Guess What?

Guess What?

WE SIGNED THE SENTENCIA!!

We got the call at about 9:30 this morning telling us to be ready to go in an hour. Jim and I dressed up a little nicer and got picked up by our orphanage contact. We left the boy behind for this trip. We drove back into the downtown area to the family court building. It was a tiny little entrance and we had to fight the crowds to get in. Remember, the courts close at the end of day tomorrow, so everyone is trying to get their business done in time.We made our way up the stairs to the doorway indicating Court 14, the court we were assigned to by lottery. It was a tiny little alcove and we had to squeeze our way in and up to the counter. Our contact did all the talking, and eventually a big stack of papers was put on the counter, and flipped to the very back - the boy's adoption decree at last!

We all read through it very carefully to make sure all the names were spelled correctly and our passport numbers were correct. Then I signed on the dotted line over the shoulder of our contact. Just another piece of business for the courts but a pretty big deal to us. After we signed we had copies made and drove over to the Notaria. All copies of the Sentencia have to be notarized, and we had to register the boy's birth there. Jim signed in the big book. A little strange to think that our son's birth registry will be sitting on the shelves in this little place in Bogota forever.

Okay Okay, so now the big question...WHEN ARE WE COMING HOME?

Answer: WE STILL DON'T KNOW!!

Tomorrow we go and have the boy's picture taken for his passport, apply for the passport and then go see the Embassy Pediatrician. The American Consulate requires 2 days to get the boy his visa, one day to apply, and the next day to pick it up. I called the consulate today to BEG them to give us a visa in one day. The woman on the phone was very nice and said that they try their best to be as flexible as possible with adopting parents. However, your information needs to be entered into a computer to get security clearance from the US. They have no control over how long that takes. We may or may not be able to get the visa in one day.So...what we did is this:

We are keeping our Wednesday night flight that we booked with our skymiles. We also booked a refundable one way ticket for Thursday night. On Wednesday, when we know if we will get the visa or not, we will cancel whichever flight we won't make. So worst case scenario we will be home Friday morning! We can deal with that!!

We just came back from the mall where they have an Avianca office (go figure) to pick up the paper tickets for Thursday flight. We also got some wine and Aguardiente to celebrate signing the sentencia! We'll let you know how tomorrow goes!