The final countdown begins

We have a couple of months to go before Grace comes home, but after being in this process for over 15 months, 2 months seems like a short amount of time. A lot has to happen post-PGN to make the adoption legal in both Guatemala and the United States and so Grace can enter the country with US citizenship. Here are some of them:

• My attorney will contact Grace's birthmother and she signs off on the adoption for the fourth and final time.
• He then applies with the Civil Registry in Mixco for Grace’s new birth certificate with me listed as her mother.
• My dossier and the other adoption-related documents are translated back into English for the US Embassy reviewers.
• The lawyer applies for Grace’s passport. Although Grace is legally mine when her birthmother signed the last documents, she is still a Guatemalan citizen. So she will need a Guatemalan passport to travel to the United States. She will receive an IR-3 visa because we visited her before completion of the adoption, which according to the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, will give her automatic U.S. citizenship when she first enters the United States. That means when the plane's wheels touch down in Houston, Grace will be a U.S. citizen!
  
• My attorney submits all the paperwork to the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala.
• The U.S. Embassy gives authorization for the 2nd DNA test to be drawn on Grace. This DNA sample is compared with the first sample drawn back in June 2007 to assure the baby has not been switched. The DNA authorization is known as ‘ORANGE’, since it’s written on an orange slip of paper.
• My credit card is charged for the 2nd DNA test, the DNA sample is collected and sent to the lab in North Carolina for comparison with the first DNA sample. The lab then sends its analysis of the DNA comparison back to the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala.
• A final medical exam is done on Grace by the US Embassy doctors.
  
• The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala reviews the adoption documents and issues ‘PINK' (the pink slip, which is now not even "pink" anymore since it is done electronically.)
• The "e-PINK" includes a date for Grace's visa appointment with the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala. This occurs about a week to 10 days after the "e-PINK" is issued.

At that point I can make travel arrangements to go get Grace and bring her home! You can see, though, that even if everyone involved is quick and efficient it still takes about 8 weeks.