An Exciting Day

Today we got a very exciting email from our social worker. It said that not only are we out of Family Court, we were submitted to the Attorney General's office (PGN) on January 17, and have already been kicked out! Kick-outs are part of the routine from the PGN; most families have two or three kick-outs. Ours was because the pre-approval hadn't come from the US Embassy yet (it should soon, since the DNA has been completed), and because the last name on the baby's birth certificate doesn't exactly match the last name on the mother's birth certificate (it's a difference of a tilde). So we're waiting for pre-approval, and the attorneys are working on a resolution of the tilde issue. Yes, we think it's funny too.

What's most exciting is that we've already been in PGN for a month, and had our first kick-out without even knowing it. The Guatemalan political situation is, as always, a little weird and unpredictable, but we may be looking at around 3 months until baby instead of around 6. Of course, no guarantees. But I'm starting to get excited on the inside, and my sister (who has two munchkins) is helping me figure out what non-furniture baby things we need.

We also got a medical update (but no pictures). He's doing great!

And lastly, since the Family Court process has been completed, we're feeling reasonably sure that this baby is our baby. Although we're keeping his full name a secret for a while longer, he doesn't need to be Ronald in public anymore. Now y'all can call him the nickname we've been calling him, privately and hopefully, within 24 hours of his referral: his name is Gus.

Crib installed

The baby's room is now fully furnished. Last weekend we acquired and installed a crib in the baby's room. We got it from a co-worker of Rebekah's whose daughter just outgrew it. We also finished and moved in the toy bin (trying and not succeeding to use up the extra paint left over from painting the dresser--we're used to painting rooms, so we way overestimated how much paint we would need). After all the furniture was moved in, we promptly rearranged every piece, but we think we're happy with the arrangement now.

Note the crib's feet. The crib didn't start with any shoes of its own, but these shoes have been waiting for it for years, a gift from friends when we first started telling people that we were going to adopt.