When a couple is “paper-ready” it means they have all their documents in place, notarized, certified, and authenticated, and are ready to be matched with a child.  The paper-chasing part of international adoption is long, sometimes more than 6 months.  Birth certificates, finger prints, criminal record reports, medical reports and many many other documents are compiled into a dossier.  Once the agency has the complete dossier, they can assign a child to the couple.  Because we decided to travel to Guatemala BEFORE our dossier was complete (which has freaked out more than one person!), we had no idea if we would receive a boy or a girl.  We packed both boy clothes and girl clothes and were excited for either one. 

We traveled by chicken bus all over the Western Highlands of Guatemala, from the beautiful Lake Atitlan and the surrounding pueblos, to the major city of Xela (Quetzaltenango) and the market towns around it, to the isolated village of Todos Santos, tucked away in the highlands by way of a windy mountain dirt road in the rain.  After three weeks of markets, archaeological sites, textile hunting, fútbol matches, and great Guatemalan típico food, we headed back to Antigua to rest and wait for our referral that we expected any day. 

On Thursday 8 June, after a full day of traveling, we were on our final chicken bus ride, almost to Antigua, when the agency called.  Cheryl just knew it was the agency.  She turned to Brian and said, “It’s them! They have a referral for us!” 

Brian said, “Don’t tell me anything! I don’t want to hear about it on a chicken bus!”

Cheryl asked if she could call her back and she said she would not be in the office and that she had a child for us and wanted to tell us.  Cheryl said ok, and noticed all the Guatemalan women on the bus watching her talk on the cell phone.  She said, “It’s a BOY! His name is Walter Steven, and he is 2 weeks old.” 

She couldn’t wait to tell Brian, but he just smiled and said, “I don’t want to know yet!”  About to burst with the information, she tried to stay patient long enough for us to get to our house in Antigua.  Finally, we arrived in front of our house on Calle Camposeco, and she told him we had a son. We were both thrilled to know our son was here!

  We accepted the referral the following afternoon and one week later (16 June) we traveled to Guatemala City to sign the formal paperwork, officially starting our fostering/adopting process.