IT'S A MATCH!!!!!

Hi all,
We received the wonderful news this evening via mail that Joey is a DNA match with his birth mother and our case can now be approved by the US embassy and proceed to the final court (where unfortunately the longest wait is yet to come). The US embassy has been notified of the DNA match and will now have 30 days to issue pre-approval for the adoption, basically telling us and the Guatemalan Government that from a US standpoint the adoption is cleared. Once this has been done the case proceeds to what is called PGN. Here the case is reviewed, each and every paper for content, clarity and accuracy. Everything must be perfect for it to be approved and PGN is extremely unpredictable, it completely depends on which case worker is assigned to the case. Some cases are through in as short as four weeks, and others are stuck there for six monthes. Some reviewers are picky and others seem more forgiving, we are praying for an nice and easy one, the rest of this long road has been difficult enough. There really is no set standard for how long a case can be reviewed in PGN and that is certainly one of the issues with Guatemalan adoptions. All we can do it pray that it passes quickly with flying colors!

We also received a medical update for Joey and I can say with complete certainty that he is being well fed. The report is from his seven week check up (10/5/06) and at that time he weighed 11.5lbs and was 56 cm long. There should be a photo coming next week, hopefully in time for Thanksgiving. We sent down a package with some friends that were picking up their daughter, Ava and inside the package were some turkey items so I can only imagine what his foster mom is thinking! :) They obviously don't celebrate Thanksgiving, so we are sharing some of our culture with them as well!

We will continue to keep you posted on our progress, the next two monthes should be pretty eventful as we look forward to planning our first visit trip with Joey hopefully in January! Yay, we cannot wait to hold him!
Take care,
Lee Anne