No birth certificate yet....

Actually, we just cannot reach ANYONE to find out the status of our birth certificate. The assistant in the children's home is out because her son had appendix surgery and is out for the week, the attorney does not answer her cell phone (typical), the attorney's father has changed his number or not paid his bill, the adoption agency's rep for our case changed jobs last week and we have not since had an update, and the list goes on. We were so hoping for good news last week of her ner birth certificate, but no news yet.

Here is Mariela dancing to the independence day festivities they had last week (thank you Gary for all the wonderful photos OF ALL THE CHILDREN). We are missing her so much. We had started stashing away Christmas presents for her, but now I wonder if that is even going to happen. Some miracle needs to happen to bring her home this year it seems.

In regards to the other children's home that was raided earlier, the government came back and took all the children away. She is fighting to bring them back. They had told her earlier that the children needed white sheets only, blue blankeets only, that sisters could not share a bed, and she needed more room for the children. In a country where there is little compassion, I do not understand how this provides for the children better than what the home is trying to do in the first place, but this seems to be the norm these days. This is the same home that lost Lydia that was 6 pounds at 3 years old. Ask anyone where the justice is in all of this mess.

The one thing that all the raided children's homes have in common - THEY ALL OWN THEIR OWN LAND. They all have suitable, reasonable and in most cases, beautiful homes to help provide for these children. It seems as if the government wants to gain control of these properties to either take over the homes, or turn them into state run homes. So the battle continues...

We are still fighting to free our children. A family of one of the children had hired an outside attorney and put more pressure on some of the individuals. The problem is that it did not free their child, but tangled all of our children up in even more paperwork and holds. Now the other children's papers cannot come out of PGN (thank goodness we are past that) and it raises new issues and demands by the Ministerio Publico. I don't want to disclose too much info, but let's say it just complicates matters even more. No one person is to blame, everyone is just so desperate at times, and all of these families have become our friends.

As one adoptive family friend said, " Where is our hero?" We are still looking. I will keep you posted on the birth certificate.