Home At Last!!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!! So happy to hear this wonderful news. Keep us posted on how your family is doing. Julie

Y, Is the adoption final, or is this a temporary guardianship and you'll have to travel back to Panama to finalize it in the coming months? Either way, congrats!!! Rebecca

Congratulations! That must be the most incredible feeling to know that it is done. It is great to hear good news on the site....

Yevette, You mentioned you had delays at the Houston Airport with immigration. Could you expand on that? Was your flight schedule too tight? Or was it an immigration issue? Any advice? It must be so wonderful to be back in the US. I am jealous!! jane

this is a temporary guardianship of sorts. We get a home visit every month for 3 months-- then the judge says we go back for the final hearing. But our attorney says she is really going to try to convince him not to make us come. She advices sending lots of pictures and we are going to try to make a video tape for him around month 2 or 3. I am really dreading having to go back, because I anticipate at least 7 ior more days in David. If the last trip is anything like the first- one day for the hearing, one day for the judge to write up his resolution, 1 day to go to the Defender and Prosecutor of Minors 3 days for them to respond, then his report in 1-2 days. so we will see, I am still ouching from our last long stay there. As far as the HOuston airport, we just scheduled the flights to close. They were great there, got us in and out. but the line was long, Rosa ran as fast as she could, but we just could not connect. I would say give yourself at least 2 or 3 hours to connect. AS far as getting out of Panama, take copies of the judges resolution, birth certificate, passport, permission to leave the country-- that is what slowed us down there. They had to make their own copies of everything-- they still wanted to see the originals, but needed to make copies.

I am so glad you are home with little Rosa. I was so in hopes of hearing from you, as I think I know Rosa. We also adopted from Trisker. Is Rosa's birthday in January? Please let me know if it is the Rosa we know and love. If it is the same child, she and our little Bonnie Leigh shared a crib when we first started going to visit them two years ago. If it is the same little girl, her namewas Ilke R. Rodriquez. We very much wanted to adopt her, but it just didn't work out for us. We are now waiting for the results of our fingerprinting. Hopefully it won't be long, and we will be on our way to bring our Bonnie Leigh home. How much trouble did you have at the American Consulate getting Rosa's visa, etc? We had our audencia with Judge Torres on June 30, and thought everything would be finished on that date, but the judge did not know that we had moved back to the US from Panama, so we had to come back to the US without Bonnie Leigh and have our homestudy completed and turn in our I600. We are so eager to get approved so we can go bring Bonnie Leigh home. This wait is just heart wrenching, and so hard on the baby. God bless you and your family. Hope to hear from you soon. Bonnie

I have tried to PM you a couple of times, don't really know what the problem is- but yes, this is the Rosa you know. She is fantastic and fits perfectly with our family. I have 2 boys- 12 and 14 and they are great with her. Where is Bonnie right now?? Judge Torres goes by the letter of the law- to the T!! Frustrating, but by the time you go to the embassy again, you should have everything they will need. I did have some trouble there, but I am not sure if it was just confusion. They told me it would take 2-3 weeks for the child investigation, and fully intended to travel to David to see the original documents at the judges' office. I am not sure why they changed their mind and just called and spoke with the judge's secretary. It could have been a couple of things, I sent emails- offering to pay for the investigator to fly, offering additional documentation translated to English showing the authenticity of Rosa's abandoned state, we also had 2 US senators involved, one was calling- the other sent an email- I don't know if that helped or not, but whatever happened- is the timeline for us. We got Rosa's passport on a Friday- went to the consulate on Monday- where they said at least 2 weeks for the investgation alone-- Thursday I found out that the investigator for the consulate had called the judges secretary-- Friday back to the consulate, this part was interesting. The gal at the window repeated- the investigator will start on Rosa's case Wed of the next week-- We told her we knew the investigator had called and told the judges office everything was okay and we would really like to have Rosa's physical in order to proceed. She said she did not know anything about that, but would call us in the afternoon. Friday afternoon, I had a call from her saying if we could get back there by 5- she would give us the info we needed to get the physical. So we go to window #9 get the info and letter stating we can have the physical, they tell us to go immediately to the hospital and we could have an apt. a 1 on Monday- they would be able print off our Visa immediately- So we go to the hospital, on Friday-- Monday we had to wait 2 hours at the consulate, but by 4:30 we had Visa in hand. That is how it went for us-- there seems to be some concern, especially if there may be any question of the child's abandonement, which may be a problem for some parents. Some children are legally seperated because of neglect, abuse- but any bump showing someone possibly objecting could cause the embassy to look closer -- taking more time. This is going to be a big problem for the judicial system down there. My att. told me there is one judge in Pana City that refuses to process american adoptions because our consulate "checks up " on their work. It offends them , and I guess I don't blame them. I am not sure how to combat that? In David, our att. says the secreatry of the judge has had to handle the consulate and has not had any problems, maybe the more they deal with that office , the more they will come to trust those officials in David.

God Bless You. We have really worried that little Rosa would have to grow up in the home without ever having real parents of her own. She is such a darling--so outgoing and talkative. We took her a whole bunch of clothes and shoes back about 6 months ago, but I doubt if they let her keep them. We are waiting to get our fingerprint results. We are doing everything on our own, and have really had a nightmare as we do not speak Spanish. I don't know how much trouble we will have once we return to David. Everything down there is much more difficult and takes longer than we anticipate. I bet Rosa is having a ball bossing her big brothers around!!!! We live in Texas and my adult daughter lives in Ft. Walton Beach, FL, so we travel through LA frequently. Maybe we could meet sometime and let the girls stay in touch. Do you have any iea how many Gnobe Bugles there are in the US? We thought maybe Bonnie Leigh would be the only one, but now we know there will be at least two!!! Please keep in touch. Bonnie