US family awaits Guatemalan twins

US family awaits Guatemalan twins

Kathy and her husband Brien, from Michigan, are in the process of adopting twin boys from Guatemala.

The babies were caught up in a police raid on the Casa Quivira children's home in August, amid allegations of irregularities, which have been denied by the home's owners.

Now, after months of uncertainty, Kathy and her husband have been given a US embassy interview in January - news that should mean their adoption is almost complete.

Kathy with the twins in Guatemala, May 2007

We got the email from the US embassy today, with the appointment date, and I feel I can breathe a little bit more.

I'm very excited that we had good news but, at the same time, we are very much on edge.

I won't relax completely until we have them home, because I don't trust things to go the way they're supposed to.

I'm working on finishing up the nursery. I purchased the last few little things yesterday, which was nice because I didn't buy anything for a long, long time.

I couldn't even go in there for a long time because it was kind of depressing. Now I feel I can go and finish it without jumping ahead of myself.

Our older kids, aged seven and six, are just so excited.

I'm nervous, but I'm so excited and very relieved. I can't wait to go and pick them up and hold them and bring them home and introduce them to their big brother and sister.

Premature

The boys are a little bit behind in strength and weight but that was what we expected.

But they seem to be doing reasonably well, considering everything they've been through.

They were eight to 10 weeks premature. They spent a month or so in hospital after they were born and they've been ill quite a bit because of being premature.

We expect to have some problems when we get home but that's something we've been ready to deal with for a while.

I was hoping, hoping we would get them home before their first birthday and I've been considering going down there early [for the embassy appointment] to spend it with them.

'No regrets'

We are still very concerned about all the other cases at Casa Quivira.

[Since the raid, adoption processes have been held up and there have been investigations into the children's circumstances. Many of the birth mothers have been re-interviewed.]

There are several groups that have claimed that there have been irregularities with some of Casa Quivira's cases, but they won't actually tell anybody what these irregularities would be.

It's hard to know what's true and not true.

Do I ever wish we hadn't started on this road? I wouldn't say that because we look at the pictures of our boys and I wouldn't trade becoming their parent for anything.

If I hadn't become involved, I don't know what would've become of these two premature babies, who might not have had any place else to go.

The twins in February 2007

I don't regret it, I regret what has happened in the process. I don't know if there's anything else I could have done differently.

We did a lot of research before choosing Casa Quivira. We talked to a bunch of other people who had adopted through Casa Quivira and the strength of their comments really swayed us. I think we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It's been a difficult, difficult time, but that's parenthood. It's not always easy - at least, that's what I've found out with my older children. It's not always enjoyable but it's worth it.

At the same time, I would definitely caution other parents against starting an adoption from Guatemala now. [With all the legal changes], it would be such a stressful process.

Deep poverty

We don't know much about the boys' birth mother. For me that decision, to give up your child, would probably be the worst a woman would have to come to.

We think of the birth mother every day, what she's had to go through.

It's very difficult because as a mother myself, I can't imagine being in their situation.

For me it's not a shocking fact that so many women relinquish their children, having driven round the country. You just can't get away from how deep the poverty runs.

We started the process in August 2006. The boys were born December 2006 and we found out about them on 3 January 2007, so in some ways that's when the journey really started.

But before my husband and I even got married, about 13 years ago, we talked about eventually adopting.

Coming from larger families ourselves, we knew we wanted a bigger family and it didn't matter to us so much whether it was biological or adopted children.

There were children looking for families and we were looking for children, so it seemed like a match made in heaven.