News from Guatemala

I signed my Power of Attorney (POA) and a few more documents last night at the adoption agency. I was told that my dossier has already been sent to Guatemala.

Well this morning at work, I received a rather startling phone call. There was no caller ID so I almost didn't answer it but decided to do the professional thing and answer the phone. Good thing I did. The male caller asked if this was Susan "middle name" "last name"? I said rather skeptically that yes this was her. He said he was calling from Guatemala. He had my paperwork and needed my email address so that he could submit my paperwork to the US Embassy to request DNA authorization.

What followed was actually quite comical. I told him that I had an email address and started to spell it out. He stopped me and asked if I could fax it to him so he would have it in writing (I guess to avoid mispelling). I asked if he could just give me his email address and I would send it to him. He said yes and ask me to speak to his assistant. She then came on the line and I ask her if she could give me her email address. She asked if I had a fax# that she could fax it to me. I gave her my fax# which comes directly to my computer and within a minute I had it in my inbox. I emailed her back my home and work email address. I just thought it was pretty comical to call to request me to fax my email address to them. I do understand the reason though because spelling between English and Spanish can be confusing (a vs e; e vs i, etc). They just wanted to make sure there were no spelling errors which I appreciate.

He apologized for calling me at work but the director of the agency that he normally communicates with is on vacation for 2 weeks and he wanted to get things moving.

The email address is used by the US Embassy to send notice that the case is "pre-approved" to proceed after the DNA results are received.

Now we just have to hope he gets up bright and early to stand in line to get the DNA Auth appointment (it is rumored that the embassy only issues 25-40/day and that attorneys start lining up at 4am in order to get the appointments). At least the good attorneys get up early. There are some that I have heard of that just go every day and stand in line without getting the authorization. I hope mine is one of the good ones.

I am taking this phone call as a good sign that my attorney is proactive and moving forward on my case.