A Year Ago...Part 1 of THE story

It was about a year ago when our world began on an adventure that we never could have truly prepared for. Here's part 1 of the story...

Wow! Where do I even begin? Do I begin with the day we found out we couldn't have natural children? Do I begin with the many visits to conferences discussing adoption, together and alone? Do I begin with how we fell in love with this tiny perfect baby dressed in pink sticking out her tongue? Or do I begin with how we found out that our facilitator was infamous (in a really bad way)? Yes, that's where we'll start...

Now, you have to realize that you are missing out on several key factors...the LIES! Lies that we were constantly told about where we were in the adoption process and the fact that our social worker/contact person was changed three times.

Okay, enough bitterness and on with the story. On January 20, 2008, our world began to crumble beyond belief. Dateline NBC did a news report on Guatemalan Adoptions and it was brutal. Our beloved facilitator was "acused" of being a baby broker! How can that be true? We had been to Guatemala four times and even celebrated Thanksgiving with him and his family! Weren't we like family?? Wouldn't we know if this was true?

With a shadow of now doubt, even though we refused to believe it, we kept trucking on. I suppose there was more than a "shadow" of doubt. One of our dear friends did some major investigating for us in Guatemala and we knew that there were TONS of lies that were hidden....We ended up getting of the blackhole called PGN on Thursday, February 7th. The end was near! My mom offered to take me to Guatemala in February for a week visit to see our now not so little Caroline.

My mom and I arrived in Guatemala on February 15th, with me being sick with the flu, but on the mend. I had gone to the doctor and received three shots and antibiotics. But, I wasn't the only one sick, poor Caroline was very sick. She had a fever, a deep cough, and was severely constipated. Her foster mother gave us medicine that had been prescribed by a doctor. Now to make a long story a bit shorter, the medicine was prescribed by a doctor that foster moms use when they are short on cash or not given their money from their facilitator or when the doctor refused to see them because of lack of payment.

The following was an excerpt from one of my blog entries in February..."When we got Caroline we were told that she had been to the doctor for a fever and chest congestion. We should give her a certain type of medicine 3 times a day until Tuesday. We also were told that she should get another set of medicine 2 times a day indefinitely for teething. We didn't feel like she was getting any better and she was severely constipated. She managed to get out a rock with some blood on it for us. I was really worried so I tagged along to the doctor's office with another friend. It turns out that Caroline did not go to see the right doctor, but was taken to a "cheapy" clinic down the street. The doctor gave her medicine and such. BUT...the medicine that she was getting for the chest cold turned out to be a bad medicine and they pulled it from the shelf. It's the equivalent of an adult breathing treatment and races their hearts too much. In other words, a heart attack. The teething medicine turned out to be MUCH stronger than adult tylenol or motrin and was also banned. The doctor was so upset with my fostermom and he threw the medicine away. The medicines have bad side effects such as SEVERE constipation, crankiness, fidgety, nervous ticks, etc.... It started make sense as to why she was feeling so rotten! The doctor said that she was overmedicated and still needed to be on antibiotics, but because she had so much in her system, he didn't want her to have anything. We have some herbal medicine that we can start giving to her on Friday morning if needed. Also, if she isn't getting any better, I have to go back in with her. After hearing all of this, I started crying when I got out of the clinic. I was so relieved that she was okay, but so angry that she was taking bad medicine. My heart is torn as to whether to yell at her fostermom or kindly but sternly, remind her of the seriousness of her action."

So, Caroline was extremely sick and could have suffered from a heart attack had we not intervened.

During our visit, we were also experiencing HUGE agency drama. Our agency wouldn't pay our facilitator and our facilitator had refused to proceed with our adoptions. Our adoptions were put on hold. My saving grace was the fact that the owner of our agency would accept my phone calls and I was able to become the messenger between two very greedy men. As Tim has repeatedly said I was in the middle of a "pissing match" between two grown men. On one occasion, I was able to talk the agency into giving our facilitator a very large down payment, to which our facilitator refused. It was all or nothing. I sat helplessly by and watched my child become a pawn. I honestly didn't think I could have prayed so hard in my life, who would have known that prayer would become almost a 24 hour prayer vigil for weeks....