Family Court

(Here's the next installment in the adoption process)

The last I wrote about was DNA Authorization, testing and Pre-Approval. All of those steps are on the United State side. At the same time that this is going on, there are steps on the Guatemala side.

The attorney in Guatemala submits the case to Family Court. I don't know everything that happens here, but here is what I know, and what I'm guessing. I know that a judge assigns a social worker to the case. I would also guess that they judge looks over the paper work (as it all needs to be in Spanish). Once the social worker is assigned, the attorney and social worker work with the birth mother to schedule an interview.

The social worker basically does a "homestudy" with the birth mother. The social worker is making sure that the birth mother really wants to do this, that she isn't being forced into it, and understands that her child will be going out of the country.

After the interview, the social worker then goes back, writes up the report, and submits it to the judge. At this point, you exit Family Court.

This process can really vary. Like the DNA testing, the timing of this sometimes depends on the birth mother being able to make it for the interview. Many times, the attorney schedules the DNA testing and the social worker interview at the same time. There's more than one Family Court, and some of them run faster than others. Also, the timing also depends on quickly the social worker writes up the report. Because of all of these factors, family court can usually run any where from 4 weeks to 3 months.

(I don't have our exact dates, but we think we were in family court for about a month)