Levi Douglas Bradley: Anxiously awaiting trip to Guatemala

Our Adoption Story

Levi was born on April 21, 2007 in Chinautla, Guatemala, a small town known for pottery. He weighed 6.7 pounds and was 19.7 inches long. He was in private foster care in Guatemala City where he lived for 10 1/2 months with his foster mom, her son and daughter and Isaac, his foster brother. Throughout our difficult adoption journey, Isaac's mom, Nancy and I became very good friends. God placed our boys together and had the perfect plan in place long before we ever realized it. When I was undecided on an adoption agency, I joined an online forum where Nancy provided me with information about her agency and recommended them to us. We decided to sign with the same agency and I emailed Nancy back to let her know. Over a few months we emailed back and forth to learn we were both from TN and lived only 30 minutes apart... we thought wow, it's a small world. Little did we know a few months later we'd both get referrals, earlier than we expected, of 2 beautiful Guatemalan angels. When they turned 2 months old our agency called and decided it was time to tell us that they were in the same foster home together and had been since they were 1 day old. We were amazed they were together. Even more so, God amazed us once again when we learned shortly after that they were born on the same day and were from the same town... no longer a coincidence that was for sure. We were being told by the foster mom how attached they were and acted like brothers. But, Nancy and I got the chance in January '08 to go to visit them and see it for ourselves. It was an amazing time of bonding with our boys that we will never forget. After that trip it seemed when one of us would reach a roadblock in the crazy process of international adoption the other would be delayed with something else. We stayed right together until the very day we picked them both up. We had our US Embassy appts the same day and we flew home through Atlanta on the same flight on March 11, 2008 when they both entered the US as citizens! It was an awesome time for us in the Atlanta Airport when we rec'd the congrats they were official! We've made friends for life with Nancy, Eric, and with Isaac's extended families. We look forward to many years of watching them both grow up so close together. Over the past year, as we went through battle after battle to bring our boys home, Nancy and I both would never think of one without the other in our endless prayers to keep them safe, happy and healthy until they could be home with their forever families. We're finally parents and it's what we've both waited for, for so many years.. our families are finally complete!!!

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Anxiously awaiting trip to Guatemala

Well, as you can see we're officially on the countdown until we leave for our visit trip to Guatemala. We are very excited to be going to meet him for the first time. We're pretty nervous too because of all the chaos going on in Guatemala right now. We'll be prayed up and ready to go though in just 2 weeks. We're enjoying every minute of getting all his things together we'll need to care for him while we're there. Unlike some other countries, Levi will get to stay with us from the time we arrive in country until we're ready to leave to come home. I don't even want to think of having to hand him back and come home without him but, unfortunately that is part of the process and hopefully we'll be going back real soon to bring him home for good. We're nearly half way with the expected time frame for our pre-approval. After PA, we move into the last part of the adoption, which can be speedy or drag out. For our family and friends who have been following our process through this blog site, we'll be posting daily during our trip since we won't be doing much calling internationally. We'll try and post some pictures from there of our trip provided the hotel Internet service is adequate to do so. We'll be revolving around his schedule so, we'll post when he lets us- haha! Keep us in your prayers as we travel and pray that he's not too upset to be away from his foster mom and in different surroundings for a few days.

1 comment:

Unknown said...: I can't wait to see the new pics!! Olivia just loves looking at your pictures on the site. She wants to know when she can meet him!!; August 24, 2007 at 11:50:00 AM EDT