We filed our I800 immediately after the referral came from Fana at the end of March. As always, we needed to factor in a trip to the Colombian consulate in Chicago for our adoption visas. We had additional work to do this time around, because Colombia is now enforcing a law from 1991 that requires all Colombian born people to go in and out of the country on Colombian passports. In this instance, Lucas' Colombian passport, as it is in the "old" style, needed to be completely renewed. This involved obtaining some documents directly from his birth registry in Bogota with new dates on them, as well as a bunch of other stuff that made little sense to us. In all, we had 4 separate appointments with 4 separate requirements waiting for us at the Consulate. Everyone there was very nice with us and formal of course, but it's not the easiest system to crack. I enjoy documentation as well as the next person, but the big fear was that we would get there and they would demand something I was unable to make on the spot or obtain quickly.
This is Ted and some of the many Sibley passports trying to make sense of it all. It was a lot. We have too many children.
I don't think we really breathed until we walked out the doors, but after 2.5 hours... SUCCESS.
Following the success, we needed to do some serious quality time with the Colombians. They have taken a lot for Team Sibley in the past year.
We returned with Visas in hand Lucas new passport in the works to be rushed to us next week. Our Article 5 is still now fully ready, but at this point we plan to travel on 5/7 and hang out in country for a few days as we are not allowed to take custody without it. It wasn't an issue for Samuel under an even shorter time frame, so we are trying not to stress (although when I got an email from our agency with words "hopefully you don't have to change travel plans" on Friday I about went through the roof). No matter how conservative you are or how much your plan, or apparently how many times you have done this... there is still random stuff in the end that goes whack. Unlike Ethiopia, every referred child in our group has come home unless the adoptive parents were the ones that changed their mind.
One week from tomorrow, we will be on the plane and ready to start the rest of the journey with little man. Lots of details between now and then.
In closing, random shenanigans.
Today at the FANA 5k and the Gopher Game we scored tickets to. Trying to soak up the last of activities as a family of 6!
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