[waiting4james]

It's been such a long time since I've posted here, but reliving Juan Carlos' adoption is still difficult for me... update first,

Juan Carlos will be turning 4 next week!!! He is so full of life and is such a joy. We have been experiencing some problems which I'll discuss in a bit, but of course he is worth every heartache. About six months after he came home and after 7 years of infertility I became pregnant, and in keeping with the insanity of our life, we moved when I was seven months pregnant, all got the flu which lasted two months for me, spent the holidays in an extended stay hotel trying to hurry and find a house, found a fixer upper and closed on it in the delivery room while trying NOT to have Luke 5 weeks early. He didn't listen and came Dec. 29 after two days of trying to stop labor. He spent a week in the NICU where I could not visit him because I was quarantined with the flu! My poor husband had to move our stuff out of the hotel (they only allowed 1 child per room) and into my in laws, take care of sick Juan Carlos, console me, be with Luke in the NICU AND get the nasty house fixed enough to live in! Poor guy! I love him!

Anyhow... to anyone struggling, I just want to stress how important it is to enlist all the help you can early on. We knew after several months that our agency was not forthcoming with information, but were afraid to make waves. Because Juan Carlos experienced some emotional trauma leaving his foster mother after his first 27 months of life with her, we are living with the ramifications of that daily. He has some real insecurity which leads to explosive rages which can last hours on end over something as small as not wanting to blow his nose or change his underwear.

His entire adoption process post referral was 20 months. We had a lazy attorney, and a less than helpful agency, and ended up finishing the last of the process ourselves in Guatemala. We had thought about hiring a service I just discovered we can no longer name here who helps move things along and keep tabs on the attorney after the whole Hague mess blew over and we realized that had never been the problem for us since our attorney did not even file or begin our case until a month after the supreme court ruling (seven months post acceptance of referral)... we were horrified, but we made a huge stink, got the attention of the agency (we thought) and weren't sure it was worth paying the money to the unnamed service... big mistake - it ended up going on for another year and then some.

If any of you are experiencing this, it is worth the money... take out a loan, borrow against your home, sell a car, sell your hair- even IF your case clears a month later and you wonder if you wasted your money - who cares. This is your child and a few months can make a huge difference to them. It is worth paying for help - you could be me... you could be the one who takes two years... it is NOT worth risking. What amount would I have paid to have had another year with my son, and saved him insecurities and emotional problems later? Any amount I could figure how to come up with. Hindsight is of course 20/20, but instead of waiting it out and having regrets, do everything in your power to get your child home as soon as possible.

I cannot speak for any particular services... they gave us some incredible information when they were trying to get our business, but as I said, we didn't use them.

We thought we couldn't afford it... we couldn't... but, we could have busted our butts to come up with it. I sooo wish that we had!

If you are having problems with your adoption, I am sooo sorry, it is a huge stress and hard to find anyone who can relate to what you are going through. We were told by so many people that we should cut our losses and move on. We loved our son, we prayed a lot and our answer was always that we were on the right path. We never knew if he would come home, but we knew we were doing what God wanted us to be doing, and we kept on. I cannot imagine my life without him... he is truly amazing.

Get all the help you can, take a vacation you really can't afford, try to stay sane... I didn't realize how stressed I was until quite some time later... it took me so long to come back to some normalcy... in fact, I'm probably still on my way down, I've experienced so much trauma and so much change. The only regret I have is not being more of a b!tch for my son.

MAKE WAVES!!!

Good luck to you all,
Chelsea
mami to Juan Carlos

edited to remove name of fee based service.