A weird turn of events

Here's the latest.
I got a call from Lucy (our agency director) on Thursday saying she finally had good news and bad news. The good news is . . . . she had some info. The bad news is . . . what the info was.

Evidentally, (to make a long story shorter) our lawyer was not responding to calls/emails as she had found out that Juliana had already been in the adoption process a year or two ago, and something happened that halted the process. Juliana was still stuck in the court system! So, Lucy was going to try and find out who this family was that had tried to adopt her before and see if they were still interested, and if not, if they would write a letter (or whatever they needed to do) to terminate the adoption so we could move forward with it possibly.

The whole story sounded vaguely familiar to me - and I thought I had read something like it before on my Guatemalan yahoo group, so I posted a message for any info on little Juliana on my group. I got a response right away (which was a miracle as this woman had stopped reading the yahoo group email's - but my title had caught her eye. Now that's God!).

I spent 2 hours and over 33 emails on friday to connect the dots between the woman who responded who knew the previous parents, the prev. agency handling the case, the parents who had tried to adopt her, Lucy, and of course - Jeremy (to keep him in the loop). In respecting the adoptive parents, I won't really go into the details. That side of the story is theirs to tell.

I can tell you (with permission) that the original woman who told me about the adoptive parents has also been through a 2 year ordeal and still has hardly progressed with her adoption of 2 beautiful girls (still possibly in Family court -since Feb. Can you imagine?! Bless her heart!). She has given up (mentally,emotionally, etc) and doubts she will ever bring home her 2 girls (3 & 6 years old). :( My heart breaks for these 2 women!

Will you guys please pray for these ladies and their adoptions? Pray for their girls to be released, for their Mommy's hearts to be at peace and filled with hope and trust in God, for these cases to progress forward, and for God to send His angels to do the spiritual warfare needed to get these girls to freedom!!

As sad as it seems that we (once again) did not get the child referred - I am at total peace. I thought earlier today that she may be our daughter and it would all work out - till I talked with Juliana's adoptive mom and found out all the info. I am glad we could be used to (hopefully) help this family. I would want someone to do the same for me!

So - we are back to waiting. :) I'm getting pretty good at it. :) Actually - we haven't really been "just" waiting for long. God knows I like to stay busy, and I think that's why He allowed me to be "able" to redo so many of our forms, etc. :) hee, hee. It gave me something to do. Just imagine if our dossier had been right the first time? I would have been waiting since June! (Not as long as some people - I know) Anyways - it's all in God's hands. Our daughter will come to us when she is supposed to. :) I know that for sure. I've got enough craziness around here to keep me busy till she does. :)

Blessings!
Lori :)

2/09/2011 - Ok I am going to add back in the parts that I had edited out before. It's been 4 years - so I think it's fine to tell her story - especially considering how Juliana is back in our life now!

Here is what I took out of this post. (I'll add things to the other post as well if I edited that one too).

This family actually got to choose Juliana's name the day she was born (the day they got their referral). That was March 2, 2004!!! They got all the way through all the courts in Guat, and all they were waiting on was the official new BC and their visa/travel appt. and the atty stopped the process for some reason (no one really knows). The lawyer didn't really disappear - but didn't continue to work on the case. The poor family hired Adoption Supervisors (probably to the tune of several thousands of dollars) and have been to Guatemala several times to try and get things finalized. No such luck. I think they had given up. I found out they actually live 2 hours from us and still have Juliana's room all ready (they were originally hoping to bring home a baby and were not sure about a toddler - so I thought there may still be a chance they could write a letter to terminate the process - but they are too far into it now to just do that). Anyways - Lucy contacted the other agency and hopefully things will get moving for this poor family. That is my prayer!

**Side note - I found out the adoptive parents are now divorced, and the mom has no intentions of trying to bring Juliana home (I think she still might have been able to as she most likely was grandfathered in before adoptions shut down - because of how far they were in their adoption. I could be wrong though.). So sad.