The Avery Answers

Over the last few months (and years) many of you have regularly asked about Avery, wondering how the adoption is going.  Where Boo and Chris are in the process, is there any movement?  Do we know when she is coming home?  I get comments and emails about her regularly.  You used to follow Boo's blog, you are wondering about Avery.  Thank you all for asking.  It is finally time to answer.
 
Avery is not coming home from Guatemala.  Or maybe, we have finally realized that Guatemala is her true home.  When Boo and Chris signed up for this adoption they chose Guatemala because the amount of time you had to stay in the country was short, the wait was fast by international adoption standards and you brought home a baby that was usually under one year of age.  Four years later they are still waiting, and it is just time to call it quits and say they the Guatemalan government was never going to allow her to come here.

Around six months ago Boo and Chris made a final push to get her home.  They found a new Guatemalan attorney, one who was known to be able to get children released.  They knew that if he  couldn't do it, then it couldn't be done.  It felt as if she might actually get out of the system and finally get to come home, and then the maternal grandparents stepped forward.  They wanted the child.  There was debate on if they really did or they were just forced to say it, but the next step would be custody court between Boo and Chris vs. the Grandparents.  The new attorney said they could fight, but it would be "a long battle". Boo and Chris made the very hard decision to say no.  They were done.  If the grandparents want her, she is their granddaughter.  They are walking away.

Of course things were a little more complicated than that, as they always seem to be.  There were last ditch efforts by the attorney, but in the end Boo and Chris decided they needed to put an end to it.  Four years is a very long time to wait.  Especially when she is in the exactly same place in the court system that she was when she was six months old.  No true movement in three and a half years.  The grandparents truly felt like a god send. They didn't have to walk away and send her to an orphanage, she could go home.  It seems like at this point it's the best option for Avery, and the best answer for everyone here.  At some point the waiting has to end.  And now it has.

Thank you for following along with our families story. It means so much to me how my readers have not only embraced me, Nick and Henry, but how you have a love for Boo and Missy, Darcy and Avery, for our entire family.  It means more to me than I can say.  Thank you for reading. Thank you for caring.  There will be more updates in the coming weeks and months in regards to Boo's family.  They are in the process of beginning a new domestic adoption, which is very exciting, but for this post we will just leave it with our heart break that Avery will never be coming home.

We loved her, even though most of us never met her.  Boo and Chris held her, kissed her and for four years truly believed she was theirs.  There has been a hole in the family for a very long time as we waited for her to join us.  It will take awhile for that hole to heal, but the healing finally gets to start now.