Today had it's ups and downs. None of the downs had to do with the girls. They were great today.
In the afternoon we visited a doctor to check the girls' records and submit a document for the US Embassy that they are OK. He was a Tulane Med Student from the 70s. He was very good with the girls and seemed pretty thorough. Some of the girls immunization records are good and up to date and some are not so good. We knew that going into the doctor's office. We will have a bunch of immunization follow-ups to do when we get home (we started several here). The only news is that Sucena will likely have to wear glasses (she didn't like hearing that). All this means is that we cleared this next hurdle and are OK to go to the US Embassy tomorrow. Yeah!!
The down part of the day revolved around our documents that we received in Medellin as part of the Sentencia (Adoption decree). We wrote about this a week or two ago. What we didn't know, was that CHSFS (our adoption agency in the US) had requested our lawyer in Medellin change the process to save us some money. Instead of a copy of some of the documents for each girl, it would save money to have only one copy for all. Not knowing anything at the time, it sounded reasonable. We found out this morning that this change will cost us the money it saved us, plus overnight transportation fees for the documents (They supposedly will be in Bogota by 8am). That is frustrating enough but we were worried that this changing of the process and the lack of adequate paperwork was going to mean we had to stay here extra days and we'd have to change our plane tickets. All of this could have been avoided by CHSFS not asking for a change, or asking the public defender at no extra cost to certify the documents when we went to court (the defender was present at our sentencia, see May 10th). Since we stayed in Medellin extra days, the documents could have been done correctly then too. Instead we find out at almost the last minute that things are not correct. The paralegal in Medellin had to redo documents, run around and send them overnight. We owe you, Maria Jose (and Edwin).
We didn't take pictures today. We will add pictures of our hotel later.
Casa Lanthana is a big home with a late 50s/early 60s "modern" styling with multi- leveling (sunken fireplace area, TV/lounge area a half a flight down, many large windows to allow natural lighting). It's very pretty. Like our originally intended place this is a hotel that specifically caters to adopting families. We are here with three couples, all of French background. Two from France that are adopting babies, and another couple from a central African country (can't remember the name) that are adopting a 4 and 6 year old. As a result I hear as much French as Spanish and English is fairly common too. One of the mothers only speaks French so is left out of many conversations (I know how that feels). It is good for the girls to hear other languages and discover these kind of differences. Not many kids from Wisconsin have actually spoken some French with someone from France.
Our meals are included in the price of the hotel which makes our costs more predictable. Since the meals are prepared ad cleaned up for us, it allows us more time with the girls. I hope the girls do not expect things to be like this at home. It will be closer to the apartment in daily routines. One thing this place has that we really like is a large washer and dryer!! We did one big load and could do more but we are limited to two washings per week. That's fairly reasonable for a family of 3-4 but a bit unrealistic for a family of 6. We will probably end up with a fair amount of laundry when we get home.
The four and six year old girls are popular with our girls. Since the girls are from a small town near Bogota they have a different accent than our girls. This is also good exposure for our girls. The babies are also popular. The other couples have been very good about allowing our girls to play with their new children. One of the moms said her baby was the most "tranquilo" that she has seen when she was being held by Mirellen.
Well it's time for some more sleep.
Hopefully tomorrow will go smoothly.
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