Day One & Two: Waiting & Progress

One of the hardest things is to be given little pieces of information, such as your son has severe bronchitis and might be sent to the hospital, and not be able to do anything.

Early Sunday morning Claudia called our liason, Lucia, to get information about Little Baby Forrester. The only information we received was he had a serious case of bronchitis and they were probably taking him to a hospital. There was a chance we would need to stay at the hospital with him for the first several days, or possibly need to visit a clinic for daily therapy. Lucia didn't have much more information but was hopeful we would have a gotcha day confirmed for this week.

We remain optimistic and hopeful our Gotcha day will be scheduled soon. We have kept ourselves busy organizing our things in the condominium and getting a few things before we meet Little Baby Forrester.

One lesson you learn quickly is things don't go quickly in Colombia. "Hay filas para filas," I say. "There are lines for lines."

Another lesson is this city moves on its feet and in cabs or buses. People walk all over the place, take a cab or bus, and then walk to their final destination. Hailing a cab doesn't take much talent or good looks. It's pretty easy.

We have spent a lot of time walking to various places. There is a major mall named Santa Fe about two blocks from our condominium that's probably 2 million square feet and filled with major brands, including several more U.S. brands than four years ago.

Monday we spent three hours waiting for Claudia to renew her Colombian passport. When she finally came out of the office, she said we needed to return Wednesday to pick it up. We then went on a search, and a short cab ride and long walk, to purchase Internet service. We spent another hour completing that process. But as is typical in Colombia, we purchased the USB modem from Movistar (similar to Verizon) and then needed to go to Santa Fe to wait in another line and pay for the Internet service. Yes, it takes two businesses to accomplish what one can in the United States. Don't get me started on the process to add someone's name to a bank account. That's another afternoon.

The past two days we've spotted parents with their children and our minds immediately are reminded of why we are here. We have walked into children's clothing and toy stores and silently pray for our son. This is the difficult part of our trip right now.

But there is progress. This evening, Lucia said Little Baby Forrester is feeling better and she is hopeful our Gotcha day will be this Thursday. We will get a confirmation on Wednesday, hopefully.

Until then, we'll continue to pray, wait and hail cabs.