Confirmed… DNA is COMPLETE!
We have confirmation from Corelli (foster mom) that DNA is complete! She gave me the play by play details of the entire day (courtesy of Joyce who translates for us)!
She left her house at 6am Friday morning, arriving in Guatemala City early enough to meet the attorney for some paperwork. The first went to the lab where they used swabbed Rylan’s cheek for a DNA sample. After that they had a 10am doctors appointment for his Final Medical Exam! She said his is very healthy and the doctor was very impressed with is weight and height… he is 25lbs now at 19 months old. Small by our standards as I think our first son Cameron weighed that at 10 months old - he was such a butterball! Once the medical appointment was done Corelli had to swear to someone at the Embassy that this was the same child she has been taking care of since he was a month old. She had to sign some papers and show her Cedula (Id Card). Everything went perfect!
Of course as is the trend with us, nothing goes off without a hitch. Remember when I said we had to renew our fingerprints because they are expiring the end of this month? Well, we did them on 1/31/08. We received our updated Approval to Adoption (I-171h) on 2/8/08, the same day our attorney got our DNA Authorization. Well, the Embassy in Guatemala issued an I-72 the very next day saying they needed updated fingerprints from us because they are expiring. I figured all this crossed in the cyber world of email somewhere….
So, I emailed right away to both parts of the Embassy in Guatemala - the State Dept and the Homeland Security. The State Dept emailed back that YES, they had the extended fingerprints. Whew…. that was a relief. Not so easy with the Homeland Security. The requested a bunch of information, of which I still am not totally clear on. I sent them on Friday what I had and hoped it is what they needed. I am waiting for their reply. I’ve already contacted our State Senator to get involved because there is no way I will accept one more delay! Let’s also recap that I asked for a fingerprint appt in Nov 2007 - 3 months before the prints expired but they misplaced our paperwork, thus not giving us an appt until the end of Jan - thus causing this delay!
Urggg…. So, this week will be spent trying to sort everything out and to make sure we are free and clear with the fingerprints. The DNA should at the lab on Tuesday. Then it will get tested sometime on Wed, Thurs, or Fri. The results sent back to Guatemala on Monday - and we should be issued our pickup appointment!!! Yeah!!!! If I don’t get this issued with the I-72 worked out, they will not issue our pickup appt. So it is very important I do whatever I need too in this situation!
