My mom and I had talked about making a visit to see Sabrina together.  This is Mom’s first grandchild and I am her only child so this is BIG.  This second trip was contingent upon the financial piece working out.  Last night, Mom offered her frequent flier miles for my ticket so I will only have to pay the taxes and fees!  Obviously, that is a huge help.  Thank you, thank you Momma!

We started talking about this trip before Steve and I went on our visit.  I asked Steve if he would be okay with us visiting without him – kind of a 3 generational girls bonding trip.  He said he didn’t mind at all and thought it was a great idea.  Then he spent a week with Sabrina.  Now he is incredibly jealous of us going without him.  Mom offered to donate her ticket to him but he said no.  Financially, we can swing it with me splitting the costs of visiting with mom.  Finances aside, Steve doesn’t have the vacation time to take off another week.  He is trying to save days so he can take a little bit of time off after she gets home.  His company is small so it is not required to offer FMLA leave.  He says he wants us to go and he will remain jealous but is fine with it.  I have to say he is a bigger person than I am.  I would be insanely jealous of him going without me.  I don’t think I could stand it. 

Seven weeks from today (Valentine’s Day), I will have Sabrina in my arms again.  I didn’t want to go in January (even though some friends will be there and I would love to hook up with them) because I know I won’t have the chance to make another visit before pick up.  We entered Family Court on 12/15.  Average stay there is 6-8 weeks but that clock won’t even start until after the new year.  Much like the US, Guatemala grinds to a halt around the holidays (can’t blame them…I know nothing is happening in my office this week either).  So best case scenario will have us out of family court around the time Mom and I visit – and nothing has gone according to best case scenario yet.  Even if by some miracle we get out of family court in record time, there is still PGN to traverse.  I’m thinking March would be a gift and April is a hopefully realistic time frame for bringing her home at this point.  There are a good number of people from other agencies getting out of PGN very quickly right now (go Priscilla getting out in less than 2 weeks!) but for reasons I won’t speculate on publicly, my agency hasn’t had ANY of that luck.  We haven’t seen any really quick cases so I have no reason to believe that kind of luck would befall our case.  Right now, I am simply thankful that I have the opportunity to visit Sabrina again before we bring her home.