My husband Rick and I officially mailed in our initial adoption application on November 6, 2004.  It is one of the many dates and milestones in this life changing process that I will remember in the years to come.  In the next few months we compiled stack after stack of paperwork, completed Pre Adoption Classes (PAC) and after much discussion, selected our country program.  It was the Guatemalan program that seemed a good fit for us.  We had traveled a bit in Central America, both individually and as a couple, simply love Latin America, her people, culture and traditions.  Among the many positive facets of the Guatemalan program, was the chance to meet and spend time with our child before the adoption was complete.  While not a deciding factor, this became one of the most important aspects of our process.  Shortly after accepting the referral of 3 month old Irving Alexander Vasquez, Rick and I had mixed feelings about the possibility of going to visit the child who would ultimately become our son, Alexander. 

While visiting sounds wonderful in theory, would it be in practice?  Of course, the first thing the mind does is travel to the end of the visit.  The saying goodbye.  Would that pain be worth the few days of joy with this child?  How sad would it be, to meet the child you have dreamt of for so long, only to say goodbye with no real idea of when you would return?  What if something horrible went wrong and the adoption fell through?  Would those days of attachment make our heartbreak even greater?  What about Alex?  How difficult would it be for him to be placed in a strange hotel with these odd looking, foreign-sounding people?  Would a visit be fair to him?  Or would a visit make things easier for all of us when the pick-up trip finally did arrive?  After much deliberation, Rick and I decided to take a leap of faith and fly to Guatemala and meet Alex.  We timed our trip towards the end of the process with the hope that the adoption was more ‘secure’ with steps like family court and a good chunk of PGN behind us.  We also were hopeful that when we did return, Alex may remember us. 

We flew to Guatemala about 4 months after we received his referral.  We arrived in Guatemala City on July 19^th, and were in the hotel around 2:00pm and had a couple of hours to unpack and get our nerves settled before Alex and the foster family would arrive.  At 4:00pm the phone rang and it was the attorney calling from the lobby saying they were all waiting for us.  The hotel we stayed in was one of those 5-star monstrosities, but as soon as we got down to the lobby I saw Alex across the room.  I think Rick still has the scars from where my fingernails dug into his arm.  I had all of these sweet Spanish words to say to Alex...as we walked across the marbled floor I kept reminding myself not to rush up to him.  Take it slow….

Then the foster mother and I smiled at each other and she held Alex out to me.  He looked at me, gave me the biggest, toothless grin and blew me a raspberry.  I fell in love.  It was the beginning of a magical 5 days.  We all went up to our room so that Rick and I could give the foster family and the attorney gifts we had brought and find out information about Alex’s feeding schedule, naptimes etc.  After we settled in, the foster mother and I just looked at each other and cried.  It was a precious, precious moment.  One that spanned all language barriers.  Two women and the love of a child.  One that had loved him since he was one day old and would soon say goodbye, and the other who would love him for the rest of his life and had moments earlier just said hello.  It is something I will carry with me forever.  Meanwhile, Alex is blowing raspberries to everyone in the room and we are all crying, laughing and loving him.  I finally let Rick hold his son and will never forget my husband’s face.  This is a man who is very private with his emotions and here he was trying very, very hard to hold it together.  It was not unusual for the next few days to see Rick wiping tears of joy from his eyes.  After we say our goodbyes to the foster family, we are suddenly alone with the child we have dreamt of for years, known existed for months and have held for minutes. 

It was feeding time and here I am, 39 years old and making the first bottle of my life.  Alex nestled into my arms, holding his bottle and looking up at me.  He was quiet, peaceful and very, very interested in this new person.  It wasn’t until a few days later when Alex the Clown began making his appearance did we realize how timid he was that first evening.  The next morning I was afraid that Alex would wake up in his new surroundings and be frightened.  When I heard him stir in his crib right next to our bed, I propped myself up and looked at him.  He rolled over, looked up at me and laughed out loud.  I fell in love again. 

The next few days were a magical blur and consisted of us tooling around the hotel grounds, chatting with dozens of other adoptive parents, going to some local shops, playing with Alex in the pool and taking hundreds of photographs of him to last us during what we knew would be a difficult time…going home without him.  But our favorite times were always early in the mornings when he was giggly and cuddly, or in the evenings when he’d play and we’d order room service and just watch him.  We’ll never forget Alex rising up to look at us every few minutes from playing with his toys to give us another grin. 

The last day of our trip was bittersweet as we had to give Alex back to his foster family.  It was the time we had dreaded before we had even arrived.  How do we say goodbye?  How will we cope when our arms are once again empty?  We met the foster family in the lobby and after the final kisses, we gave Alex back to his foster mother.  She was crying as hard as we were for our pain.  She told us not to worry about him, that she would take good care of him.  We didn’t doubt that for a minute.

The next few weeks at home were understandably difficult.  Alex wasn’t just a cute face in a few photos.  He wasn’t just ‘our referral’ or a name on seemingly hundreds of documents.  He was the living, breathing, quirky, silly baby that belonged to us, yet was still thousands of miles away.  However, the visit trip turned out to be the biggest gift in our adoption journey (besides Alex!).  Although difficult at times, the visit trip instilled in us an incredible sense of peace.  A quiet, calm knowledge that this really was going to happen.  We are adopting a child.  THIS child.  Reality was sinking in, and after such heartache of trying to become a family, it was welcome. 

We received the call we dreamt about 7 weeks later.  We could bring Alex home.  We flew to Guatemala City and Alex was brought to us the next day.  He hadn’t changed that much and some part of me thinks that maybe some part of him remembered us.  In our room, we put out the same blanket and toys.  It was as if we picked up right where we left off. There was no stress, no worry, and no apprehension.  Another great gift of the visit trip. We were familiar with the hotel, the staff, the attorney and the foster family.  Alex was with us again and the sadness of having to say goodbye before faded quickly. 

This time, ours were tears of joy and the foster family bore all of the heartache.  How does someone say goodbye to a child that was part of their family for 9 months?  This time my tears were for the foster mother.  Her heart was breaking, and mine was so full.  We saw the foster family several more times that trip.  The most memorable was the 2 hour breakfast with 12 of us; the foster family speaking no English and our Spanish broken at best.  Yet, like before, the love of a child was the theme, and the language barrier was barely noticed.  We all laughed and cried together.  The hardest time was the final farewell at the airport.  The foster family met us there for the last time they would see this child they considered one of their own.  I will never forget the love in their eyes and their hope for the new life Alex would have.  We promised them over and over that his life would be full of love, joy and possibilities.  It is a promise we intend to keep. 

Looking back, visiting Alex was the best decision we made during our adoptive process.  Without a doubt.  The visit trip solidified to us how much the foster family cared about our son.  How hard CHSFS and the attorney works to make the adoption a reality, and solidified that this is a real child with his own personality, not a figment of our imagination.  The visit trip made the ever-so-stressful pick-up trip a thing of joy, not of fear.  We knew the hotel, the city, the foster family and most importantly, our son.   We had the opportunity to have a glimpse of his personality, his likes, dislikes and the strange quirky things that make him Our Baby. 

Coming home was a bit surreal.  I’ll never forget how strange it was to suddenly have a baby crawling around in our kitchen.  The baby we had only known in Guatemala.  Things seemed out of context, slightly skewed.  Over the next few days and weeks, Alex adjusted wonderfully.  I can’t even say there was an adjustment; it was as if he had always been here.  Looking back, I can say that he laughs easier and is much more playful now than he was then.  With being at home two months now, his easy laughter could be adjustment or age; I guess only he knows for sure.

Things were a little bit rougher for me.  As much as I was attached to this child, things didn’t feel normal.  I felt like I was ‘Playing Mom’.  The tasks of feeding, diapering and playing were fine.  But the in between times were painfully awkward.  I felt I was walking through the first few weeks with my shoes on the wrong feet.  I was getting through it, but it was certainly uncomfortable.  Nighttime was the hardest.  I found it so difficult to look into Alex’s eyes as I was giving him his evening bottle.  I just couldn’t gaze at him with love like all of the stories you hear.  It was just too painful.  Yes, I really did feel this way and it was awful.  What was wrong with me? 

Looking back I realize that I had built quite a wall to protect myself in the past few years.  The infertility, the miscarriages, the uncertainty of international adoption, it couldn’t really be over, could it?  Was he really here?  Were we finally the family I had dreamt of?  I know now that I was fearful that something or someone would take Alex away.  It wasn’t until an evening a couple of weeks after we were home when the wall came down.  The newness was starting to wear off; this was not a dream.  Alex was our child in our home.  We had a routine.  He laughed when I came into his room in the morning.  He carried my husband’s last name.  He was safe and he was ours.  And he was in my arms.  Finally.  I looked down at him and gazed into his eyes until he was asleep.  Tears rolled down my face, onto my neck and saturated my gown.  I let the wall come down and that was the evening when I believed and when I trusted.  That was the evening when I became Alex’s Mother.  October 6^th, 2005.  A day more important to me than all of the other milestones. 

Since our coming home, we have truly become a family in all senses of the word.  Alex is, without a doubt, the best thing that ever crawled into our lives.  He is busy, happy, beautiful, and an absolute joy.  I really never knew babies could be so much fun.  What did we ever do without him?  My life is so full now.  I can honestly say I am happier than I have ever been in my life.  I am a mother.  I am Alex’s Mother.  And he is my Son.  Now the evenings are difficult for a different reason; I miss him so much when it is his bedtime that I just go into his room, sit in the rocking chair and listen to him breathe.  Words can’t express how much we are in love with Alex.  He was worth the pain.  He was worth the wait. 

Learn more about adoption from Guatemala