Encuentro

On Wednesday, Gloria (our guide and translator), picked us up at about 10:00 am to bring us to Casa de Maria to meet Sam. Once we got there, we met with Raquel who is the director of the orphanage and she went over all of his medical information, personality traits, schedule and things like that. Then she left the room and a few minutes later walked in with Sam. He was much bigger than I was expecting, chubby and just plain adorable. It was an amazing moment and one that we will never forget.

Joey is so proud of his "big brother" status and enjoys introducing everyone to "his baby Sam." Sam is also very fond of Joey. He thinks he's hilarious and follows him everywhere. It's so fun to see them playing together and getting along so well... we are trying to enjoy the moment while it lasts!!

Here is the first picture of the new Belzer family of 4...

Joey couldn't wait to hold his little brother... even though his brother's not so little.

Daddy with his boys...

Joey kept giving Sam hugs and kisses... it was very sweet.

Our first night was a little rough. Sam was really restless and fussy and woke up about every 1-2 hours. He's been through so much already so I am not surprised at all that he had trouble sleeping but I also think he might be teething. We are hoping that tonight goes better. On the bright side, it's not like we have to go to work or anything so we have plenty of time to nap during the day.

We have arrived!!

We arrived in Medellin at about 1:30 this afternoon and our driver was waiting for us at the airport. It took about 40 minutes to get from the airport to our hotel and the drive was very scenic (but a little scary). We were driving down a mountain on a very narrow road with cars passing each other even though they had no idea if there was another car coming around the corner... like I said, a little scary but we made it. Medellin is absolutely beautiful... everything is very green and the views are spectacular! Our hotel is also very nice... they have a normal pool, a kid's pool, small playground, tennis courts, nice gym, spa, and a few different restaurants. Best of all the staff is extremely friendly and most speak pretty good English.

We met with our attorney this evening to go over everything and our guide will be picking us up at the hotel tomorrow morning to bring us to the orphanage. We will first meet with the director of the orphanage and she will go over all of Sam's information with us and then we will get to meet our little guy!! It's so weird to think that this time tomorrow night we will have another baby. We are so excited to meet him!!!

Our Chicago Adventure

We left for Chicago early Thursday morning and arrived at about 9:00 pm that evening. It was a very looooong drive and it didn't help that we ran into massive traffic and then got lost... hence the title of this post... Our Chicago Adventure. Even though we spent a lot of time in the car, things went pretty well. Joey was perfectly content watching his movies and Josh and I managed to stay in good spirits and had quite a few good laughs along the way.

Our appointment with the Consulate was at 10:00 Friday morning so we arrived there around 9:30. They called us up shortly after 10:00, looked at our paperwork, asked us to go make a few additional copies of some documents and then told us to come back around noon. So we walked around Chicago for a little while, stopped for a coffee and headed back to the Consulate around 11:30. While we were waiting in the waiting room we noticed 3 priests standing behind the glass with the employees and kind of wondered what was going on. Then one priest came out and started speaking in Spanish (from what we could understand he was asking whether everyone was Catholic). Then the other 2 priests came out and they started praying and blessed everyone with holy water. Come to find out, the Consulate recently moved to a new office (in the same building) and they were blessing the new office (and all of us in it). It was actually pretty cool... and hopefully a good sign!

Once we were done at the Consulate, we headed back to Minneapolis. We got to our hotel in Minneapolis around 7:30, grabbed something to eat and let Joey go swimming for awhile. Then we headed home on Saturday only to unpack... and then start packing again.

Crazy to think in just 9 hours we will officially begin our journey to Colombia to meet our little Sam!!

Lots of Updates!

We have so many updates... I'm not sure where to start! The Embassy issued our Article 5 on Thursday which means we are approved to travel. Problem is... Josh and I still need to obtain our visitor's visa from the Colombian Consulate in Chicago. We initially thought we'd be able to apply for the visas through the mail but were recently told that they require an interview in person so we made an appointment for next Friday, April 16 (with the assumption that the Article 5 would be approved next week). So when Raul, our travel coordinator/case worker told us it was approved a week early and we would need to travel to Colombia on April 17, we had to brainstorm a bit to come up with a way to get our visas and still get to Colombia on the 17th. So we decided we would fly to Chicago next Thursday, go to our visa appointment on Friday and fly to Colombia on Saturday. I spoke with the travel agent to line up our flights and just as we were about to book our tickets, Raul emailed saying the casa informed him that they now will only schedule "encuentro dates" on Wednesdays or Thursdays (something about an ICBF official needing to be present and those are the only days ICBF is available). Anyways, it's a good thing we hadn't purchased our tickets yet because we would've been sitting in Colombia for 3 days before meeting Sam... and that would've been a LONG 3 days!! So, obviously we are a little disappointed that our travel has been delayed but we've been waiting this long, what's an extra few days, right? That's what I try to keep telling myself...

As it turns out, I think this all happened for a reason. Josh spoke with his boss and he and Joey are now planning to stay the entire time in Colombia (rather than coming home after 2 weeks)... so needless to say, I am very happy and look forward to our time in Colombia as a family of four!! So now the plan is to travel to Chicago next Thursday, go to our visa appointment on Friday, travel back to Fargo on Saturday and leave for Colombia the following Monday. Hopefully we will all be home in time to watch Josh run his first marathon in the Fargo Marathon on May 22nd!!

Happy 1st Birthday!!

Today is Sam's 1st birthday and we really wish we could be in Colombia right now to help him celebrate his special day. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM!! We love you so much and can't wait to meet you and give you lots of hugs and kisses!!

I-800 Approved!!

We found out that our I-800 was approved yesterday and the National Visa Center (NVC) will have our file by tomorrow. YAY!! Next the NVC will create an electronic file and notify the embassy in Bogota. The embassy will request a form (DS-230) from our representative in Colombia and then review our file to ensure the process was completed in accordance with the Hague Convention. Once everything has been reviewed, they will issue the Article 5. At that point the casa will set up our appointment to meet Sam and we will be able to make our travel arrangements. Travel dates are still tentative but we're thinking we will travel Saturday, April 24 and meet our little guy on Monday, April 26!! We are getting so close... and sooooo excited!! As the days go on, the waiting gets harder and harder. We are hoping to get new pictures soon and may even be able to do a video conference with Sam and the orphanage director. How cool would that be?

Week 3

This past week has been a little quieter but we did have some forward movement. I sent the last of the paperwork to Beth and found out that USCIS received our I-800 on March 10. Once USCIS approves the I-800, they will issue a I-797C. We've heard that this is generally taking about 2 weeks so we should receive the I-797C this week. We are still keeping our fingers crossed that we will be able to travel the last weekend in April.