Sentencia!!!

We got sentencia today!!  Isabel told me this morning just after 11:00 a.m. and I went to court this afternoon to sign our final adoption decree.  Isabel has four families that just got sentencia over the last few days so she is very busy.  She had to have her colleague's assistant, Carolina, come with me to court today as both she and her assistant, Carmen, were busy helping other families.

There are 21 courts and they are all located in one building in downtown Bogota.  There are several courts on each floor which are positioned down a short hallway. They aren't courts like I pictured them from t.v. shows.  Each is an office type room, with a couple of old desks and some shelving units along the wall.  They are quite small.  The paperwork for each case is stacked upon one another on the shelves that are labeled with letters of the alphabet, similar to what you see at a pharmacy in the states when you are going to pick up your perscription. There are no filing cabinets, that is their filing system.  Each courth has a counter along the hallway where people come up to it to get what they need.  There are no such things as lines, just people pushed up against one another at each counter trying to be next.  At one point there were eleven people crowded together around our court's counter trying to get the worker's attention.  Everyone was polite, I don't want it to seem like it's an angry mob at each counter.  Actually for how disorganized it all looks, it actually runs smoothly, politely, and relatively quietly.  

I signed our decree, and then Carolina noticed that the Defender of Minors hadn't signed it yet!  This is exactly what happened to our friend Rachel yesterday when she got sentencia!  So, we spent an hour trying to track down the Defender to see if she would sign it today, but eventually we were told that it might take another hour or two and her answer could be no (which is what happened to Rachel yesterday.)  We were told that she'd be back in her office tomorrow morning and she would sign it then, so Carolina said we should come back tomorrow.  I talked with Isabel after I got back to the hotel.  After I told her what happened and she called my attorney, she called me back and said that she'd call me tomorrow morning after the lawyer talked to the Defender and she signs off on our case.  So, today was a bit of a wasted day, but no worries.  We'll just start the process officially tomorrow instead! 

So since I'll be running around tomorrow and Thursday, I'll need to have Valeria, the hotel manager watch the kids for me.  I don't know how they'll do, emotionally I mean.  Please pray that they will have an enjoyable time, that it goes by quickly for them, and that Maria won't have any setbacks to our bonding.  I feel bad leaving them, but kids aren't allowed at court and it's not advised to take them to the notary, which is the next step after receiving our final adoption decree.  How ironic that the only two days that I'll be alone with the kids are the two days that I won't be around much to be with them!  (Kevin's parents leave tomorrow morning to go back to Michigan. It was great having them here as they've been a wonderful support. Thank you Mom and Dad K!  My sister Natalie flies in on Thursday evening and will be staying a week with us. We can't wait!)

The other things that need to be done this week are to get Maria's birth certificate, get her passport photo taken and then get her Colombian passport issued, she is required to be seen by the American Embassy doctor, we need to get paperwork from ICBF I believe, and then we submit everything to the U.S. Embassy who then issues Maria a visa.  Once we have the visa we are done and can fly home!  The Embassy is closed on Friday, so most likely we'll get the visa by Tuesday.  This all means that since Natalie will be here until Thursday, that we'll all fly home next Thursday, Friday, or Saturday!  We'll let you know once it's official (probably only a few days before)!

We are all very excited as you can imagine!  Carlos ran and knocked on everyone's door to tell them that we had sentencia!  So cute!  He's most excited about being able to see his daddy soon!

Since Kevin's parents are leaving tomorrow morning, we celebrated tonight by buying a sentencia cake.  It's tradition to buy a cake to share with everyone for dessert sometime after you receive sentencia.  Katya thought we should do it tonight, so I had her order us one.  It was delicious!