Sentencia - the details

After yesterday's news that we didn't get Sentencia, it was feeling like it would never happen. This morning we headed out to the park right after breakfast. It was raining when we got ther so we had coffee, and then Esteban decided he wanted to nap. So we were on our way to my hair appointment when the phone rang - it was Helena telling me that we needed to go sign TODAY! And she would pick me up at the hotel in 20 minutes. We hurried back, got the kids settled, I dressed myself to be presentable at the courthouse, and we left about 11:30am (30 minutes after Helena called - not bad for all we had to do). My mom stayed with Esteban and Isabella.

We arrived at the family court building in downtown Bogota at about 12:10pm. It's a non-descript building with a bookstore and a couple of copy and coffee places on the street level. You go in and can take the elevator (which means waiting in line for the one elevator that takes 7 people per trip) or the stairs. We were going to the 4th floor, so we waited for the elevator. Turns out we had court 4, not court 14 as I had thought. Helena wanted to get us there in time to sign and get copies made and stamped before everyone went to lunch from 1:00-2:00pm.

We got to Court 4 and Helena went to the window and asked for our papers. Going to the court here is not what I had imagined - you go to a service window where the staff look up your case on the computer and bring your papers to the window for you to sign. You never actually see the judge who signed your papers. The Sentencia only takes one signature from the parent. My lawyer had been there earlier in the day and signed already. Once you sign, you take the original document back to one of the copy places on the street level (outside the building) and you get copies made. Then you go back into the court building and take the copies back to the court to have them stamped and signed as official copies. We got back to the window at about 12:50pm. The waiting area was already clearing out as people finished their business before the lunch hour. We sat down to wait for our copies to come back as official. That was when I noticed that the bulletin board of court notices for Family Court #4 had our Sentencia notice dated 12 November. That was last Friday! No way to know why we didn't find out until today that it had been signed - but it's Colombia, so it doesn't help to get upset now. The copies finally came out at 1:10pm - someone worked into their lunch hour to get them done for us! Sentencia in hand - Isabella is officially ours! It's a done deal!

Back down the stairs and outside to wait for our driver to come with the car. Then we headed to the Notary office where Isabella's birth was originally registered. Colombia doesn't have a centralized system for recording civil events, so to get a new birth certificate (one that shows Julien and I as Isabella's parents) we had to go to where the original is filed and officially change it there. Also, in Colombia you can register births at a Notary or at a Registry office. The Registry is a government office, and often works as slowly as one, and the Notary is a private enterprise and usually is faster. So we were lucky to be heading to a Notary, and one not that far from the court building. On the way to the Notary, it started to pour. It's been quite rainy the past week, with incredible flooding all over Colombia reported on the news this morning - and this was really heavy rain that included some hail.

When we arrived at the Notary, the door was closed and people were waiting to get in - the office was closed for lunch. So we went and had lunch, too. By 2:30pm we were at the window of the Notary explaining what we needed. By 3:00pm, he had the document ready for my signature - actually 4 signatures - and we were on our way by 3:30pm. I was back at the hotel by 4:00pm.

What a relief! There are more things that have to happen, but we are definitely on the home stretch.

We had promised Esteban that on Sentencia Day he could break open his Colombian piggy bank (which he got for his birthday here and has been filling with Colombian coins) and take the proceeds to buy a toy. So when I got back to the hotel, we borrowed a hammer and took his piggy bank outside. Without a second glance, he smashed it open in two blows! My mom and I both forgot to bring our cameras - and completely regret it! He picked up all his money and we headed out to the toy store. He got a small truck that makes noise and flashes its lights - he's delighted!

Other news of the day is that Isabella cut her first tooth - the front lower left - with the front lower right to follow soon. And she's getting over her cold - so she's breathing better.

At dinner tonight we found out that 4 other families here at the hotel also got their Sentencia today! So tomorrow night there will probably be a big party here - hopefully some live music and plenty of adult beverages! It's amazing how the news of Sentencia can lighten the mood of the whole place. When you feel like you've been here forever, like maybe you should start looking for a job and a place to live while you wait for Sentencia and your kids grow up, it's a GREAT feeling to know that going home is about a week away.

Tomorrow Helena will pick us up at 7:30am to go to get Isabella's Colombian passport. That should go quickly. The photo place is just outside the front door of the passport office, and we are getting a short-term passport so it should be ready in less than an hour. Then we have a 9:00am appointment with the US Embassy doctor - Isabella has to have an official examination before we can apply for her US visa. Once we have the doctor's certificate in hand, we can go the the US Embassy to apply for the visa. We will be missing the conformity document from CRAN (our adoption house) that says our process was all according to the Hague Convention on International Adoption, so they could tell us they won't accept our application until we have that (which won't be ready until Friday am). OR they could accept our paperwork and tell us to bring the conformity document on Friday am - and hopefully our visa would be available Friday afternoon. If they won't accept our visa application without the conformity document, we won't be able to apply for it until Monday - because the US embassy doesn't accept visa applications on Fridays.

Nothing new to this string of IF-THEN statements - it's how this whole process goes. Each step is dependent on the last.

So thank you all who sent up prayers and good thoughts for our Sentencia. It worked!