to find a message from our agency saying the file was in our lawyer's hands and it was approved! We were on the last steps of our process to bring Rudy home. I can remember screaming in the empty house when I read it and then calling Paul and crying as I told him. So officially on July 12, 2007 we found out that Rudy was legally our son and would finally be coming home. It just took 3 more months of waiting - really, should we have expected any differently?


Some of the first pictures we received of Rudy. I'm guessing he was a few days old. I think he was about 2 weeeks old when we accepted his referral.






Almost 2 months old.


At a doctor's appointment around 3 months old.



Almost 4 months old. We refer to these as the monk pictures because of his hair.




6 months old.





8 months old. Fortunately we had just visited or I think these pictures would have worried us. Rudy wasn't happy in any of them.





10 1/2 months old.





11 1/2 months - just before we went down to visit.







And 15 months old - and the last pictures we received from our agency(shoving bananas in his mouth).