Bad news from Bogota

So, the bad news. Today was not a good day for the adoption process. In fact, we got probably the worst news that we could have. Today we found out that our case will be pulled out of our current court and then resubmitted to the courts to start the process over.

This afternoon I had a meeting with our lawyer and Cecilia who explained to me that the judge in our court (court 14) had denied our case twice. She is asking for a document that doesn’t exist and is not needed unless the biological mother had a handicap. Since Kariana’s mother did not have a handicap, this certain document wasn’t produced when she gave the baby up. No judge has asked for this document before but this judge is brand new and asking for different things. After our case was denied the first time, our lawyer presented that this document wasn’t needed. The judge responded that she could interpret the law the way she wanted and she interpreted it that she needed the document. After our lawyer presented our case that we didn’t need the document, the judge denied our case for the second time which was yesterday. Because it has been denied twice, our lawyer suggested that the best course of action is to pull our case from court 14. The judge has the option of taking much longer to deny it a third time and our case could go on and on and on. She also runs the risk of arguing with the judge about her ruling and angering her causing more delays. So I gave my permission for our lawyer to submit the document to pull our case from the courts tomorrow. She will resubmit it immediately and it is possible we will know our new court tomorrow yet. If she pulls it and submits it right away, it is not possible for us to get court 14 again. So once again, I am praying with all my might that we get a fast court.

Our lawyer is very sympathetic to our situation and has already vowed to do everything she can to get us through quickly. She is going to present our situation to the new judge and explain that this is our second court, that we got a late defender of the minor meeting, etc. and try to get it hurried along. She seemed very confident that the process would be done in two weeks even if that meant she had to go to that judge’s court everyday and sit there until they grew tired of her. What I don’t know is if there is a possibility that it could be done in less time than two weeks. She never mentioned that as an option, she only talked about being done in 2 weeks. The problem is that even after the court process is done, there is another week of things after that like getting a new birth certificate, a passport, a visa, etc. So that means that instead of hoping to go home in the next week, I will be staying another 3 weeks. Since my boys have been home almost 2 weeks already, that means I will likely be away from them for 5 weeks. That is the part that is killing me right now and causing most of my tears.

As of right now, it looks like I will be coming home around Sept. 3. That means that I will miss the rest of the summer with my boys, Kerry will have to do all the school shopping, and Kariana and I won’t be able to participate in the Priebe Labor Day festivities in Kansas that are one of the things I look forward to every year. As it turns out, I will be lucky to be home for the first day of school on Sept. 7. Don’t get me wrong, I love this bonding time with my new daughter but I and the rest of the family could be bonding with her at home just as well as this hotel room.

So today was basically about feeling sorry for myself and still trying to show Carrie a good time in Bogota. I actually got the call last night that our case was starting over but didn’t know the details until this afternoon when the lawyer came so I have been in a funk for the past 24 hours already. It also doesn’t help that Monday is another holiday here so no court stuff happening that day and Cecilia leaves on a two week vacation on Sunday. Tomorrow we get introduced to the person that will help us while she is gone but it won’t be the same. As it turns out, it looks like I will still be here when she gets back anyway. I'm trying to stay positive but right now that is very difficult.

Starting over in Bogota,
Cresta