Our case entered Family Court

posted by Cheri on Wed. Oct 25, 2006
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More good news! We received notice today that Eliana's case entered Family Court in Guatemala on Oct 19th. While in family court a social worker will be assigned to investigate Eliana's case and make a recommendation regarding the adoption. As long as the birth mother has not been coerced into placing her child for adoption, the social workers eventually make a favorable recommendation. But first they have to interview the birth mom, visit the baby in the foster home, and review all the paperwork. It generally takes 6-8 weeks. However, I've seen one case get a recommendation in only 3 weeks and another take 5 months! So, like everything else in this process, who knows when we'll be out!

So far Eliana's case is clipping along at a great pace. Hopefully that will continue because the family court social workers all get a THIRTY day holiday vacation! Half of the social workers are off from Nov 15th to Dec 15th and the other half are off from Dec 15th to Jan 15th. The problem is that during the time a social worker is on vacation, no one covers her cases - they just sit on her desk and collect dust.

Since our case went into FC on Oct 19th, if our social worker has the second vacation shift, then we have a fair chance of being out before her vacation starts. But if she has the first vacation shift, then Eliana's case will likely sit for a month with no activity. Ug! And, we have no way of knowing who our social worker is, or which vacation shift she has. So, for now we are just grateful to have gotten into FC so quickly and are hoping for the best as far as vacation schedules are concerned.