Our time in Guatemala

February 24, 2008

We've been home for almost a month and I have realized that we haven't posted about our pick-up trip! So here is a summary about our 4 days in Guatemala.

Saturday, January 26th - Wednesday, January 30th
On Saturday, we took a very early flight(6:50 A.M.)out of Omaha to arrive in Guatemala in the afternoon so we could go pick up Cristina at the orphanage. Our flight got into Guatemala at 2:18 and we arrived at the hotel shortly before 3:00. We hadn't even started to unpack when the phone rang. It was Feliciano, our facilitator, calling to see if we were ready to get Cristina. He took us by surprise and I said, "UH UH--give is 20 minutes." He had sent his nephew for us and was waiting out in the lobby.
About 45 minutes later, we arrived at the orphanage. I was nervous to see Cristina because I was afraid that she had grown alot since my visit trip in July. Feliciano met us at the door and took us into the play area to where a group of infants were playing on the floor. He asked if I could pick Cristina out of the group. I looked and told him that Cristina was not amongst those children. So he took us to another area and I saw her sitting in a swing all dressed up in the black and white dress I had sent her for Christmas. I was thrilled to notice that she had not grown a whole lot. We stayed at the orphanage for about an hour and a half asking one of her caregivers about her routine, what she ate and other information to help with her transition. We went up to the room where her crib was and gathered some of her belongings. The caregiver began to cry when I started clearing Cristina's crib. This made me sad but also gave me comfort to know how much they really cared about her. After receiving all her adoption papers from Feliciano, we went back to our hotel. We spent the rest of the day just ooing and awing over her and trying to get over our excitement about finally having our daughter.










On Sunday, we decided to have Feliciano's nephew take us to Antigua for the day. I had been to Antigua on my visit trip but Phil had never been so I wanted him to see it. We were gone from 10:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. We visited the 3 major ruins and the artisan marketplace. I wanted to buy Cristina a couple Guatemala outfits for her there. We took lots of pictures of us 3 and it felt great that we were now a family.
When we got back to the hotel, Feliciano was waiting for us to go over all of our paperwork for our Embassy appointment the next morning. He walked us down to the Embassy (which was only a block away),showed us where to enter and explained to us what was going to happen.












We woke up very early Monday morning for our 7:15 A.M. Embassy appointment. We arrived outside to form a line at 7:00 A.M. and were allowed to enter right away. We went through a security check and a turnstyle then into a room with many chairs very similar to the DMV. We sat and waited with about 25 other families waiting to have our number called. Luckily, our number was ONE so we were the first to be called up to the window to turn in our paperwork and pay for Cristina's visa. Next we were called into this even tinier room to have our papers approved and stamped. Last, we approached another window to take an oath that everything was true to the best of our knowledge. We were the first to be finished and were done by 9:00 A.M. Cristina was officially and legally ours!!! All we needed to do was to go back and pick up her visa on Tuesday at 3:30 P.M. When we got back to the hotel we had someone take our first official family photo. BTW, those are not wings coming out of our heads. That is a statue in front of our hotel and we just happened to have our picture taken to make it look that way. LOL













Tuesday we were able to sleep in and take our time getting up and dressed. We didn't have to be anywhere until 3:30. We went for a walk around the block and hung out at the hotel. Our hotel had beautiful statues and fountains in the front with a couple of wrought iron tables and chairs. It was a gorgeous day so we spent a lot of time outside until it was time to get Cristina's visa. That night we went to dinner with Feliciano and his wife to thank him for helping us make our dream come true and tell him good-bye. We promised that this isn't the end and we would keep in touch.














Wednesday morning we had an early flight (8:05 A.M.) to fly back to Omaha. As we took off, I looked out the window and waved good-bye to Guatemala, said we'd be back someday and cried tears of joy that we're finally taking our daughter home.
On our first flight to Houston,Cristina did fairly well. She sat in the middle seat and played with some toys and crawled around as much as she could. On the flight from Houston to Omaha, she slept the whole way in Phil's arms. When we arrived in Omaha, we had a big welcoming committee. My parents, my aunt Connie, my sister Linda and her 2 kids (Nicolas & Olivia) and my friend Sarah (who I went to Guatemala with in July)and her daughter Ivy, were all there. Lots of pictures were taken and many tears (of joy) were shed. We FINALLY had our daughter home!!! When we got back to our house, Phil's mom and dad were there waiting to see Cristina and welcome her home, too.