On the Malecon

Last Thursday, we moved to another condo right across the street from the ocean, near the "Parque del Amor." The children have been spending even more time at the park than before, we are within walking distance of Larco Mar (ritzy shopping) but haven't all gone there, and we have tried a few new restaurants. The street is called "Malecon Cisneros" with "malecon" meaning something like "waterfront." The area reminds me a lot of downtown Chicago. We're just facing West instead of the water being to the East, and it's an ocean rather than a lake.

When we moved, we fully expected this to be the last place we stayed in Lima. Instead, it has taken over a week to get the children's new birth certificates. We got the final adoption decree last Monday, and sent it by courier to Andahuaylas. The delivery wasn't made until Wednesday. The children's original birth certificates were in two places, both districts in Andahuaylas, because apparently the mother had lived in different places when they were born. The man whom we had hired and given power of attorney went to one (smaller) office, and the man there was reluctant to issue the new certificates, because he hadn't done it before. So our representative went to the more central district, and the staff there processed one certificate. He then went back to the other man on Thursday morning, but that man had taken off work for a long weekend, because Friday was his birthday. He didn't issue the other two certificates until Monday afternoon, and they are now on their way to Lima.

They are supposed to arrive at the courier company office by 11 a.m. Our attorneys will take us there to wait for them, and then we will rush over to a noon appointment at the U.S. embassy to get passports (which can take a couple hours). From there, we will hurry to the doctor's office for immunizations and a final checkup. All that has to be done before we can apply for the visas, which usually take 2-3 days to be issued. Of course, the embassy will be closed on Thursday because of the Thanksgiving holiday. We can only show up at the embassy first thing Friday morning with the doctor's report and beg and plead for them to issue the visas quickly. The other Villa Hope families that arrived a week before us and a week after us have both finished and gone home. The ones adopting from a Lima orphanage only stayed three weeks in Peru--so it can happen quickly. Just not in our case. Happy birthday, government dude!

Chrissy went parasailing over the weekend. She has parasailed before, in Mexico as a teenager, being towed behind a boat. Here, you go with a professional seated behind you and controlling the sail. The wind is strong enough off the ocean to just take off. You start running toward the cliff, but the wind is actually lifting you up before you jump. You drop about 10-20 feet and then start upwards. She enjoyed the ride, and they gave her a guide who spoke English. They fly very close to the cliff face and the high-rises, all over the park.

We finally visited the Parque de las Reservas, with the "Magic Waters" circuit of fountains. The children enjoyed it for a little bit, but were all tired, and we didn't stay very long. It is clearly the must-see place in Lima.

A longer visit was to "Divercity" a children's museum/play place at the biggest mall in Lima, Jockey Plaza. Last Friday, we arrived before the 4 p.m. afternoon opening and stayed until nearly 9 p.m. In the city, there are about 30 places where the children can go (with parents having to stay outside). Some of the places teach the children jobs, like being a firefighter, making paper towels in a factory, grooming dogs, or washing cars. They earn play money from working. Then, they can use their money to have fun at the futbol stadium (kicking goals in a small space), driving a car, taking a class in art or dancing, or going on a river rafting ride. It took a while for our children to warm up and understand how it all worked. They were mostly fascinated with the money at first. You start with some cash and some of your money in a bank account, which you can get via an ATM. They just wanted to keep going to the ATM. But after they tried a few of the places, they wanted to do more. The boys were tall enough to attend driving school and get a license, so they could drive the cars on a small track. Joel was better than Jordy at noticing when there was a red light. Overall, this is a really neat concept and the children wanted to go back.

Chrissy and I have taken a few opportunities to go out and eat or shop with just Alex. He is a little overwhelmed by constantly having three other children around. There are times we play with just one of the other children at a time, but when we go out, it seems they either all want to go or all want to stay home.

Play-D0 and Legos have been a huge hit. At Jockey Plaza, we bought a Lego Creator set that can be made into a plane, a helicopter, or a boat and the boys have taken it apart and rebuilt it several times. Reyna has partcipated too, but she tends to play with the Play-Do more.

27 months

Well, that was anticlimactic. Today, just before noon, we visited the SNA offices again, and were given a copy of the final adoption decree. As we understand it, that was the moment the children's names changed and they became officially part of our family. The decree was signed and distributed last Thursday, and Friday was a "day of silence" allowing any public comment on the decision. Failing any objection, Monday became the effective date of the decree, 27 months or so after we started the adoption process.

What was rather odd was that, due to our children coming from a town without an SNA office, we never saw a judge. We never met the director of the SNA, or anyone else whose signatures were on the documents. So today was just one of the government attorneys meeting us in the lobby and giving us notarized copies of the document. She shook our hands hello and goodbye, but there was no ceremony, no thanks, and in particular no words addressed to the children to tell them that the adoption is final. It felt like any of the other four times we've been to the SNA office, not like anything momentous. Frankly, we hope the children truly understand it is done.

There will be other big moments, especially when they get their US passports, when we get on the plane to go home, when we see Drew and Aaron at the airport, and when we arrive at our house. Our plan to is celebrate this date as our "gotcha" day (when the adoption actually occurred). We doubt the children will even remember anything about it.

Welcome to the family, Jordan (Jordy) Santiago, Joel Eduardo, and Reyna Sherly Miller!

Their names are pronounced YORE-dee, Yo-EL, and RAY-nuh. No doubt people at school will pronounce the boys' names with a "J" sound, which is fine. In a few months, when we readopt them (a technical issue only) in the US, they can decide whether they want to keep the current spellings, select a different name, or add another middle name. For example, Jordy was called "Pacheco" at the orphanage (perhaps because there was another boy with the same first name), but we didn't know that before we had to indicate the new names for the birth certificates. Maybe he'll want to go by JP or something. Or maybe he'll want to revert to the previous spelling, "Yordy."

We are all tired of being tourists. We are ready to go home. But at this point, we are probably still a week or so away from getting on that plane. At least it's warm here!

The Adventures of Senor Leche and Friends

A few days back, the boys started calling Alex "Senor Leche" (Mr. Milk, or in superhero terms, "The Milkman"). This moniker is apparently based entirely on the color of his skin. Now, we'll keep an eye out for other applications of this naming rule, lest they truly offend someone. I'm reminded of when Andrew was about 7 and he said "There was a black man in our yard today." I'd never heard him use that term, so I wondered about it. Turned out the fence installer was wearing a black jacket and black pants, so what else would he be but a "black man."

Anyway, here we just decided to go with it. That meant coming up with names for the other children. So now the older boy is "Capitan Avocado" and the younger boy is "Chico Papaya" based not on how they look, but their favorite foods. Of course, avocado is the English word, not Castellano (Spanish), so it took a while for him to understand what we were really saying. But now The Milkman, Captain Avocado, and the Papaya Kid can have their adventures together.

Our daughter took a while longer. From a play on her name, we started trying to think of variations on "Princess" but finally settled on "La Nina sin bateria" because she's always draining our electronic devices by playing games and listening to music. Superheroes aren't a big deal here, from what we've seen. The children might recognize Superman or Spiderman, but the big adventure cartoon here is "Ben 10" (or, Ben Diez).

Over the weekend, the real superhero was Mama, who stayed with the children in Lima while Papa went to a conference in Miami Beach. He saw the beach for all of about 90 seconds, so it wasn't a vacation. This is an annual conference that costs over $1,500 to attend, besides hotel, and he would have been on the hook for that expense if he didn't go. Besides presenting papers, meeting with other officers of the Competitive Strategy Interest Group of the Strategic Management Society (SMS CSIG, if you care), and working with coauthors, he mostly enjoyed brushing his teeth with tap water for the first time in a while. He got back to the condo about 1 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Chrissy and the kids met up a couple of times with the Ingrums, and Maria Elena and Raul also provided support with a visit and phone calls. Saturday, the Millers and Ingrums went to the zoo at the Parque de las Leyendas (Park of Legends) in San Miguel. The children enjoyed it. Monday, they went to a big discount retail store together. Other time was spent at the oceanside park and the Ovalo Gutierrez, which has a lot of US-based shops and restaurants. They ate at Chili's, and Alex had the salsa all to himself, because the other children preferred the tortilla chips without it.

Yesterday was our little girl's seventh birthday. We opened presents and had cake mid-afternoon. She got a coloring book, a dress to wear for her birthday dinner, and a necklace with a heart pendant. At night, we invited the Ingrums to join us for dinner and a show at Restaurante Junius, in the Doubletree Hotel about 4 blocks from here. Doug had gone there with the rest of the WRCC Peru team when we came down in 2009, but Chrissy had stayed with Alex at the hotel because he was sick to his stomach that day (on the 8-hour bus ride from the orphanage). Last night, there was a bit of a delay, as the restaurant called at 6:45 to confirm the reservation, and alert us that they weren't opening until 8 p.m., rather than the 7:30 it says on the door and the website. So, we ended up hanging out in the hotel lobby for awhile. However, once we got seated, everyone enjoyed the variety of food: cooked and chilled vegetable salads, ceviche, fish, beef, pork, chicken, rice, beans, potatoes, and desserts.

However, the really impressive and enjoyable part of the evening was the traditional dancers. The show was unchanged since two years ago (if you were one who was there). The dances reflect different regions and cultures of Peru. An Incan king welcomes you, a man and woman perform the lovely "Marinera," some dances reflect the influence of Africa, there are silly and scary masks including one man dancing as a condor, and dances of courtship and celebration. Perhaps most memorable are the scissors dancers, two young men who have a "dance-off" not too different in tone from some breakdancers you'd see in the park. But here the athletic moves (front flip off a headstand, kips, leaps, etc.) are all accompanied by the incessant clanging of the two parts of a large pair of shearing scissors. The two parts are disconnected, and the dancer uses his right hand to strike them together, sort of how castanets are used to keep time, but louder and more dangerous. All eight children were enjoying the show, so those that hadn't fallen asleep by the end of the show were invited on stage to learn a dance by the dancers in the silly masks. For this, we probably have Lily Ingrum to thank, as she had performed an impromptu dance to the music the "orchestra" played during the intermission, and her vivacity prompted unanimous applause from the other 50 or so people in the restaurant.

As you can tell, we've had several very enjoyable experiences. The weather is beautiful and we are close to the ocean, shops, and a huge variety of restaurants. On the other hand, we've been together long enough now that the children are starting to test their limits (and Alex's patience). When disciplined, even just having to hold a parent's hand while walking down the street, or having to go to another room while others get to watch TV, they tend to become very sullen. If this happens near mealtime, they will refuse to eat, at least until we get ready to clear the table, then they give in and rapidly down some food. They are unhappy when we tell them "no" about anything. They also don't want to talk to the psychologist when she visits, although they're affectionate toward Maria Elena and Raul. One doesn't like to be in photos. One is sneaky enough to prod a sibling until they more forcefully hit back, and then the sibling is the one that gets into trouble. One has been a bit reluctant to engage with Alex except during games. Personalities are fully formed, although they'll change with age, new experiences, and (too soon) puberty.

The next post should report that the children are legally ours, and that we have begun the process to apply for re-entry to the US. At this point, we're hopeful to be home the weekend before Thanksgiving, although some delays could still occur.

Halloween and other Holidays

Peruvians celebrate two things on Oct. 31: Halloween for children, and the national music festival for adults. Our children have apparently not dressed in costumes at the orphanage, but did associate Halloween with candy. Last night, our attorney and her husband came by, and were here to help translate when a pediatrician came to give the children their physical exams. All are basically healthy, although the doctor prescribed some antihistamines and ibuprofen for coughs and colds. After they left, Chrissy took the children out into the hall so they could ring our doorbell and Doug could hand out candy. First they were themselves, then they were animals, then they were ghosts.

The most scary thing though, is something else white and frightening, a substance so horrifying and slimy it threatens to undermine the very basis of our marriage: these children LOVE MAYONAISSE. On fries, on chicken, on sandwiches, on vegetables...this hideous addiction will follow us to the US and invade our own refrigerator! Aaauugggghhh!

Chrissy was a little disgusted at yesterday's lunch, when we went to one of the city's best "cevicherrias." Ceviche is raw fish "cooked" in a mix of citrus juice, onions, and various herbs and spices. The boys and I ate traditional cebiche, a criollo mix, and a shrimp loaf with avocado and cold potatoes. Alex tried some, and shared some of Mom's lomo saltado (a beef and rice dish). Our girl loved her grilled fish and fries.

Today is the festival of Our Lord of Miracles in Lima, the city's patron saint. There is a huge parade with hundreds of thousands of people in attendance. Most businesses are closed. The only one that really bothers us is the laundry. They've had our dirty clothes since Friday afternoon, and with the four-day weekend, we are desperately in need of clean clothes.

This morning, Geoff Ingrum and two of his children met us at the park by the ocean and then came over for lunch. Our oldest boy enjoyed playing soccer again. There were some bigger boys that said they wanted to play, but warned Geoff that they were pretty good. After losing about 20-2, with nearly all goals scored by our oldest boy, I'm not sure they still held that opinion. Also, Chrissy skyped with her classroom this morning. They never got the sound working at their end, so she just was on camera and responded to their questions by typing out her answers.

The children have been with us in Lima for 4 days now. We've seen some examples of the children testing their limits and our patience. We're still working on learning some new hygiene behaviors. But we're also learning which child prefers to spend time with a parent one-on-one, which is willing to try new foods, and which is most eager to try English words. This week will bring a couple of observations by the psychologist, haircuts for the boys, and probably some more shopping.

Finally, three words that we didn't learn until we got here, and are now part of every conversation: "mira" (look), "claro" (clear, I get it, OK, sure, etc.), and "listo" (ready, finished, I'm done).

24-7

Not a football score, but a "new normal." We now have guardianship of the children around-the-clock. Our official week for observation started this afternoon, and continues for one week. We will be visited by the psychologist at least twice during that time. However, we know it won't be for the long weekend. With the All Saints Day holiday on Tuesday, the government declared Monday a holiday too. There will be no doctor visits, paperwork, or other official business until Wednesday. In case you wondered, children in Lima do celebrate Halloween by going trick-or-treating. Maybe we'll just buy some candy and let them ring our apartment doorbell a few times.

We are in the condo in Lima (Miraflores district). This weekend, we will do some shopping for shoes, socks, jackets, etc., visit the park along the seaside, and other fun things. By Monday, we plan to have the house filled with Post-it notes with the English and Spanish words for items.

Here are some things we have found that are the same for the children as what we are used to:

• skipping stones in a lake
• eating Chinese food (sauce taufi is remarkably similar to Green Jade's chicken and broccoli flavor)
• wanting to watch television more than read books
• looking around a little fearful when the earthquake hits and your 16th floor apartment starts swaying
• laughing when someone spills food on themselves
• wanting to drink soda more than water
• pretending to cheat at Uno
• falling asleep quickly when you're very tired
• being afraid of heights
• getting bored fast on taxi rides

Here are some things that are different:

• using hot water to brush teeth
• eating such a big meal at mid-day that all you have at night is a banana or roll
• wearing the same clothes every day (at the orphanage)
• reading everything aloud, even if other people are reading in the same room
• not just taking your plate into the kitchen, but also wiping down the table after a meal, and helping put everything away
• wearing underwear in the shower (because you're used to communal showers)

Can you guess which one of these we hope will continue when we get back to the US?

Speaking of heights, here's the view from the taxi coming into Andahuaylas from the airport.

The weather was nice all week. It rained often at night, which helped drown out the noises outside when sleeping. It was jacket weather in the morning, and t-shirt weather the rest of the day. We nearly had a glitch when the hotel didn't take credit cards, but between us we had enough cash to not have to look for an ATM when we left at 6:30 a.m. Friday.

A week in Andahuaylas

Things are going well so far. We left Lima early Monday and arrived at the orphanage by late morning. Our little girl was playing in the yard, and saw us through the gate. We were brought into the office to meet the orphanage director and staff. With us were our attorney, Maria Elena Baldassari, her husband, Raul Alva, and a psychologist from the Secretaria Nacional de Adopciones, who we met last Friday in Lima.

We played with the children for a while at the orphanage, with other children around either on their lunch break from school or at recess from the preschool on site. Then we all went to lunch at a restaurant in the plaza de armas (main square) of the town. The children liked chicharron de pollo, sort of like popcorn chicken, but not as spicy. At lunch, Alex started to feel sick, so we went back to the hotel and he laid down while we colored and read books with the kids down the hall. He was feeling a little better after a few hours, so we gathered around a table in the lobby and taught them how to play Uno. They learned quickly, and it is now what the oldest boy wants to do all the time. We dropped them back at the orphanage around 5. Then, we all went to a cafe for pastries and coffee to discuss how it went. Alex was more sick in the evening, but while unpleasant, it was just due to the altitude, so he recovered by the next morning.

(Since the adoption is not final, we cannot post names or pictures online. Also, I am purposely not saying much about each child's personality.)

Yesterday, we picked the children up in the morning and headed off campus right away. Chrissy and Maria Elena played with them in the park while Doug and Raul went to three different offices in town to order additional birth certificates and get papers notarized. We had lunch at another restaurant. We first went there because we were all thirsty, and just ordered drinks. But Maria Elena met up with a friend who used to work at the orphanage, and they joined us late. By the time the soup came, the children had drank so much Inka Cola they weren't very hungry. So, the lunch we ordered for them became their dinner instead. The oldest boy carried the boxed meals around until we got back. He wanted to be sure he got the beef dish--the other two were chicken and "pappas blancas." There are several hundred varieties of potatoes in Peru, and each dish has its own specific potato. Thankfully, the restaurant didn't have chuno on the menu that day--smelly potatoes that are naturally freeze dried, thawed, and washed several times. The children like them fried with onions, but when they're put into a soup, apparently the smell is overwhelming to the uninitiated.

We spent the afternoon playing and coloring again. Then we gave them each a small gift, which we will keep at the hotel until they come with us permanently. It looks like the clothes we brought will probably fit them well enough to at least wear on the flight to Lima Friday morning. The psychologist had us sign a letter in which she approved us to take custody of the children to go to Lima. She had a few concerns about how the children were bonding with us, because she only observed us for a short time, and it is hard to pair up so that Mama gets time alone with each child, etc. But by the second day she saw it was all fine. She will continue to observe us for a week after we get to Lima.

Today we are all going to the lake called Pacucho. It is supposedly the most beautiful lake in Peru, and we really wanted to see it. The children have been there once before. Maria Elena and Raul did not get to visit it the last time they were here, about ten years ago. We are hiring a taxi with plenty of seats and it is only costing 100 soles (@ $40) for the round trip, and the driver will wait for us.

Travel Plans: Lima Tomorrow!

Doug, Chrissy, and Alex are flying from Bloomington, IL through Atlanta to Lima tomorrow, Oct. 20. We arrive at 10:15 p.m. and our friend Geoff Ingrum will pick us up and take us to our condo. Friday morning, we have an appointment at SNA where the person handling our case will welcome us and give us an overview of what will be happening the next few weeks. We will have dinner with the Ingrums Friday night, and get to know their children a bit. Then, Saturday we will go with them to their ministry to children in a very poor district on the outskirts of Lima.

Monday morning we will arrive at the Lima airport very early and fly out to Andahuaylas, up in the mountains. Our agency's attorney and her husband (who is also an adoption attorney) will accompany us, and we will be joined by a government social worker before we head off to the orphanage.

Then, the culmination of this 2 1/2 year process: we finally meet the children Monday, October 24, 2011.

A beautiful lake near Andahuaylas

From that time on, they will be staying with us, first at a hotel in Andahuaylas (until Friday morning), then in a condo in Lima. We hope to complete the adoption in Peruvian court by November 4, because I have to fly to Miami for a work conference from Nov. 5 to 8. The Ingrums will help Chrissy out if needed that weekend. Our friend Sam might also be in Lima around that time. When I return, we will celebrate our little girl's 7th birthday on Nov. 9.

The town plaza in Andahuaylas

Then, we hope to be back in the US before Thanksgiving. Andrew and Aaron are staying home, and neighbors and friends from church are going to bring them some meals and help them as needed. We plan to use skype regularly for video chats so the "new kids" can get to know their older brothers a little, too.

We have gotten so familiar with the children's pictures that we don't even have to look at them anymore to call up their faces in our minds. There's no apprehension at this point, just anticipation of finally finding out what each one's personality is, and how they relate to each other. It may not be easy for us or for them, but we are eager to get going on this journey.

FYI, our phones will be off (or in "airplane mode") because we don't want to pay the international charges for calls or texts. In an emergency, they would work in Peru. To contact us, please send email. We will have wireless access at least while in Lima.

Vamos a Peru!

Pictures!

No, we can't show pictures of the children yet. We do have pictures of their rooms, though. Here is the two boys' room.

If one wants to share with Alex, instead, he has a bunk bed in his room. But we expect the two new boys to want to be together at first. The two twin bed frames were the ones Chrissy's mother and aunt used when they were little girls in the Lithgow household. They are a nice walnut, and we had them refinished several years ago, after removing layers of paint.

This is the little girl's room. Some decorations were given to us by a friend from church who was on our Peru trip in 2009. The bed frame is the one used by Chrissy's dad when he was a boy. We bought the bedspread new and just have to add things to the walls.

The house is ready. We're excited.

The National Benefits Center (NBC) for Hague Adoption has cleared our i-800 application. It is on its way (electronically) to the US embassy in Lima. They will review and confirm the application, then notify the State Dept. to issue an official notice that will allow us to travel. We're currently looking at Oct. 8 or 15 as possible dates to head to Peru. We would then leave very early on a Monday morning to fly to Andahuaylas, up in the mountains, bringing along our attorney and a social worker from SNA in Lima, because there is no permanent adoption office in the city. We will stay there for about a week, then return to Lima to complete the adoption and await clearance to return home.

Boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, girl

That will be our family, by age, in another couple of months! We received a new referral for another sibling group of three children at the July consejo in Peru. It took a few weeks to get all their information translated, and birth certificates and passport photos sent to our agency in the US, but we can finally share that we are close to adopting!

There's no such thing as the final paperwork in an adoption. There is the last application you have to make before being allowed to travel to the other country and meet the children. That is now complete. Our packet for the I-800 application went in to the US immigration office last week. Now, the US officials review the materials and determine that the children are legally available for adoption, and that the parents were previously approved for children with these characteristics. After all the prior checks and reviews, this step is almost a formality, but it still takes 4 to 8 weeks.

The new timeline will probably be for travel sometime between the last week of September and the second week of November, for about a month within that window. Even though we are all "in school" now, we do plan to take Alex with us for the full trip. He really wants to go, and dropped out of a park district theater camp so he wouldn't leave them to recast a part. The later we leave, the more of the cross-country season he can get in, but it is likely he'll miss sectionals (and state, if his team were able to qualify). We will get his schoolwork to bring with us. He might also have some catching up to do over Thanksgiving break.

Andrew is living at home this semester, attending Parkland Community College. He is still pursuing the possibility of an internship with the Walt Disney company during an upcoming semester. He and Aaron will stay home and keep attending classes while we're in Peru. My department is willing to let me ask faculty colleagues to sub for me while I'm gone. Chrissy will take parental leave, and use up some saved sick days.

We don't know much about where we will be staying yet. The attorney in Lima is making those arrangements now. We will order airline tickets once we hear from USCIS, and hope to not have to pay last-minute prices. (We are looking into adoption fares, missionary fares, and other special deals.)

We will arrive in Lima, then leave quickly by plane to Andahuaylas, where the children are living in an orphanage run by a private foundation. The attorney and a social worker from the SNA (national adoption bureau) will come with us, as there is no permanent SNA office in this small city. We will meet the children and stay with them in a hotel for about a week. Then, the social worker will determine whether we have adequately bonded with the children, or if there is a need for more time, or if the children have some objection to the adoption. Likewise, officially we could pull out at that point if there were some information revealed that we did not know about the children. Obviously, we expect things to go just fine.

We will all go back to Lima and a judge there will complete the adoption. Ordinarily, the local judge would conduct the hearing, but again there is no full-time family court judge in Andahuaylas. At that point, the children will be legally ours. The next few weeks before we can return to the US will be spent getting them various medical exams, immunizations, and filling out documents to get their US passports issued. With the I-800 in place, the request is "pre-approved" but you still have to jump through some hoops. Once we have passports and visas in hand, we can book a return flight. We will have round-trip tickets for going there and back, but we will have to get one-way tickets for the children, and probably change our schedule so we can all be on the same flight. Thus, even once we are legally ready to come back, it may take a couple of days to get onto a flight.

While in Lima, we plan to visit with some missionary friends from our church. We've only met them once, because they left Champaign before we moved here, but they are doing great work among street teens and children in Lima. They have four young children and can give us a break from trying to speak Spanish or use translators all the time!

Our next post will probably happen when we get the I-800 approval. Thank you for your prayers, concern, and support through this process. It's been over two years, but there are still joyous moments ahead.

Now what?

As of our last post on this blog, you might have expected that we would write again when we left for Peru to get our three new children. Or maybe when the adoption was finalized in Trujillo. Or when we brought them home.

That's what we were expecting, anyway.

Then something happened that was a first in the 20 years our agency has been processing adoptions from Peru. Our referral was retracted. After we and the children had seen pictures of each other, learned that we would become a family, and started telling friends and family, it all came to a halt. The local judge decided that the children should stay at the orphanage where their birth mother could visit them, although she had lost custody some time ago. We are mindful of the difficulties faced by women in poverty, especially when the men in their life create problems. We will never know exactly what happened in this family, or what new information caused the judge to go back on an earlier decision.

We were heartbroken. We grieved for weeks. We tried every contact we knew in Peru and tried to find out what had actually happened, and if there was a chance this would all be reversed again. We stopped talking to people around us about the adoption, hoping to eventually have better news.

To be clear, the agency's attorney and the government officials in Peru did everything they could to confirm that this was indeed the judge's final decision. We were given opportunities to communicate with appropriate people. Since these events, we have been given updates that the children are OK. Some friends from church will see them later this week when they arrive on their volunteer trip and we hope they will be able to help the children understand.

Our agency finally convinced us that if we wanted to complete an adoption in Peru, we needed to move ahead and write another letter of intent for different children. Without going into all the details about how we chose, we ended up requesting the sibling group in Peru that was most like the children we had just lost. This wasn't to replace those children, but partly because we had been preparing ourselves for three. We also felt the Peruvian authorities would be willing to make that referral, whereas they might ask new questions about our dossier if we switched to a very different profile. The children are two boys and a girl, between ages 6 and 11.

At this point, we have provided all requested information and are awaiting a new referral. Consejos (the national council to grant referrals) have been happening about once a month. Our hope is to complete an adoption this Fall. It will have taken over two years. We might actually have to update our home study and some other forms that will expire in another couple of months. Back to paperwork!

This hasn't been a very upbeat blog post. We are still somewhat numb emotionally, and holding back our enthusiasm until we get some good news. One positive (from the standpoint of the adoption) is that Drew has decided to live at home this year and attend the local community college. He wasn't far away last year at Illinois State U., but is changing his major, and already thinking about a one-year master's degree, so it makes sense for him to take some time to reevaluate where he should go next. Assuming we actually do get another referral, it will be great to have him at home so the new children can bond with him as well as with Aaron and Alex.

Thank you for your thoughts, prayers, and support.

REFERRAL!

Finally, we have official word from Peru that the match has been made! The adoption "department" SNA meets every month or so to process applications. This month, they announced the meeting would be either the 25th, 26th, or both. They did not meet on the 25th, so it took until this afternoon to see the results on their website. If you go here, and scroll to the very bottom of the pdf file, that's our kids!

Of course, the most common question now is, "When do you leave?" Well, how about two months from now? Seriously, some documents have to be sent from Peru to our agency and then we have to apply for the final immigration approval. This used to take about a month, but lately has been taking up to two months. You're not allowed to go to Peru until that approval is done. We knew this next wait was coming. In the meantime, the personnel at the orphanage will be preparing the children for adoption: explaining how families are supposed to work, helping them learn a little more English, and talking to them about the separation and loss they will feel along with the happy emotions of joining their new parents.

Let's take the median: six weeks from now would be early June. We would fly down, complete the adoption in Peru in a couple of weeks, and then wait a couple more weeks (depending on holidays, availability of doctors, etc.) to get all the medical checks, forms filed, and other stuff to get the children's US passports.

Could we be there by the youngest's birthday in early June?

Could we be back before the middle one's birthday in early July, or Andrew's birthday in mid-July?

Will we still be in Peru when our church team arrives in Lima on their way to work at the orphanage again this summer? That's in late July.

Or will it take until the oldest's birthday, in early August, for us to be all together back home?

In any case, it will be a memorable summer.

Unprecedented Delays

We had been putting off a vacation for over a year as we expected to travel to Peru last Summer, then last Fall, then last Winter. Finally, we scheduleda vacation this Spring Break to get away for a week.

Good thing we did, because we ended up having to deal once again with frustrating and unexpected bad news while we were gone. We heard by email on Tuesday that we would not be getting a referral at Thursday's consejo. The reason given? The new psychologist at SNA in Lima had decided there was a need for a full psychological report on the children we were hoping to adopt.

This was something not encountered in the 24 years of our adoption agency's involvement with Peru. Just like the requirement for psych reports on our natural-born children (in January), this is apparently a new part of the system, not something specific to our case.

What made it so surprising to us was that we understood the children had already been shown our pictures to begin preparing them for the adoption. But apparently whatever report was prepared by the psychologist at the orphanage was not sufficient for the federales. We had even received word by email that "The Millers were declared suitable to adopt two to three siblings, one of them a girl, from 5 to 13 years old" just a few days before. Huh?

Waiting is hard on us. Now we think that waiting must be extra tough for the kids, too, because they already know someone is ready and willing to adopt them. We understand being adopted is no piece of cake, either. We will be introducing a huge disruption into these childrens' lives; but we believe it is all for the best. We want them to be prepared, but we also don't want to be guinea pigs for a whole new process.

Remember, in Peru they eat guinea pigs...or worse.

The Latest

So, no posts for a few months there. Here's what happened in the interim.

In December, we waited through two consejos and didn't hear anything.

In January, we were notified that we needed to submit new information. For families with children already, Peru decided to require a psychological report on those children. The previous psych report was on the parents, with a paragraph about the other children's attitude toward the adoption and a report on the family dynamics. Now, you have to provide a personality profile and detailed information on each child. That took us a while to put together, so we were not able to get a referral in January or February.

Also in January, we were notified that there was a sibling group of three that had been cleared for adoption at the orphanage where we had volunteered. After much soul-searching, we decided to change our letter of intent and name these children. The main reasons were that this group is two boys and a girl, with a boy the oldest, and we thought that was a better fit with our other boys. Also, we thought it would help these children to be adopted by someone they had already met.

In March, we were asked to sign another letter indicating our intent to adopt this sibling group, and then were asked to send photos to be shown to the children. In Peru, children can request to only be adopted with their siblings, or even reject adoptive parents once they meet them, if the children are not comfortable with the adults. This is mainly protection against unfit parents, and we haven't heard of it ever happening. But in our case, apparently they thought it would help the children feel better about agreeing to be adopted if they could prepare them ahead of time that their new family were people they had met and also let them know they would be moving to the US. We will also be bringing Alex with us so the children can see how we interact with him and they can start bonding with him. Needless to say, Alex was very popular when we were in Peru--the children all liked having someone their own age to play with.

Given these latest developments, we expect a referral next week at the March 24 consejo. If so, we will apply to USCIS right away, and hope for better than the normal 6-8 week turnaround time for the I-800 application. We are ready to travel any time. However, the trip will likely start in mid-May.

Andrew will be home from college in May, and already has a paid day job and a volunteer evening job in his field of youth theater. He and Bear (our dog) can have some bonding time. Aaron would stay with a friend from high school until finals, then move back home. We would regret missing Aaron's 16th birthday in May, but will just have to celebrate before we leave. Neighbors and friends will help them out while we're gone. They may have a regular "tour de Champaign" for meals. Otherwise, there'll be a lot of frozen pizzas and pop-tarts.

We hope to be able to share good news in another 10 days or so.