Overwhelmed yet?

First, I want to post this for another adoptive mother.

I am posting this on behalf of Erin and Cheri (both in my blogworld if you want to see their original posts click here: http://www.sunflowersandladybugs.com/ - Cheri, http://jesuswasnotarepublican.blogspot.com/ - Erin). Please help them if you can.There is something you can do to help if you so wish. If you are ADOPTING FROM GUATEMALA and you are with an agency or facilitator that is not HAPS or For This Child, PLEASE EMAIL THE FOLLOWING LETTER TO YOUR AGENCY. If you are NOT ADOPTING but you have a blog, please POST THIS REQUEST ON YOUR BLOG.*************************

Dear [agency-name],
If your agency has a case in process that contains a Guatemala City cedula or birth-certificate that is missing the Civil Registry signature (usually the mayor’s signature), we have important information to share.According to PGN, if your case has not yet received a previo for the missing signature, it will. The letter from the Civil Registry and/or the Mayor of Guatemala City is no longer sufficient to satisfy the previo. The four PGN assessors have made a joint decision that these unsigned documents MUST be signed. However, at this time there is NO ONE in Guatemala City with the authority to sign these documents!We are Cheri xxxxxx and Erin xxxxxx, in the process of adopting Guatemalan babies through For This Child and HAPS, respectively. After many months working on this issue separately, our agencies are now collaborating to find a solution. They have discussed this with the PGN reviewers, Barrios, and the Mayor of GC directly. The conclusion is that the mayor does NOT have the authority to sign a document issued under another mayor’s tenure. Therefore, we must file an acta with a different branch of PGN that will require the Civil Registry of GC to 1) designate and authorize a person to sign these documents, and 2) order that person to do so.The PGN reviewer on Erin’s case currently has 12 cases that have been kicked out for this reason. If all 8 reviewers have a similar number of cases, that means 80-100 cases are in this same predicament! We have been advised to find as many of these other cases as possible so that we can ALL file the acta together. We have strength in numbers.If you have, or know of, a case that contains a Guatemala City cedula or birth-certificate that is missing the Civil Registry signature, please contact:Karla Ordonez, with HAPS: cell 5555-3610, office 2332-9040Traci Orr, with For This Child: US #214-370-8436, traci@forthischild.org
Thank you for your time,
Cheri and Erin

This is another case where the system in Guatemala breaks down. Who am I kidding, it's not a 'system' as much as it is pure chaos. Steps are being made to create a true system so that the children and adoptive families do not have to suffer but these things take a long time to put in place. Until then, some cases fly through and some get stuck and there is very little rhyme or reason to it.

In other news, we met with our real estate agent this weekend to talk about listing our house. Our plan had been to wait until a few weeks before we move to list the house, minimizing the amount of time we had to keep it in 'showing shape'. She convinced us that now is a better time to list it. So our new plan is to get everything done this week and be able to list it by next Monday at the latest. That's right, one week to finish all of our little projects. Aaaack! I made countless trips to Home Depot this weekend, painted, sanded, cleaned, packed, hauled, mulched, planted, etc etc. Today I have called the carpet guy and the guy who installed our hardwood flooring. I have lists of everything I need to get done broken out by day. At least if I am this busy I can't obsess over why the phone is not ringing. Wish me luck in getting the house ready!