4 years and counting....

4 years ago, this week, is when we got the news we'd never thought we were going to get.  The Embassy issued us our pink slip with our Embassy date on it.  We could travel to Guatemala and bring Ava home!!  What an incredibly hard fight we fought.  4 sets of lawyers, stolen dossier, blackmail, extortion, our adoption agency going MIA for a couple months at a time, etc.  Once we got to our hotel, The Westin Camino Real, we waited.  We didn't have any contact info or know what we were supposed to do.  It was a very uneasy feeling.  But, 2 hours later our room phone rings.  On the other end was our lawyer who only spoke Spanish, and then there was Craig on the other end who spoke no Spanish at all.  He pieced together what was said and figured out that he was coming to meet us in the hotel lobby in 1 hour.  We didn't know what he looked like.  There were many professional type people always strolling through the lobby.  And then we knew we saw our guy.  Here he comes in a powder blue leisure suit.  Oh boy.  After paperwork was done and money was exchanged, he called our foster family and told them to bring Ava to us.  We very calmly waited for Ava to arrive.  We looked out of the hotel windows in the lobby and then we saw her!  Maria, her foster mom, carried her up to our hotel room.  We'd waited 2 years to hold Ava in our arms, but yet we knew we didn't dare reach out to her.  She needed to come to us.  Our hotel room was a suite, so once Ava walked into the other room, Maria and her kids left our hotel room in a flash.  They wanted to make a clean break from Ava, but you could hear them sobbing in the hallway.  And then it was just Craig and I and Ava.  Oh my.  It felt really strange to suddenly have a child.  We decided to get dinner in the hotel.  We went downstairs and Ava was very quiet.  She quietly ate turkey, bacon and french fries.  We went back upstairs and gave her a bath.  She fell asleep immediately afterwards.  Man, we thought this was too easy.  It was.  Starting the next day, the grieving began but only lasted for 1 month.  I can not wait for the day I can return to Guatemala.  I miss it terribly.  I can not wait to experience it through Ava's eyes!