Some hope

Whew, what a crazy time it is right now! We are relieved to read that the US Dept of State updated their frightening announcement to say...

"At this time over 3000 applications for adoption from Guatemala are in process at this time with USCIS or the Guatemalan government. The U.S. government is asking the government of Guatemala to allow such cases, currently pending, to proceed to completion without additional requirements."

Hopefully, the US DOS is doing the right thing and not just trying to appease the angry mob at their doorstep! I believe they are making some sort of effort because the US Embassy issued many preapprovals yesterday. Many of my fellow blogger pals received preapproval after only waiting 22-29 days. Just to give you some perspective, we waited 63 days. So, this is definitely a step in the right direction and gives hope to many families. Even so, many agencies are organizing and placing a lot of pressure on both the US and Guatemalan government to allow in process cases to be approved under the current system. Check out the following site for more info on what you can do to help.

http://www.jcics.org/Guatemala5000.htm

In the meantime, we continue to hold onto hope that we will be approved by PGN by 12/31/07. My obsessive compulsive side hit hyper speed last night as I poured over our attorney's PGN timelines. Cases with our attorney appear to average 11-18 weeks in PGN. There are 13 weeks and 5 days from the date we were submitted until the end of the year (I wasn't kidding about the obsessiveness! Ha!) So, it is certainly possible that we can be approved by the end of the year. Now, our attorney really has no control over what happens in PGN. The PGN reviewers have complete control over our case and can request that a document be redone for any reason. All our attorney can do is act quickly if something needs corrected. We are holding on tight to hope right now!!

For all of our non-Guatepadres reading, I know you are wondering when Eli will come home once our case is approved by PGN. There are several more steps once our case is approved by PGN so it will be an additional 4-8 weeks after PGN approval before Eli will be able to come home.