We are in Guatemala and have Edison!!!

So much happened on Monday that there is no way I can type everything. To make a long story short, our pink slip was e-mailed to the wrong person and we didn't find out about it until monday at 8:30 in the morning! We spent all day getting the crisp money we needed, making flight arrangements and hotel reservations. Thank goodness for our travel agent, Debbie Sebastian at Carlson-Wagonlit - she was truly a lifesaver. I am going to go ahead and thank some of the people who made it all possible for us not to have to reschedule. My Aunt Joyce (mom called her and asked her to stop by the house and calm me down - you would have thought I had gone into pre-term labor the way Paul and I panicked at first. Joyce calmed me down, worked on my laundry and we went to get a bite to eat. Paul's mom made a trip to wal-mart for things we needed, my sister (Lea Ann sent an umbrella stroller to us to use because I had never gotten around to buying one and I didn{t want to take eddy's good one.) Lea Ann also offered to come to the house after she got off work but I had things under control by that time. My mom first told me to calm down and not to worry about my house, she picked up a prescription I needed and took care of the girls. I am so grateful she offered to come to the house to stay with them - that saved a lot of packing!!!

Fast forward - we left the house at 3:00 a.m. this morning and went to Louisville. Paul made the trip in 1.5 hours (in the rain) - I wasn't scared until we hydroplaned but Paul said he had everything under control. Anyway we made it on time and in one piece. Our flights from Louisville to Houston and Houston to Guatemala City were all wonderful and on time!! As soon as we got through customs, the shuttle to our hotel was waiting so we climbed in with three other adopting couples. Three of us had empty strollers so we all knew we had something in common. One of the families is another A Helping Hand family so that was neat.

We got to our hotel before noon, got everything situated and had time to take a nap since we had only had 2 hours of sleep the night before. We woke up at 2:oo and we were both starving. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant. It was really good. We went back to the hotel and waited. Around 4:00 the phone rang - Paul answered. It was Anna Maria telling us that Eddy was waiting for us in the lobby. As we were walking out the door - I had a slight panic attack and said, "Paul, when we go down there our lives will forever be changed" He gave me a hug and said, "come on, let's go!"

Edison was sitting in his foster mother's lap and when he saw me he just grinned. I don't even really remember all that happened. I know we chased him around the lobby and that he can run. He loved his Diego backpack - put it on and tromped around. He was so cute. He is such a beautiful child and I cannot believe he is ours! I am truly blessed. Fast forward again because I am paying for internet at 15 minutes at a time. I am 8 minutes into my second session ...

Edison cried when his foster mother left. Oh yeah, the foster mother he has had all along had to have her appendix removed three weeks ago and could not take care of him so he was with another foster mother. She was crying and said she couldn´t believe how attached they had become to each other in 3 weeks. She told me he was "muy intelligente" which means he is very smart. Obviously he belongs in my family! We carried him to the room and he cried non'stop for about 15 minutes. I told him in Spanish to not be afraid and he calmed down. I don{t know if he understood or if he was just worn out ' but he did calm down. We had a wonderful evening together - he laughed, smiled, would growl and say mmmmm when I tried to get him to say Mama. I knew the crying and grief would be good for him and I thought we were doing great. That was until 7:30 tonight. He was exhausted. He cried after we put his pajamas on him, he smacked the bottle out of my hand (oh yeah he still takes 8 - 8ounce bottles each day and one of those is at 1:00 a.m. That is the first thing on our agenda is to reduce the number of bottles and try to get rid of that middle of the night feeding. We will work on that in the next few weeks. Anyway, he smacked me and fought me and kept yelling for his mamamamama but he was not talking about me. He would look at me and just get mad. Paul offered to try and when I handed him over, he through an even bigger fit and reached for me. I finally got him to sleep and he was "snubbing" when I came down here. Times up ' will add more tomorrow.