Dossier, Take 2

In 2005-2007, while we waited for Marcella through the Guatemalan Adoption Process, we hoped & hoped for a phone call from our adoption agency. The few phone calls that we did receive usually meant great news & progress towards bringing Marcella home. This time around (2008 and beyond), any phone call from our agency usually means something is awry in Peru....

Yesterday, we received yet another one of those phone calls.

Its usually doubly troublesome when we receive a 'conference call' with various directors of the adoption agency. Yesterday's call was indeed a conference call.

Our agency called to inform us that due to the recent governmental upheaval in Peru, the Director of Adoptions in Peru has changed. The new Director has a reputation of being very strict and black-letter. The new Director brings a whole new crew of employees with her. Anything and everything going on with Peruvian adoptions has come to a temporary hiatus. How does this affect our case?

This past fall, our agency predicted that we were headed for some major problems because of George's Peruvian Birth Certificate and series of name changes when he was young (details of this fiasco are detailed at the column on the left, and in a previous blog entry.). However, they told us were were going to weather the storm to determine our next strategy.

Yesterday, our agency decided we have weathered the storm enough (especially in light of the new Director coming on Board in Peru), and its high time to embark in a different direction.

Today, they are going to withdraw our Peruvian Adoption Dossier from the Peruvian governmental office where it has been since August. *The dossier is the formalized set of documents (about 2 feet of paperwork) that we spent months and months, not to mention alot of money, meticulously preparing.* After our agency retrieves our dossier, they are going to remove George's Peruvian Birth Certificate, and all of his Peruvian documentation (which we spent ALOT of time trying to obtain in the first place!) that contains his birth name. Our agency has received an 'informal internal warning' from the Peruvian Adoption Authorities that our case would soon be rejected in its current state because George has a Peruvian Birth Certificate (and other documents) that contain his birth name, and an American Birth Certificate (and other documents) that contain his current name. **It is important to note, that all of these documents were specifically REQUIRED by our agency when we were compiling our dossier.... But, things change quickly in international adoption...**

Next week, they are going to resubmit our dossier without the dossier documents that contain George's birth name (Jorge, etc...). They are hoping that this 'slimmed down' version of our Peruvian Adoption Dossier will be less problematic for the new Adoption Administration in Peru. The hope is that our case will have preferential treatment because our remaining documents 1) still demonstrate that George was born in Peru; 2) only reflect his current name; and 3) show that he was adopted in the USA (albeit by his step-father).

Our agency also instructed us that this in NO WAY guaranteed much of anything, but it was worth trying because the alternative (doing nothing) was looking much worse.

Of course, there are many ancilary concerns that we have, but those are for another day.

Is all of this completely confusing & frustrating? Yes.... But, we just have to have faith and be patient. And we just have to remember that EVERYTHING happens for a reason.... It is much easier to keep this in mind, when we have Marcella, our 2-year old emblem of faith & patience, running around our house looking for Santa Claus!!!

Thanks for taking the time to read about our Adoption Rollercoaster ride! We appreciate your support!