Blue Birds are Good Luck

A friend of mine who signed Olivia's guest book yesterday, told us that Blue Birds bring good luck. We did not know that, but we can see that they have certainly brought us good luck this year. Today we had a conference call with our adoption agency and they announced that they have decided to temporarily suspend accepting families into the Guatemala program. Luckily, adoptions in process (like ours) will not be affected.
YEAH!!!!! Thank you, Blue Birds! Thank you, God! It looks like as of right now the only thing that we will have to deal with is slow downs as we move forward in the process. Even though we have an awesome adoption agency who works with very respectable attorneys, and has a very good standing in Guatemala, there are many agencies and attorneys who are not so respectable or honest and for that the US is being extra careful with every adoption. Recent arrests of several adoption facilitators and investigations into several adoption agencies have proven that they are really looking closely at things and taking action to keep adoption on the straight and narrow. They want to make very sure that each child is given up legally and ethically. There will be a second DNA test done before the adoption is final to make sure that the birth mother and the child are still the same two people and that the child was given up willfully. This will add some time onto the end of the process but we understand the need for extra caution. We are just thankful that we have progressed to this point and were told by our agency that we WILL be able to complete our adoption. That is music to our ears. We still hold our breath and worry every time there is change but at least we feel confident that we will bring Olivia home one day soon.