Hanging on for the ride!!!

I've got some good news, but no referral or immigration approval. This is news that you might be surprised to hear considering I didn't share the bad news that precedes it. Let me explain.

Hopefully, this isn't too much boring detail but I need to backtrack a bit.

Most countries involved in international adoptions are signatories to a treaty (The Hague Convention) that supposedly creates standards and safeguards for the adoption process. All countries must implement legislation that brings them into compliance. Guatemala is lagging in this area. If the US ratifies the treaty before they become compliant, adoptions there could be halted. We are in good shape for that timing as ratification isn't expected until late 2007 or 2008.

But, in the mean time, politicians in Guatemala are debating various methods for implementing revisions to their adoption system. Last week, President Berger announced some guidelines that he believes should be part of that system. Given that Guatemala is still a young Democracy, there was some concern that he would attempt to implement these changes without legislative approval. Keep in mind that this would not have meant our adoption would be halted, but it would have meant a major delay.

The bad news (that we never confirmed 100% until today) is that during this little "scare" Bethany suspended all referrals. While we are on the waiting list, we cannot get a referral until that pesky immigration approval shows up. So it was a bit nerve-racking, but not critical to us yet. Although it did put a nice scare into some of our friends also on the waiting list.

The good news is that they have re-opened referrals!!! Also, Bethany has determined with a fairly high level of confidence that the President and Congress of Guatemala will be working more closely with the adoption community on creating a solution to become compliant without creating major delays. God willing, we will only be scrutinized more than otherwise, but hopefully the time line will not be impacted a great deal.

So, the bottom line is that we continue to wait for the immigration approval and the referral of our little Carmen. There were a lot of people out there praying that this current bump in the road would be resolved, and it looks like it has been. Sorry to all those in the blogosphere that I did not mention the issue while it was happening, but until we heard directly from our social worker, there were just too many rumors swirling around the issue and I'm not much for passing around rumors. Folks who have been through this before will tell you that these types of scares are par for the course when it comes to Guatemalan adoptions. Let me tell you these past couple of weeks have been an emotional roller coaster - or at least a tilt-a-whirl.