Paperwork in Ministry

You must be so excited!!! Congrats!! With all the changes that have taken place in Panama in the 4 years since I was last there, I know that one thing hasn't changed....... the slooooooooooowwwwwwwnnnnnneeeessss... It's no wonder that Sloths (abundant in the trees, and along the road ways) live in Panama.... their slow motion movement is nothing out of the ordinary!! LOL!!! A month seems like an awful long time for translations, but... that doesn't surprise me. Hang in there....... and keep us all posted on the progress. :) ~kim p.

We sent our paperwork to Panama the end of May(beginning of June). It took 5-6 weeks for the translations and was turned into Ministry July 11th. Our agency received the referral on Aug 25th. One thing about Panama, there is no repeatable process that is followed. If you read the posting, each and every referral, adoption, etc, has been slightly to dramatically different. We signed for the referral Sept 8th and were suppose to travel the beginning of November. We are still waiting for word to travel. Keep your spirits up, try not to get hung up on timelines. I know that is easier said than done. Lauri

Lauri, Thanks for keeping us posted. Any reason for the delay in traveling? And do you have a feel for the process of how that all gets arranged? Do you have to get on a judge's schedule? Thanks, Julie

Because the baby was so young at the time of the referral (6 weeks), no paperwork had been started. We are still awaiting the final paperwork to legalize him as clear for adoption (DNA testing, etc. (don't know all the details)). The paperwork was suppose to take 6 weeks; however, we are now at 8 weeks. Now the attorney is awaiting the final paperwork and then will attempt to set up a court date immediately. We are not familiar with the entire process because the agency is shielding us from many of the aspects of the process. What we have been told so far is that we will meet with the Ministry of Adoptions the day after arriving in Panama and be given the right to take the baby from the orphanage. We are required to have the baby with us in country for 7 days before our court date. During those 7 days we will have various meeting with Embassy to file paperwork, etc. Then we have a court date to meet the judge. This meeting is suppose to be just a preliminary meeting. Then we leave and await the final court appearance several weeks later to get the finalization of adoption. We then go to the Embassy and do the final paperwork. I don't know if any of this is exactly how it works or if there are variations based upon agencies, age of child, etc. We are anxiously awaiting our travel and hope to go soon. Lauri

Thanks for the update. I did have a couple questions about it. You mentioned that you'll have a preliminary meeting with the judge, leave and then return several weeks later for finalization. Will you stay in Panama during those weeks, or is your plan to return to the States with your child during that time? Also, you said your agency is shielding you from various aspects of the process- can you tell a little bit more what that means? Thanks so much!

We would love to be able to bring the baby back to the States while we wait for the final court date; however, we are told not to count on that. We plan to return to the States and then go back when the date is set. We know that our agency is having lots of meetings with all the involved parties to try to streamline the process or set up a repeatable process. As yet nothing is final, so we don't know all the things they are doing to move our adoption forward.