Adoption update

David Huevo

Well, with Scotty's parents here, I haven't done any updates lately.  The big thing is the beginning of our adoptive parenting classes!  Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday we leave Natty and a screaming Jubilee (she's VERY attached to me lately) here with my in-laws and drive way up into town where the classes are held at the government offices that work with family and children issues in the city.  We were pretty surprised the first night to see about 30 or 40 couples attending!  I can't say that the sessions are incredibly interesting, but we feel like we're making progress in the process and learning a few things about the realities of orphans in Bolivia and the somewhat broken system of taking care of them.  One recurrent theme that has come up every class is that under no circumstances, EVER, should you return your child to the orphanage after you've adopted him.  Apparently, it has become very common here for people to discover that their newly adopted child is not exactly as they had hoped he would be and so they take it back for a return.  It's awful to think that this mindset is so common and makes you realize that a lot of these adoptive parents must not know that these children are becoming part of their family and are legitimate.  One humorous part of the class is the activity each couple has to do of taking under their wing a raw egg and pretending like it is a child.  Maybe a lot of you, like me, did this exercise in middle school.  I have to admit, I was a little skeptical about "grown-ups" doing this, but I think most people are taking it pretty seriously and have made some pretty elaborate cribs, knitted little hats for their baby eggs, and actually take them out places.  We've named our baby David, after Scotty's dad, because he is here at the time that the egg came into our family.  Natty enjoyed helping me make his crib (a coca tea box) and sometimes wants to carry him and cover him in stickers.  Can't wait till she can play with the real thing!  Recently, I found out that the marriage certificate we had translated and legalized a few years ago (which is necessary for the adoption process) was missing a signature or stamp or something and was thinking we'd have to send it back to the US to have the whole, lengthy, expensive process done over again.  I made a trip to the American Embassy just to make sure that it wasn't something they could do here and they made a special exception and did it for a fraction of the cost!  Thanks God!