Today we signed the sentencia for Cooper’s adoption and got his new birth certificate! Though in our hearts, Cooper has been our son for more than a year, it is now official. The signing of the sentencia happened with a bit more fanfare than last time (http://www.patnmary.net/colombia-day-17-signing-sentencia/). Last time we were here the family courts were in a temporary location while renovations were being made to the Justice Building after a bombing several years ago. The family courts are still in same location. Magnolia says that they used to have a sign by the elevators stating the number of months that the courts had been there, but the sign was gone now.
We went to the fourth floor and entered family court #11 which was made up of one large room where the court staff works and then a smaller office for the judge. Our lawyer Trudy is such a wonderful lady and everyone seems to love her. When she arrived, she greeted everyone on the judges’ staff and then walked right in and talked with the judge. After a few moments she came out and asked if we wanted to meet the judge. Since I didn’t have the honor to do so last time (it was a different judge), I was grateful for the chance this time. We talked for a moment (well, Magnolia and Trudy did most of the talking since I still don’t speak very good Spanish), and then got a picture with the judge. After that we sat down at one of the clerk’s desks and went over the entire sentencia for spelling errors.
Once everything was corrected and printed, I signed the official document making Cooper our son. It was a exciting moment and I was able to get a picture of  it thanks to Magnolia. =)
We got back to the hotel while Trudy traveled to Buga to get Cooper’s new birth certificate. Magnolia wanted to do something for Mary Ann, Stephanie, and Ana (our friends from Texas), so they spent the afternoon at her house getting pedicures. The boys took naps while I worked on pictures for the blog and talked with Michael (the father from Texas).
After the boys woke up, we played a little and I got the message that the birth certificates where in hand and that we could go ahead and book tickets to fly to Bogota. While buying the tickets we had one of those cute moments between Cameron and Cooper.
Magnolia had messaged me that the girls where going to go out and learn to salsa, that they would be back tomorrow. I mentioned it to Cameron and he was a little upset that his mommy wasn’t coming back until tomorrow (at least I think that was it…he was also upset that mommy wasn’t taking him to the party). =) I explained that it was a joke. A few minutes later he and Cooper were sitting together in a chair and Cameron put his arms around him and said, “Cooper, I will take care of you, since mommy isn’t coming back til tomorrow.” I had to laugh…and of course explain again that it was a joke. =)
Anyway, we have a lot of mixed emotions at this point. We are scheduled to leave on Sunday morning for Bogota to get Cooper’s passport and visa in order to return to the states. We love this place so much and all of the people here. It is going to be really hard to leave. But, we are also looking forward to getting home. Please continue to pray as we count down the days until our return.
