Day of Sentencia

We start week 11 on a good note...

Day 71 – Thursday, June 21^{st –}

WE DID IT!!!! As of 3:00 this afternoon, Sofia is officially our daughter. My contact, Cecilia, called me just before noon to let me know that she would not be able to come with me, but my lawyer would be with me the entire time. I was picked up by a driver at 1:00 and we picked up my lawyer at 1:20. We were downtown in the center of Bogota at 1:50 and were dropped off at the courthouse – which is an old building with 22 courts spread out on many floors. Our case was in court 10 which is on the 4^th floor. When we entered the building, there was a HUGE line to enter the building. We were at the end of the long line, but at 2:00 the doors opened and the line went very fast. We took the stairs to the 4^th floor and got in line at the Court 10 window. Our papers were ready for us to sign. We had to read through the Sentencia to make sure everything was correct and then we signed. As we were going through the papers, my lawyer noticed that the signature of the Defender of Minors was missing. She went to the window and asked if she could talk to the Judge’s secretary. She explained the missing signature and he was able to sign instead of the Defender which made our paperwork official. At that point we needed to run down the 4 flights of stairs to get 8 photocopies of the Sentencia. We double checked to make sure every packet was complete and had to run up the 4 flights of stairs again to have the 8 sets of documents authenticated. He told us it would take about a ½ hour so again we went down the 4 flights of stairs and went to a coffee shop to wait. I had a nice time talking with my lawyer. Just after 3:00 we went back up the 4 flights of stairs and went back to talk to the Secretary. He had authenticated each page and we had to double check to make sure every page was stamped. At that point everything was complete. We got picked up again by our driver, Nancy, and I was home by 4:30 and very happy with the progress of the day.

The tentative plan is that tomorrow Cecilia and I will go to the registrar to change Sofia's name and get a new birth certificate. If that goes quickly, I think we are going to go to get her passport. If all is good, we will go to the doctor on Monday and the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday. The Embassy is closed for appointments on Wednesdays, so if we have to go back to pick up the papers (if they are not available the same day) then we will go back on Thursday to pick up the papers and be able to come home Friday. If we do get the papers done the same day, there's a chance we might be able to come home Wednesday or Thursday. We just have to go with the flow for the next few weekdays and we will have a better idea of when we will be returning home by Tuesday of next week. It will be very hard to say goodbye to all of my tias, tios, primas & primos here in Colombia, but we are ready to return to home base. 

June 21^st will always be a very special day for the Swanson family.  We are so lucky that Sofia is officially part of our family. We love her so much!