Crazy couple of days....:S

So...where do I start?

The US embassy finally issued the article 5 on Monday.  We were all set thinking that ICBF would give us an entrega date of April 21.  But then....on Wednesday morning we got an email from our adoption agency saying that ICBF was saying that we would have to wait an additional 3-4 weeks to meet tiny A :(.  Here I was getting ready to go to work on my last day before maternity leave and I was CRUSHED thinking that I had made a HUGE mistake and left work too early.  So I spent all day Wednesday worried and waiting for another email.  There was still a little bit of hope left that ICBF would have mercy on us and give us an entrega date of April 21.  My student's parents planned the most beautiful little birthday/good-bye party ever and all I could think about was that perhaps this wasn't going to happen as planned.

So Thursday, my first day of maternity leave, I took Alejandra to Spanish class, corrected student work, and sat around waiting for an email from our adoption agency.  Every thirty minutes or so I would check email and of course every time it was "junk e-mail."  I had an awful headache in the afternoon and decided to take a Tylenol PM....by 6:00 pm I fell asleep.  I heard Mark's Blackberry vibrating (through my deep sleep) and thought this is it!  Unfortunately, it wasn't it.

Today, I headed out to school again to accompany my students on a field trip to the Safari Park.  I headed to school ready to help support my wonderful long term substitute teacher.  As I was driving over to the Safari Park following the bus I called Mark to check-in and see if we had received any updates.  His first words were "you aren't going to like this."  I was crushed. :(  He said that ICBF came back with an encuentro date of May 12, but that we need to be in Bogota by May 10 because we have to meet with the social worker.  This is a new process ICBF is doing and apparently we are the first and probably last family they are going to do this with (crazy? yes....but we are just going with it).  My heart sank thinking that here I was on "maternity leave" with no baby to care for.  I had a wonderful substitute excited to be with the students and working so hard already...now what?

I met the students at the entrance to the park helped get them organized and then I headed over to Mark's work to take care of the next steps....we looked up our travel arrangements and tried our best to finalize that.  Our agency emailed us the last document that we need to take to the Colombian Embassy on Monday, we got it notarized (incorrectly...more on that later).  Then, I emailed my Principal....and guess what SME?  I will be back to teach this Wednesday and then will restart maternity leave on May 5th.  So I've got 11 more teaching days left to be with my school kiddos! :)  I think I might have had the shortest maternity leave ever (4 days).  The hardest thing for me is to think how I've impacted the students, their families, and the long term substitute.....a lot of emotions and now here I come back again....

So then I got that school stuff settled and headed off to the County Clerk to get the notarized letter for the Colombian Embassy authenticated.  Of course, they said we did it wrong....so Mark ran to get it renotarized with the correct wording and 1 hour later it was authenticated...YEAH!  So Monday we are off to the Colombian Embassy to get Mark's visa and let's hope we are not met with any resistance...Just in case, I am also off of work on Tuesday, so we can get this all sorted out.

So this has been our roller coaster ride the past few days!  All this to say we get to meet our tiny A on May 12 in Bogota, Colombia!  It isn't as soon as we would like but we are happy that we have a confirmed date and that we can now move forward!  Now I would like to present you to our daughter Amaya Fernanda.....she is 14 months old right now and will 15 months when we finally get to give her a big hug and kiss!

If you are our Facebook friend you can see her picture!