Today was one of the most exciting days of my life. Just like the days that Kaleb and Cohen came into our lives, today feels like the day our little girl became part of our family. The strange thing is that I haven't even seen her or held her yet but I have memorized her face from the picture. Today, Kerry and I officially accepted the referral. That means SHE IS OURS! I can't believe it will be around 2 months before we see her. Talk about eternity. But before I get into all of that, I should back up and tell you how we got here. Be prepared, this may take awhile.....

Background

Almost 2 years ago in June of 2008, Kerry and I started the adoption process. It has been an extremely long, laborious, and drawn out process that has been just as bad as all the horror stories you hear about. The end of the tunnel came in Oct. of 2009 when our final paperwork was submitted and our dossier was accepted by Colombia. We were approved for 2 girls, age 5 and under. We had to make the decision to go with a private orphanage or the public orphanage. The private orphanage predicted it would be less an a year before we got a referral but the public orphanage predicted 2+ years. Ouch. That is a long time to complete our family. We decided the extra money was worth it and agreed to go with the private orphanage. That means we were put on the list and we waited. And we waited. And we waited. Along the way, we were unofficially asked if we would be interested in groups outside of our range such as a group of 4 girls from 4-12 yrs old and a set of 3 siblings with 2 boys and a girl all under 6. We declined.

Interested?

Until one day, almost out of the blue, on April 29 I get an email from our Adoption Coordinator asking if we would be interested in a single, very young infant female. This posed a lot of questions for us. For example, if we were approved for 2, why were we being asked about a single? We would not want to accept a single if that meant they would later have to break-up a sibling group down the road in order to get them adopted (they do that sometimes). After some going back and forth getting our questions answered, we were told that in the age group we were interested in, there were more families waiting than there were children available so we would not be hurting a sibling group down the road. After that, we said we would be interested in hearing more information. We were told the Lutheran Social Services coordinator in Colombia was on vacation or something so it would be awhile before we heard anything. Kerry and I were kind of excited but didn't place a ton of stock in this as the question was very vague and we didn't know if anything would come of it. The funny comment out of this discussion was that at least we would all fit in his truck (his truck only seats 5 so we were planning on getting a new one that seats 6 or never all being in the truck at the same time).

The Referral

Then on May 6 (one week later) at 3:45 pm, again-out of the blue, I get a phone call at work from the Colombian Coordinator at Lutheran Social Services (Bettina) and she tells me she is going to get Kerry on the line. Now I am really getting excited because she has never spoken to both of us at the same time but I'm still expecting just to get asked if we might be interested in a child again, nothing official. Once we finally got Kerry on the line, Bettina asks if we are both at computers and tells us she is sending us something. The email is very large and seems to take FOREVER to come in. As it is coming in, Bettina proceeds to tell us that we are getting a referral which is an official offer from Colombia. Her name is Mariana Arevalo Lara and she was born on Feb. 1. She is a baby!!!!!!! They are officially offering us a baby!!!! We can't believe it. She turned 3 months old the previous weekend. FINALLY the email arrives and I first click on the picture. She is adorable. Dark eyes, dark hair, chubby hands and cheeks, light skin. Bettina is talking on the phone but I am staring at the picture of my little girl and trying really hard to actually listen to Bettina. We learn she weighs over 10 lbs now, she smiles, loves other kids, lifts her head up when on her tummy, is progressing right on schedule and is healthy. My heart is about to beat out of my chest and I can't stop smiling from ear to ear. It was such an amazing phone call. I never would have imagined the ultimate and pure joy during that phone call even though we had been waiting for it for almost 2 years. I swear I knew as soon as I saw that picture that she was my little girl. You try not to get to excited because after you receive a referral, they want you to have the medical records checked out by doctors who specialize in international adoption so they can verify the health of the child. In our case, the University of Minnesota has a department that Lutheran Social Services recommends.

In the email, we received the following in both Spanish and English:

1. Referral Letter

Photo

3. Social/Medical History

4. Consent for Adoption

Birth Certificate

Mariana

I opened the documents and there is so much information on Mariana. Her mom was a dentistry student and is 28. She has 3 other children (all boys) ages 8, 5, and 1, all by the same father who she has known since childhood but never married. After he found out she was pregnant with the 4th child, he bailed and left her with all the kids. She soon made the decision that adoption was her best choice as she realized that she could not care for this child properly. That is what you call the ultimate unselfish decision. It is hard for me to know that our child has 3 other brothers out there that she will not know until she is an adult, if ever. The paperwork has quotes taken from the mother given to the court that says she hid the pregnancy and none of her family or friends know she was pregnant and she wants to keep it that way. Mariana was sent to the orphanage immediately after birth.

Mariana's dad is an engineer (can you believe that??). All the weights are given in grams but we figure out she weighed 6 lbs 11 oz at birth and she was 19.6 inches long. We also figure out that her name consists of a first name and 2 last names. In Colombia, they have 2 last names that are made up of the fraternal last name and then the maternal last name. Mariana's last names are the same as her mother's (in other words, her father's last name is NOT in Mariana's name). She does not have a middle name. To my amazement, the last of the court documents is dated May 5. She was offered to us on May 6. Talk about not wasting any time but that is OK with me!

Medical check-out

On Friday, May 7th, I sent her info off to the U of M international adoption section to have her checked out. Later that day, they sent us a note that she appears to be healthy based on the info they received. They ask for more pictures if possible to check for further evidence of fetal achohol syndrome and they note that there is no mention of a Hepatitis C or syphilis test which they would like to see. Monday, May 10th, I asked Bettina if its possible to get those things. Lord knows I would love to see some more pictures of her! Tuesday Bettina finally gets back to me that the doctors always ask for more pictures and those tests but the tests are not standard tests for Colombia unless there is something in the medical profile that would indicate they are needed. She is progressing height/weight wise on schedule so fetal alcohol syndrome also doesn't appear to be a problem.

Naming her

We discovered rather quickly that before we can officially accept the referral, we have to know what we will be naming her. I am sure they need this for all the paperwork like Visa applications that need to be started immediately for our travel. This poses a delimina for us because we have to decide extremely quickly what her name will be so that we can accept her as soon as possible as I don't want her name to be the hold up point. Kerry and I angonized over this decision. Do we keep her birth name (which be both really like but doesn't start with a C or a K like the rest of us)? Do we keep her birth name as her middle name and name her something entirely different? Do we use one of her last names as her middle name? Let me tell you though. I think naming a child is twice as difficult once you can see them versus before they are born. Every name we thought of we would compare to her picture and say 'No, she doesn't look like a Kelsy." I wrote out a number of names that start with a C or a K thinking if we came up with one we really liked, we would use Mariana as her middle name. The closest we came was Cayla but neither of us could commit to it. Then we decided to do some research on the internet to see how other adoptees felt about getting their name changed. Every one we read about said they were fine with having their birth names changed but many wanted part of their birth name in their adopted name. Ultimately, we decided to keep as close as possible to her original first name yet modify it to correspond with our family's naming scheme. We feel this is a good compromise between keeping her birth name and making sure she feels a complete part of our family. Her name will be Kariana Lea Melcher. We believe we will call her Ana (pronounced On-ah) most of the time.

Accepting the referral

Now that we know we won't be expecting any further medical information, Kerry and I decided to officially accept her. Today, May 11, I sent back the official acceptance letter. Yeah!!!!!!!! My baby girl is going to be ours!! It has taken a little while to get used to the idea of 1 girl and not 2 but now I am there. Our family will be complete after Kariana joins it and we will not start the process again for another.

Once I sent in the acceptance letter, there were lots of Congratulations from the staff at Lutheran Social Services and then the paperwork requests started flowing in full force. There are multiple documents that need to be updated before we can travel. Our documents with the US government has to be updated and approved now that we have a specific child (we were preliminary approved last year but you have to wait to go further into the approval process until you have a specific child). There are documents that Colombia is requiring be updated like our employment verifications and our physical health verifications. There are visa applications that need to be filled out and our home study to be updated. And to think that I thought our paperwork was finished last year! How naive!

Travel

Lutheran Social Services tells us that we can expect to travel in approximately 8 weeks which would put us going around early to mid July. It takes that long to get all the approvals we need. All of us will travel to Colombia including Kaleb and Cohen since both parents have to go down. Once we get to a certain point in the process, then one parent can leave so Kerry will fly home with the boys and I will stay with Kariana until the process is complete. The guys will be down there for 2-3 weeks and I will be down there for a total of 6-8 weeks.

Planning

Ever since we got the referral, I have been thinking and planning. A friend helped me write down all the baby gear we need. The list was so long! I know some of it we have stored in the basement, WAY in the back under the stairs. I also know a lot of the bigger stuff I gave to friends or sold at a garage sale a couple of years ago because we didn't know how long our wait would be and we really weren't expecting a baby. In the next couple of days we will be pulling everything out and taking stock of what is down there so we can see exactly what we are missing. Good thing its garage sale season!! The biggest item I know we need is a crib so we are starting to check those out. I also have a list of all the things we need to do before we go.

I think that is about it for now. Please leave us any comments or let me know if you have any questions by posting a comment below and I will try to answer them. We are all so excited about Kariana!! The boys are extremely excited to finally meet their baby sister, especially Cohen. The morning after we told the boys about her, he woke up and said "Where's that picture of my baby sister?" He had to have it by his plate while he ate breakfast too. It was really cute!

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Thanks,

Cresta