2nd BMI: Complete!

Before the adoption, I would have thought BMI stood for body mass index or something about bowel movements, but all those in the Guatemalan adoption world can tell you that BMI = birth mother interview. We are excited to say that as of today our birth mother interview is complete! The look of sheer joy on Samuel's face in the picture below is how I'm feeling tonight!This may be a more detailed account of the birth mother interview than many of you are interested in... so the abbreviated version is: It went well and is over!

The past few days have been emotional and tiring for me as we found out the birth mother interview would take place today. The second birth mother interview is a requirement that was added to the adoption process and technically isn't "legal" because we were grandfathered in under the old adoption law, but the Guatemalan government has been allowing this interviews to take place anyways. The goal is supposedly to ensure that the birthmoms were not coerced to give up their children. When the interviews started, we were hearing horror stories about the PGN officials harasssing birth moms and babies being taken away for ridiculous reasons. The interviews have improved and the birthmoms are being treated better, but it is still a hard step in the process for adoptive parents.

Today was a crazy long day. I have to start by praising God for the timing of the interview during my Dad's visit, giving me strength and peace today and for granting us favor with the PGN interviewers. Thank You! We were supposed to meet our facilitator at 9:30 in the city, so we left Antigua at 8:30. When we arrived, she called and said they were running 30 minutes late ("mas o menos" - a dangerous phrase that means "more or less", but in this case meant we'd be waiting awhile). At 11:15, she still hadn't arrived, so I called and she said they had rescheduled the interview for 1 PM as the birthmom was late getting into the city. By the time we met up with the facilitator at 12:30, we had been entertaining Samuel in the hotel lobby for 3 hours! I had to hand over Samuelito to the facilitator. I know a few hours shouldn't be a big deal, but it wasn't easy for me. I kept praying "Lord, protect him!" and "Lord, bring us home!", but all the while very aware that whether something went wrong during the interview or not, God is still in control! I think today was one of the only days that it entered my mind that losing Samuel could still be a possibility.

My poor dad was with me all day- a blessing for me, but probably not his favorite way to spend a day! We hung out in the hotel and the mall attached. The lawyer told us the interview could last 3-4 hours. Praise God that they were back with Samuel in about 2 hours! I was so excited to see Samuel and have him back in my arms! I was so focused on getting Samuel back, that I didn't ask too many questions. They told me that the birth mom showed up and that things went well. Apparently Samuel cried through almost the whole interview which secretly pleased me. I thought it might have helped hurry along the interview. I have to say he was pretty smiley to be back with me and didn't want to be out of my eye sight the rest of the evening. By the time we got back to Antigua it was 4:30! What a day! We still have lots of waiting left in our adoption process, but having this interview behind us is huge!

I continue to be so blessed by the support, love and prayers of you all at home. I can't say enough about how cool it is to be in a position to have my faith stretched and see the Lord provide for us in so many ways through the amazing people around us. Thank you! I'm pretty emotionally drained right now, so sorry if I'm sappy!

The pics below are from our 3 hours of waiting in the hotel/mall today!