Ecuador Day 26 Gotcha Day! Part 1

Friday Dec. 30th
Late last night our in country rep, Maria Jose called to see if we had any questions..and to let us know we needed to pay our lawyer $200 for the power of attorney fee..I let her know we had already done the POA and Priscilla didn't want paid for it, but she insisted we still give it to her...so that was very wierd, but we'll do as she has requested.

Zac let me sleep in this morning, so I didn't get up until closer to 8...which was great! We all got up and Zac made pancakes for us while I finished up making sure Zac's bags were plenty full. =) Trying to send as much stuff home with him as I can.

Priscilla called to let us know she had to be at the court house for another case in the morning and gave us the address to have a taxi take us in the morning. She let us know she'd meet us in the front of the court house with the translator. We finished getting ready...I tried on a couple different outfits before I decided on one...
(I thought I would lose weight while here since we are walking so much and eating so much fresh fruits an veggies...but it is very interesting that I have actually put on weight and I think it is 100% related to the fact that I went from not eating gluten to eating a lot of gluten...the bakeries here are amazing! So i'll have some work to do when we get home! LOL)
Adriana wore her Christmas dress and got just as excited to put it on as she did on Christmas..so cute!

We arrived with plenty of time in front of the court house and were standing out front taking pictures and talking with our translator when a man walked up and told us he had a 14 year old son with Down Syndrome! Turns out he is lawyer here in Cuenca and wanted to know why we were adopting a child with Down syndrome and said we were very kind people to do such a thing...it was a very interesting conversation. Adriana had said hi to him as well as calling me mommy and saying agua (water) and the man said his son must have Down syndrome worse because his son is very slow and doesn't talk...I felt sad for him as the education about DS was clearly still years behind what it is in the states and his son as they don't have the early intervention here like we do in the states. I was sad, but was happy that atleast him and his wife chose to keep their son with them at home. I also felt so blessed for what we have in the states and happy that Adriana was going to be able to reach her best potential! Amazing how God puts people in places as just the right time, huh?

We walked up to the same area we were yesterday and went to the judges office...a nice office with large windows and a view of the mountains. The judge was very quiet and did not show a lot of emotion. He welcomed us and asked for our passports again and sat at his computer and typed away. He started with Zac asking him questions of what his motives for adoption were and why he wanted to adopt a child with Down Syndrome. Zac said that he felt that God had called us to adopt after our friend, Tiffanie, visited Adriana's orphanage and we saw her picture and heard about her orphanage. He explained that to us, DS is really nothing, it's just part of who our daughters are and we wouldn't change it. He said that we wanted to expand our family and the timing just seemed right to bring Adriana into the Harlan family. The judge then asked me the same questions...my answers were pretty much the same and I just added that we had been looking at adoption as an option to expand our family but it wasn't until our friend Tiffanie went on the mission trip to work in the orphanages that we knew it was time. We also told the judge that Addie and Adri have been able to talk via Skype on the computer and he seemed happy about that. We also told him that we already have Adriana set up to start Speech, Occupational, and Physical Therapy once we return home and that Addie's preschool has a spot for Adri if we chose to enroll her in preschool this year. The judge was interested in knowing more about the school system and if it was all special needs or what type of school. We explained that she would be with typically developing peers as well as other children with special needs, and he seemed pleased with that.
After he was done questioning us, he let us know that adoption is forever and he wanted to make sure we couldn't return her...he explained that a family had done this a while back and it concerns him now whenever he works with adoption and wanted us to know this...we let him know we were so attached to this little girl and we knew it wasn't always going to be flowers and roses, and there would be hard times, but she was ours forever.
He finished typing up the document and printed it out for us to all sign. He told us that there are no fees for his services, but that we would need to pay our translator $60...we weren't preparred for that, but our translator had been very good and it wasn't like we were going to argue with the judge! He started to loosen up quite a bit and was interacting with Adriana more so that was neat to see. We asked to take pictures and he showed us a painting on his wall...he explained that a student of his with Down Syndrome had painted it...very cool! He then asked us to send him a picture of Adriana and Addie together and that he was happy for Adriana. (Priscila later told us he was on FB and we could find him there) LOL. It took about 45 minutes start to finish.