Our Visit Trip to Guatemala

I first need to apologize that it's taken so long to get this posted. We've been back from Guatemala for the last 1 1/2 weeks, but we've been pretty busy with Jared's birthday, unpacking, and getting caught up at work.

Our trip to Guatemala was incredible, and we truly have the most perfect child in Central America! We met Caleb in the lobby of the Marriott hotel at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, May 16th. He was understandably very shy at first, or actually, scared to death! He didn't cry much, though. We had to hold on to him for the first day, and keep him moving, but he really did well. He started getting used to Keith by the end of the first day, and even started showing us his beautiful smile and laugh. Unlike some of the pictures we'd received from the attorney through our agency, he is a very smiley and giggly little boy!

The first night was very rough, and none of us really got any sleep. Poor Caleb - strange bed, strange room, strange people...it's amazing that he slept at all. On Thursday, we did venture out of the hotel a bit, just around the block of the hotel. It was a bit too real to see some of the differences of Guatemala and the US, especially small-town Wisconsin! There were guards armed with machine guns outside the hotel. As the busses drove by, they were packed and there were people standing in the doorways of the busses even. There were kids on the street begging for money as we went past. On the other hand, it was funny to see some all-too-familiar US things as well...such as the McDonalds right next to the hotel, the Shell gas station, and a Dominos pizza. Go figure! At any rate...we stopped at a grocery store to buy some extra baby food, diapers, water, and diet Pepsi (the most important staple!!!). We also went souvenier shopping at some local stores. That was an experience, too. The people working in the stores do NOT give you space to look...they were all over us, saying "I make you good deal" on the prices. I got better at bargaining prices at the end, and think we did get "some good deals" at the end. Everything in the stores were so beautiful - colorful like you wouldn't believe.

Really, most of the time we had Caleb was spend either playing in the hotel room (we had brought along a bunch of toys for him), walking around the hotel or the neighborhood, or hanging out in the Baby Lounge. The Marriott has a lounge specifically for adoptive parents (nothing like catering to your clients, huh?). This lounge had free Internet access, baby toys, microwave, bottle sterilizer, baby swings, and more. There were usually other adoptive parents there, with their babies, so it was fun to enjoy our children interacting, as well as get an idea of how long our process will be.

On Thursday evening, we had the foster family come back to the hotel to have dinner with us. The hotel set us up with an interpreter named Juan, who is a college student who works at the hotel. It was an evening we will never forget. Our foster mom has 3 daughters, aged 16, 13, and 11. They all ADORE Caleb. We basically describe it as Caleb having 4 moms, they all take such good care of him. The family is all very, very nice, and even with the language barrier (which was solved with our awesome interpreter) the dinner went better than we had ever hoped. We (and more importantly, Caleb) is so fortunate to have such great care. It makes this wait much easier, knowing that he is getting such great care and love.

Thursday night went much better than the night before. We managed 6 hours of sleep! And on Friday, Caleb seemed very adjusted to us. We had a lot of fun just playing, walking, and "hanging out." Caleb played so hard during most of the day, that he took a big nap right before his foster mom came back. We have pictures of him crashed on the bed - and it's such a beautiful sight to watch him sleep.

Finally, the dreaded time came, when we had to meet Caleb's foster mom and give him back. It's honestly been one of the hardest things I've ever had to experience...watching Caleb drive off in a taxi, looking at us as he left. The only good thing is that we know he is getting excellent care and love, enough at least until he can come home with us and we can love him more!

Everyone wants to know when we will be bringing Caleb home, and our answer is still the same - we don't know. We're looking at another 4 months at the earliest. It's a slow, slow, slow process!

Kris