Mucho Stresso

On Tuesday, February 24 and Wednesday, February 23, I lost approximately a year of my life to tension and stress. I am sure of it. If the stress didn’t make its mark, the Mommy Juice I needed to drink to get PAST the stress certainly did. Can I get an “Oy Vey”? Thanks, homies.

On Tuesday at 3:00 we were all set to receive our sentencia (final adoption decree), a full day earlier than expected. This was very good news indeed, because the American Embassy does not accept Visa applications on Fridays. Let me explain: If we could be successful in receiving our sentencia and getting out of the courthouse by 4:00, then Gloria would have just enough time to fight the traffic (they call it “pico hour”) and get to the Notario (it means Notary Public but really it’s like a fast-food Lawyer’s office) to get Mason’s birth certificate with his new name: Mason Elijah Penner.

With the new birth certificate in our hot little hands, we would wake up at some un-holy hour Wednesday morning and wait on line at the passport office for Mason’s Colombian passport. Once we had that, we could breeze by the hotel to pick up our bags, fight the donkeys, mules, dirt roads and construction on the way to the airport and find our way onto a flight to Bogota (oh yeah…..somewhere in there we also had to pack, purchase our airline tickets and of course take care of the baby).

IF we were to be successful at arriving in Bogota before 2, we would be able to see the American Embassy-approved pediatrician on Wednesday afternoon (remember, this is still the get-up-at-some-unholy-hour-with-your-now-7-month-old –baby-day) to have Mason examined and approved for immigration. That would allow us to hit the American Embassy first thing Thursday morning to make our application for Mason’s visa, or permission for him to enter the United States. (He is not a citizen until he is actually within the borders of the United States; therefore he needs an alien Visa to leave Colombia on an international flight to the US). IF we were to be successful at making this application on Thursday, we would then be able to pick up the Visa on Friday and make a flight home Saturday.

Home, home, home, home, HOME!

But if any one of these things did not happen as planned, we would have to wait until the following Monday to make the application, receive the visa on Tuesday and I would not leave until the following Wednesday. In other words, sink or swim….go home Saturday or enjoy beautiful downtown Bogota for another week. And seriously? I was running out of clean underwear.

I just re-read all of that and maybe it doesn’t sound so bad, but please remember a few factors we were up against: First, the traffic in Medellin AND in Bogota is out of control. They actually have to limit when you can drive your car based on the last number of your license plate just to manage congestion. There are more mechanics, gas stations and auto parts stores than any other kind of store-front business in these cities. Second, there are huge lines at all these places: The passport office, airport and mostly the Embassy. Third, every office closes for a nice siesta at 1 pm. Some of them re-open at 3. Some stay closed until the next day. And third: WE HAD A LITTLE BABY WITH US!!! A baby who has to stop to eat and get his diaper changed. A baby who comes with a lot of stuff to schlep. Those of you who are parents will understand. Everything takes twice as long when you have your baby with you.

The day started out hopeful enough.

I was very excited for official “adoption day”, as you can see from the video below. Gloria and I made it to the court house in good time…she had the foresight to park at the Notario’s office, and we took a cab to the courthouse to avoid parking delays in the downtown area. At 2:40 PM, we were sitting outside the judge’s chambers waiting for our lawyer. Easy-peasy. We were sure we’d have plenty of time to get everything done. The appointment was not until 3:00.

And around 3:15, my Colombian lawyer (the one who does not speak to me, perhaps because she does not speak English) sauntered up and began a 25-minute conversation with Gloria about life, love and whatever else was happening in the world that had nothing to do with Mason or his adoption.

At 4:00 PM, the judge invited us in. She looked so familiar to me, but I couldn’t figure out who it was that she looked like….someone from Hollywood? Or high school?

The judge (who also did not speak English) welcomed us and began to tell a story about four sibling orphans in Cali (another city in Colombia) who were all adopted by an Australian couple. “Que Lindo.” “Que Bueno!” we all murmured, and Gloria checked her watch.

Then the judge began to tell me how disappointed she was not to see the baby…not in a mean way, in a nice way. “I like to see the human side of the case.” She said (I think) in Spanish.

Annette Funicello! That's it! The judge looked exactly like Annette Funicello!

Gloria checked her watch some more.

A woman with red hair came into the room and was introduced as a law student studying at one of the Medellin universities. We all nodded and said “Hola” and I’m sure I caught a few “Que Bueno’s” in there somewhere.

Finally, the judge took out my sentencia. Gloria took a deep breath and I saw her relax. I sat back and the tension eased from my shoulders. We were going to make it on time. The judge picked up the sentencia….and handed it to the law student to read aloud.

Gloria leaned in to me and whispered something in Spanish. It sounded like “I farted.”

“Que?” I whispered.

“Me enfarta” said Gloria.

Later I would learn that this means “I feel stress” in Spanish.

The law student read the entire 6 page document in Spanish, stopping every paragraph to ask me if I understood. “Tu comprendes. TU COMPRENDES!” Gloria whispered in my ear. “Si, si”, I said…even though much of the eloquently-written, Spanish legal document was way over my head.

Finally, she finished reading and it was time to sign. I signed, the judge signed, and I saw my baby’s official new name written there: Mason Elijah Penner. I was happy to notice that the court had given him only one last name and not two, as is Colombian custom. Josh and I were going to have to change it when we got home, and it was nice to see that I would avoid that hassle. I asked the law student if that was all, she nodded, and I started to cry. I couldn’t believe that this boy was finally, officially and legally mine.

Until my lawyer Alina spoke to me for the very first time. “Hay una problema.”

Apparently, the sentencia also had to be signed by the ICBF or child welfare representative and that representative had left the courthouse at 3:05, deciding that the 3:00 meeting was obviously cancelled.

“Ay, me enfarta.”

After much hand wringing, phone-calling and shoulder-shrugging, Gloria ushered Alina and I out of the courthouse to the photocopy booth on the 2nd floor. There she told us how it would be: Alina would take one copy of the sentencia to the ICBF office to be signed, and then back to the courthouse to be officially stamped. If she succeeded in fighting the traffic and doing all this before the courthouse closed at 5 PM, Alina would bring the officially stamped sentencias to Gloria’s house and we would have them for the passport office tomorrow. If she didn’t succeed, then she would bring them to court for stamping at 8 AM tomorrow and then bring them directly to us at the passport office where we hopefully would not have missed our turn to present documentation.

Meanwhile, Gloria would take the UNstamped copy to her friends at the Notario’s office where they would, as a special favor to her, illegally create Mason’s new birth certificate. Illegally because they are not technically supposed to do it until we have the stamp, but if we were to wait for the stamp we would miss our window to get a passport on Wednesday, thereby missing our flight, thereby missing the doctor appointment, thereby not being prepared to file for Visa on Thursday and having to wait until Monday…..you get the drift.

It all came off according to plan. Enfarta and all. And at the end, I had myself a big ‘ole glass of Mommy juice at the Hotel.

The next morning, Fanny and I were all packed and ready to cruise. We had to wake the baby early and feed him on the go. We got to the passport office as the doors opened and Gloria by some miracle already had the stamped sentencias from Alina….I guess that lawyer was wonderful after all! What she lacked in communication skills she apparently had made up for in driving speed.

We waited about an hour for our paperwork to be processed, and then they called Gloria up to the window, and I hear those magic words: “Hay una Problema.”

Apparently, the Notario had put Mason’s first name in the “Apellido” or “Last name” space, his middle name in the “Secundo Apellido” or “Second Last Name” space, and “Penner” in the “Name” space. In other words, his name was “Penner Mason Elijah” and it did not match the sentencia so we would therefore be denied a passport. Oh, and by the way they were also very offended that we had obviously refused to respect Colombian law by not giving the baby two last names.

We had exactly one hour to fight traffic back to the notario, get the birth certificate re-printed, and return to the passport office. Gloria was in her glory (excuse the pun) and thanks to her connections at the notario office we skipped the line and had our new birth certificates in under 45 minutes. We had left the baby at the passport office with Fanny, knowing he would slow us down, and took cabs back and forth.

Me enfarta. Me enfarta! (I wish I knew how to do that upside-down exclamation point thingy).

We got back to the passport office, got the passport, and piled back into a cab to the hotel where our luggage was waiting. We stacked it all in Gloria’s car and started out over the dirt roads and mountainside construction to the airport….about an hour and a half behind schedule.

Mason was a total champ throughout all of it. I really don’t think all of this craziness would have been possible with any other baby. He had been woken up early, denied a proper breakfast and strapped into a car seat for most of the day and he didn’t complain a wink. As we sped off towards the airport I got a final look at the beauty that is the best of Medellin. While I was not a huge fan of the city, the mountainside towns on the way to the airport….the part of the country where Mason’s birth mother lived….took my breath away.

We made the plane to Bogota just as the doors were closing, and luckily our Bogota guide, Mauricio, was waiting at the airport. Of course, our bags were the last to come out (I thought last to check in was always FIRST to come out!) but we made it to the doctor on time. He spoke English….he had done a year of his residency in Stamford, Connecticut and his pediatric fellowship at St. Jude’s!

Mason peed on him.

But that is how it came to be that Mason and I found ourselves standing in front of window #1 of the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia, hearing these words spoken through a telephone by a man on the other side of a plane of glass:

“Congratulations, Ms. Peck. The moment your son touches U.S. soil, he will automatically become a U.S. Citizen. Here is an application for his U.S. Passport. I recommend you fill it out upon your arrival home, so that he may travel anywhere in the world. Mason Elijah Penner, welcome to America.”

The Hotel California

Josh and Mia left Medellin on Tuesday, February 17. Needless to say I was feeling pretty down being separated from my family, but at the same time I was falling in love with this little gift of a baby. Plus, I was extremely hopeful that I would receive my sentencia (final adoption decree) in a few days and would be heading off for the next leg of my journey, the American Embassy in Bogota.

I spent quite a lot of time tooling around the hotel with Fanny waiting for the phone to ring. It was hard to be patient when all I wanted was to get out of Medellin and bring my baby home safely. The Hotel Intercontinental is a lovely place with a terrific pool, great food and nice people, but you are surrounded by a barbed wire fence (meant to keep the bad guys out, not meant to keep you in!) and there are armed guards at the entrances. Still, I was sure I would soon be granted the sentencia. All my documents were in order, the judge had been holding my case on her desk for a week now, there was nothing left but for her to sign the papers and let us go.

A part of me wanted to go out and explore the city, but I was being warned at every turn to stay put and keep a low profile. I didn't really see any evidence of crime, but I guess there was a reason for all the security. Plus, I was going back and forth between two very strong emotions: On one hand, I was enjoying the bliss of getting to know and falling in love with my new baby. Taking him for a walk around the hotel, watching his face light up as he kicked his feet in the pool, holding him on my lap on a swing. But then there would be moments when I would feel so sad because I missed my daughter and my husband terribly. Despite being in such a nice place with my incredible, beautiful new baby, I felt isolated and alone.

Fanny’s sister called and said she would be flying in from Cali (another city in Colombia) to spend the weekend and Fanny asked if I was OK with the two of them staying at a friend’s vacation home. I must admit I was pretty nervous at the thought of being stranded at the hotel by myself without anyone to speak English with, but on the other hand it would provide valuable bonding time for me and Mason. I will be going back to work shortly after we return home (I’ll be understudying in a new Off-Broadway show called “Toxic Avenger”), and every moment alone with my new baby is a gift. So of course, I gave Fanny my blessing and I was happy to give her the rare chance to spend time with her sister.

That’s about when the phone rang and Gloria told me that sentencia would not be coming until the following Wednesday.

Wednesday.

A week from now. A whole week to sit here and miss my daughter and wait for the judge to find her freakin’ pen.

I'm not gonna lie to you, folks. I cried. Thank God I had the forsight to stock our hotel room with some Mommy Juice (red wine). You see I've never been a person who is OK with having time on her hands and nothing to do. Fanny is great with that kind of thing. She enjoys looking out the window and enjoying the view, or taking long walks with the baby on a sunny day. But for me, if I'm not active I get....what's the word? Ah, yes....loca.

Luckily Mrs. Altman, the director of Mason’s orphanage and a Colombian version of everyone’s Bubby, came to pick me up for lunch and a tour of the orphanage. Spending time with Raquel was quite a treat. The daughter of Romanian Jewish immigrants, she has lived most of her 60+ years in Medellin creating and then managing this orphanage. Like me, Raquel is a vegetarian and also like me, she is both an adoptive and a biological Mother.

The lunch was delicious and the distraction was welcome. But it was the second part of our excursion that really hit home for me. Just ten minutes away from this lovely and upscale Italian restaurant sits La Casa de Maria y los Ninos, the orphanage that despite all odds had done such an incredible job with Mason for the first six months of his life.

The orphanage is located on a beautiful hillside that Mrs. Altman tells me was once all trees and grass but is now speckled with residential and commercial buildings. It's one of those places where you find this strange mix in Medellin of gorgeous landscape and a slightly sloppy city.

Since I'm about a week behind in my writing, I'm going to skip the description of the orphanage for now and just go to the videotape. The only thing I'd like to say is that I've learned a bit about the situation for orphans here in Colombia. The luckiest ones are in places like La Casa....private orphanages that must conform to ICBF (government child welfare agency) standards, but are run by private directors and funded by donations and adoption fees. These children are being well cared for, and there are plenty of American, European and even South American families who want to adopt them...certainly this is true for the babies, and even for many of the older children. But recent regulations have slowed down the rate of successful adoptions to a crawl. I cannot tell you how frustrating is was to meet these gorgeous kids and to know that there are families out there who want them but can't get them because of bureaucracy and red tape. I personally know one wonderful and loving family who desperately want to adopt even an older child, but are watching doors close in their face at every turn.

El Tablazo

On Tuesday morning, we all piled into Gloria’s car (Still no seatbelts! At all!) and headed off to the airports through mountain roads, bottoming out each time we sped through a dirt-road construction zone and narrowly missing several moped riders on the way. I should take this moment to send a word of gratitude to my friend Risa for the incredible Britax baby carrier/car seat she let me use. Because it’s a tad larger than the Graco seat most people have, I was able to wedge it in tight between the front and back seats, creating an “almost safe” condition for Mason to travel in. It’s no substitute for real seatbelts, but at least I felt that were we to crash, Mason’s seat would most likely stay put.

Josh and I each had signed, notarized forms from each other, in Spanish, giving the other one permission to leave the country with one child. When we arrived at the airport, we had to communicate the situation to the Spanish-speaking American Airlines personnel and get Mia and Josh through the first phase of the complicated check-in process. It was enough to distract us from the looming moment ahead, the moment we would have to say goodbye and split our family in half.

For the past day and a half, ever since it hit me that my little girl was going home without me, I had noticed the most curious, five-year-old phenomenon. It is so strange and beautiful to watch your child processing certain emotions for the first time. For us it’s easy….we’ve felt some version of most things before, and we adults are skilled in the art of reacting to our feelings in a way that is appropriate to our environment and audience. But with kids it’s different. They might be really feeling something, but if it’s new they might not understand how to behave with their new feelings. Add to that a 5-year-old girl’s brand-new sense of decorum, and you have one confused little face gazing up at you.

For the past day and a half I had watched Mia try to emulate my expressions. I saw her force out some tears in an effort to either place her feelings appropriately or maybe just to be like Mommy. But now we stood at the immigration desk where an armed guard informed us that only travelers could pass beyond this point. I looked at my little girl and in one, sudden moment I saw her realize the full force of what goodbye can feel like. I watched her loose the careful control she’d kept over her presentation since yesterday. She came apart in my arms, and I in hers, and we cried together like babies, not caring who was looking or how long it would take.

After Mia and Josh disappeared behind the corner and headed up towards security, I took a few moments to compose myself and was thankful to have a task at hand….it was time for Mason’s bottle. When he was finished (8 ounces! My boy’s a champ!), we got back into Gloria’s car and headed out to explore El Tablazo, the town where Mason’s birth mother lives. I had been told by Raquel, the orphanage director, that this was a curious little town populated mostly by very wealthy Colombians who used the homes for vacation and weekend getaways. However, Raquel had explained that there was also a small group of extremely poor citizens living in a tiny village or vereda at the top of El Tablazo. These are probably the people who maintain the property below and do domestic work for the homeowners there. In lieu of a proper baby book or any photos of Mason’s first months of life, I have been trying to gather photos and video footage for him so that I might one day be able to show him a picture of his life before we met. This blog is part of that effort.

We passed through a military check-point staffed with armed guards who took note of Gloria’s plate number. In my dramatic mind I had hoped to encounter a cluster of shacks along a dirt road, filled with honest but poor Colombian people working hard and thriving despite oppressive circumstances. What I found was a lot like….well, dare I say the Hamptons? Seriously, these houses were AMAZING. The really nice ones you couldn’t even see because they are set far back from the road and are hidden by trees and shrubbery. The roads are paved, the school is lovely….kind of like the East Hampton without the beach or the WASPS.

But at the top of the mountain-side town, the paved road ended and turned to rocky dirt. Gloria’s little car was no match for these undeveloped pathways and we had to turn around, never getting a real look at where Mason’s birth mom might have been living.

We returned to the hotel and I began to wait. I am waiting for the judge to grant us our sentencia, or final adoption decree. We have no control over how long this will take, but on Tuesday I was hopeful that it would be soon. After all, thanks to Gloria’s masterful, South-American schmoozing, we had gotten past our Bienestar Familiar interview a full four days earlier than anticipated. Surely the little day of confusion over the spelling of Josh’s name couldn’t have put us back that far! I watched Josh’s flight progress on line and I called my mother via SKYPE to confirm that despite a delay taking off from Medellin, they had made it onto their connecting flight in Miami and were on their way home to New York. So with nothing but time on our hands, Fanny and I decided to take a sleeping Mason out to the pool deck in his car seat to enjoy the evening air and a glass of Chilean Cabernet.

We sat gazing at the pool and re-hashing our memories together in New York, before Fanny moved to Florida and was our babysitter for Mia from the age of 3 weeks until 2 years. Full from days of restaurant eating, we didn’t sit down and order anything for dinner but our favorite waiter, Guillermo, brought us a plate of Colombian cheese, olives and hard-boiled quail eggs. We had a great time with our free dinner and conversation, and for a little while I was distracted enough not to miss my little girl so much it hurt.

I mean, COME ON!

The Dog and Pony Show

Wow what a day. I am falling asleep at my keyboard as I type this. And no, it’s not the glass of excellent cabernet that I got from the hotel wine bar. Today we left NYC behind and flew to Medellin. We woke up at 2:45 AM to be ready for a 3:30 AM car service. Mia was a dream child almost all the way through. She was a sweetheart in Newark, a trooper in Miami and a doll in Medellin. We walked out of the airport, a bit disheveled but excited to get back to our hotel and set ourselves up for our new baby, when….there was no driver there to greet us. I had to borrow a cell phone to call the orphanage director. (Strangely, my iphone did not work in Colombia which is so odd because my iphone is so cool and I am so cool for having it so why should there be a problem?) Within minutes our driver, Juan Pablo, arrived with our chariot….um, no wait, it’s a really small car….like REALLY small. Like REALLY, REALLY small. And here we are, Josh, Mia and I along with Fanny, our Colombian friend and babysitter, all our gear for three weeks in Colombia plus the baby’s stroller and car seat and Mia’s booster car seat….and a REALLY, REALLY, REALLY small car.

Let’s just say that the old “clowns in a car” image does not even begin to describe it. We were literally shoved into this car on top of each other like sardines, each of us hosting a suitcase or two on our laps and Mia sprawled across the whole mess fast asleep. We sped up, down and around narrow mountain roads speckled with roadside stands and thick, jungle-like foliage. At times we were literally driving through tunnels of branches and thick, green vines. Our driver kept slipping into the left lane to pass cars, but he seemed to only do it when he was approaching a blind spot or a big curve so that we literally had no idea if we were about to crash head on into oncoming traffic. Despite the fear factor, it had been a very long day, I was exhausted and the motion of the car was knocking me out. I tried my best not to fall asleep (unlike my legs) so that I could get a good look at my son’s homeland. I was most struck by how many dogs I saw. As most people know, Josh and I were avid dog rescuers before having Mia, and the sight of five to ten dogs running down the road every mile was hard to accept.

I had just about had enough of this dog and pony show when finally we saw the city of Medellin through the trees at the base of the mountain we were spiraling. We spun our way down to the bottom and rested at the Hotel Intercontinental. Ah, civilization!

The hotel is beautiful and our rooms are great. The only issue we have had is that there are only showers, no bathtubs. For the baby they gave us a plastic tub but we were left with one fussy and overtired five year old who is deathly afraid of showers. I had to go down to the front desk and beg housekeeping to let us into an empty room to use the tub. Not only were they nice enough to let Mia “bathe for free”, they lined the rim of the tub with rose petals and called her a princess! Mia was barely awake enough to mutter a quiet “Muchas Gracias”.

Tomorrow morning we will go to the court for our first appointment and then the moment of truth….we will finally meet our baby boy and I will get to hold my Mason in my arms. It was so surreal packing up the diaper bag tonight. I haven’t packed a Ziploc full of diapers and wipes for over three years. I wonder if I will do it better this time. I’m certainly less prepared! But maybe that is a good thing.

A Shana Punim!

Here is a picture of our gorgeous boy! The lawyer just sent over the picture and a translated medical report. He's very small but thriving and gaining weight. We are still getting everything in order but it looks like we'll be leaving on Monday (February 9) to pick up our son!