Adopting Daniel US couple tests new Guatemala law
___Then, this past Monday, Jess, who had flown in with Ellyson and her mother to Guatemala City, sat inside the Hookers’ room at the Radisson staring at the latest document. She couldn’t believe it.Her computer chimed, and with tears in her eyes, she made her way over to it. Someone back in Tennessee was calling her on Skype.When she saw that it was her brother, she turned on the camera.Before Jose could say hello or see her wet cheekbones, she hovered over the camera and covered it with a thin sheet.The paper read: “Daniel Ryan Hooker born in Quiche, Guatemala on December 2006 son of Jessica Russell Hooker and Ryan Hooker.Jose began to cry.Jess’ brother, Jose, had been adopted 22 years earlier, when he was almost 6 years old, from the same orphanage. That adoption took her parents three years to complete. He, too, had been born in Quiche.At one point, when things were really grim and there was no end in sight, Jose had said that he would go to Guatemala and adopt Daniel himself, since he was Guatemalan.And now, here they were. All they needed was Daniel’s Guatemalan passport, and his adoption visa.This time, Jess was sure, everything would work out. It said so right there on the paper. Sponsored Stories It wasn’t until that night, when they were in bed, that he told his wife.“I think I met our son,” Bubba said.At 28, Jess was five years older than her husband and the more practical partner. She listened quietly as he told her about his day with the boy, who wasn’t just cute, he said, but his name was Daniel, just like Bubba’s uncle who had just died. She was skeptical.“Uh oh,” she thought, “what has Bubba gotten us into?” But the next day, when she pulled the child into her arms, it felt like he was hers.The couple had always wanted to adopt; Daniel just sped up their plans. They immediately told the orphanage director and started the paperwork.Two months later, Guatemala’s thriving adoption industry fell apart.The country’s quick-stop adoptions had made the nation of 14 million people the world’s second-largest source of babies to the U.S. after China. But the vibrant business came to a halt after an August 2007 raid on what was considered the country’s most reputable adoption agency, used by many Americans.An investigation exposed a system of fake birth certificates and DNA samples, of mothers coerced into giving up children. Some claimed their children were kidnapped for sale. Adoptive parents paid up to $30,000 for a child in a country where the average person earns $5,000 a year. New Year’s resolution: don’t spend another year in a kitchen you don’t like Mary Coyle ice cream to reopen in central Phoenix Guatemalan birth parents poured into government- run centers looking for their missing children and ran ads in local papers.Guatemalan doctors, lawyers, mothers and civil registrars were arrested and prosecuted, with some convictions for human trafficking and adoption fraud. The Solicitor General’s office was put under investigation by a U.N.-backed commission against impunity.The Guatemalan government was forced to overhaul its adoption laws. The U.S. suspended all new adoptions from Guatemala.By the beginning of 2008, a new council had to be established to clean up proceedings, including verifying the identity of birth mothers and their willingness to give up their children.The old system, a mostly unsupervised network of private attorneys and notaries, was abolished.Daniel was among 3,032 children caught in limbo.___In October 2008, Jess traveled to Guatemala with her mother over her school’s fall break. It was her fourth visit.She expected to see Daniel running around, arms flailing with hints of baby talk.Instead, there was silence.Something was wrong, but she was not Daniel’s legal guardian. Jess couldn’t take him to see a pediatrician. Maybe it was normal considering that he was such a small kid, but she was worried. She was a special needs teacher. Five months later, Daniel still wasn’t talking.At the Radisson Hotel, where the Hookers started the first of many family visits, he would race to the window inside their room to watch the airplanes. He was obsessed with them. But when Bubba gave him headphones, Daniel always tore off the one in his right ear.He needed to see a specialist. The adoption could not come soon enough. They’d hoped their connections to the orphanage, their family’s story, would make things easier since some adoptions pending when the ban was imposed were being allowed to go through. Jess’s parents were missionaries who founded the charity Samaritan Hands, which ran the orphanage. Bubba sat on the charity’s board.Plus, his grandmother had been an orphan herself. And so was Jess’s younger brother, Jose.But though they had filed reams of paperwork, nothing seemed to be happening, and no one could tell them why. Finally, in May 2009, they got a call confirming a meeting with the adoption council’s head, Jaime Tecu. The Hookers were ecstatic.After hours in the waiting room with Daniel and Jess’ mom, Judy, who would translate, they were ushered into an office overlooking the south of the capital. The U.S. had forbidden new adoptions from Guatemala, but the pending cases were something else.She assembled a team of staff and immigration services experts to help Guatemalans sift through the files and find out which ones had the proper records, making five trips to the country herself.Of the original 3,032 cases interrupted at the end of 2007, officials found 180 cases of children still waiting to be adopted.The first of these cases was Daniel’s.Landrieu’s team worked with the U.S. Embassy and Guatemalan officials to broker an agreement that would allow certain cases to go forward if they met the criteria of both Guatemalan officials and the U.S. State Department.She contacted many American families to see if they were still interested, discovering that many couples had spent tens of thousands of dollars, traveling up to 20 times to keep contact with the children.Last December, the Hookers got a call saying they were one of 44 families whose cases were ready to move forward.It would still be another eight months before they embarked on Aug. 21, hoping to become the first of those families eligible to collect their child under the new agreement.Things were looking up. Clean energy: Why it matters for Arizona She was Daniel’s mother.___Early Saturday morning, they checked out of the Radisson for the last time. An airport shuttle arrived at Guatemala’s La Aurora Airport. Out came Jess and her mom, Bubba, baby Ellyson and Daniel. Everyone sported matching red-and-white Maryville High T-shirts. There was even a small one with a big embroidered M at the center for Daniel.At a distance Daniel could see his beloved planes as Jess carried him toward check-in.“I’ve been waiting so long to carry you like this,” Jess told Daniel.“Avion,” he replied, the Spanish word for plane, a huge smile on his face. He gave his momma a wet kiss and motioned to be put on the floor. He went over to Ellyson and started to open his arms wide and spun like a plane. She giggled and mimicked him.Meanwhile, Bubba was grabbing their boarding passes.After all his family visits, he’d accrued 700,000 frequent flier miles he had been saving for the day he would take his son home. Soon, they would be sitting in first class. The plane was set to take off just before 1 p.m.Jess prepped his bag full of knickknacks. Back in Maryville, friends and colleagues at school had thrown her a surprise baby shower. When asked how she thought Daniel would adapt to the room and house back in Maryville, she laughed.“I think he’s going to be a bit disappointed when we get home and he realizes there is no pool on our roof, no elevator, and he can’t watch planes from the window.”___As the family walked through the doors of the Louisville airport late Saturday night, friends cheered, then joined them in prayer.“WE’RE HOME!!!!!! We did it! We made it! And we can’t believe it!” the family said in an emailed message to friends on Sunday.“I wish you all could have seen Daniel’s face as he ran around our house exploring his new domain. He couldn’t believe he had his own room. He gawked at the size of our bathtub … It was AWESOME!”___Associated Press writer Romina Ruiz-Goiriena reported this story in Guatemala and Travis Loller reported in Tennessee.___Romina Ruiz-Goiriena on Twitter: http://twitter.com/romireportsAP Bottoms up! Enjoy a cold one for International Beer Day
Comments Share (Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) Construction begins on Chandler hospital expansion project Associated PressGUATEMALA CITY (AP) – It should have been good news.The U.S. Embassy called to say the Guatemalan government would begin to authorize adoptions five years after a scandal froze the system that sent as many as 4,000 Guatemalan children a year to the United States.Ryan “Bubba” Hooker and his wife, Jess, might finally be able to collect the little boy they wanted to adopt and bring him home. Top Stories It was not an easy way to live.They turned down a job offer overseas that they feared would have further complicated the adoption process.When Daniel was already 4 and there was still no end in sight, Jess gave birth to a daughter, Ellyson.On their visits at the Radisson when Jess was pregnant, Daniel would touch her belly and say, “Sister.”They hung photos of Daniel and Ellyson all over the walls of the two-story brick house on their Maryville cul-de-sac. They put a play structure in the yard and fenced it in for Daniel. In his bedroom, a large red airplane sat atop the armoire. His beloved plane.Jess felt like she was missing Daniel’s entire childhood _ his first steps, his first words.And then came some luck.In early 2011, the Guatemalan adoption fiasco came to the attention of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, who served on the Senate appropriations subcommittee on the State Department’s foreign operations and related programs, which dealt with foreign adoptions. She also presided over the Senate appropriations subcommittee on homeland security, which funds U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.She was also the mother of two adopted children.Landrieu discovered there was no list of people whose cases had been dropped due to Guatemala’s adoption ban. But Hooker wasn’t sure. This would be his 36th trip to Guatemala City. The 18-month-old toddler they had met in an orphanage was now a 6-year-old kindergartener. The couple had moved homes, passed up a job, spent untold amounts of money trying to adopt Daniel.If all went well, they were told, they would be the first U.S. family to adopt under the Central American nation’s new adoption laws.At least, that’s what they told him over the phone.On Aug. 21, an anxious Bubba boarded the plane for Guatemala City. All he had to do was get an adoption certificate, a birth certificate and a passport, meet with the people at the U.S. Embassy yet again, get an adoption visa, and then he and Jess could bring Daniel home.Maybe this time it would work.___Jess and Bubba had been married less than a year when they decided to go to Guatemala on a mission trip in June 2007.The day he met Daniel, Bubba had been working on the plumbing in the orphanage when he decided to take a break. He took a wander through the rooms and found the boy.The child was just 18 months old but looked younger, sitting stranded in a walker. He was the youngest kid in the orphanage, the frailest, too, with his pigeon chest and little legs that turned out. Bubba knelt beside the little boy and they began to play. Before long Bubba was holding him, then he fed him. He forgot about the plumbing. Check your body, save your life Daniel sat upright in a chair close to the director’s desk and fiddled with a toy car.And then the bombshell.“I’m sorry,” Tecu said, “your case is not registered with the Solicitor General’s office. It is not official.”Judy began to sob. Bubba was furious.Jess was crushed.Everything had to be investigated anew. Daniel’s birth mom needed to be found, tested for a DNA match and give consent for the adoption. The case also had to be transferred to a court in the district where Daniel was born.The Hookers filled out and submitted the same forms numerous times. They had a second home study _ translated into Spanish. But nothing changed.In May 2010, a weeklong trip turned into a three-week stay when the Pacaya volcano, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Guatemala City, began spewing lava and rocks, blanketing the capital with ash and closing the international airport.The Hookers used the extra time with Daniel to take him to an audiologist.When the doctor walked in to give the results, they already knew _ Daniel was almost completely deaf.___The Hookers created a routine between regular trips to the Radisson in Guatemala and life back home in Maryville, Tennessee. Jess took advantage of holidays at the high school where she worked, while Bubba, a real estate developer, set his own schedule so he could visit Daniel every two or three months. Former Arizona Rep. Don Shooter shows health improvement
December 7, 2017 566 Views HOUSING mortgage OCC wildfires 2017-12-07 Nicole Casperson OCC Allows Banks and Associations Affected by Wildfires to Close Share
On Thursday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a proclamation allowing national banks and federal savings associations affected by the California wildfires to close.Toney M. Bland, Senior Deputy Comptroller, Midsize and Community Bank Supervision issued the proclamation, which states:“Because of emergency conditions caused by wildfires in California, I find that emergency conditions exist pursuant to 12 USC §§ 95(b)(1), 1463(a)(1)(A), 3102(b), and 12 CFR §§ 7.3000(b) and 28.13(a)(1). Accordingly, the Comptroller of the Currency, or his or her designee, hereby authorizes national banking associations, federal savings associations, and federal branches and agencies of foreign banks at their discretion, to close offices in the areas affected by these emergency conditions for as long as deemed necessary for bank operation or public safety. In addition, bank management is encouraged to consult OCC Bulletin 2012-28, “Supervisory Guidance on Natural Disasters and Other Emergency Conditions” (September 21, 2012). This guidance lists some actions bankers could consider implementing when their bank operates or has customers in areas that are affected by a natural disaster or other emergency condition. Dated this 7th Day of December 2017.”In issuing the proclamation, the OCC expects that only those bank offices directly affected by the extreme emergency conditions to close. Those offices should make every effort to reopen as quickly as possible to address the banking needs of their customers.OCC Bulletin 2012-28 “Supervisory Guidance on Natural Disasters and Other Emergency Conditions” provides guidance on actions bankers could consider implementing when their bank or savings association operates or has customers in areas affected by a natural disaster or other emergencies. in Government, Headlines, News
The Gainsborough Bath, the first and only hotel in the UK to offer its visitors the opportunity to access and experience Bath’s famed natural thermal waters in its incredible spa, has confirmed it will be welcoming guests from 1 July 2015.The opening marks YTL Hotels’ latest addition to its impressive international portfolio and is their first property in the UK.The hotel is a member of the prestigious The Leading Hotels of the World.Spa Village Bath at The Gainsborough Bath Spa is a new world-class exclusive spa in the city that extols all the natural virtues of the city’s healing thermal waters giving guests a majestic spa journey that will keep them coming back again and again.Following YTL Hotels international brand concept, Spa Village Bath has been conceptualised to honour the healing traditions of Bath.Since pre-Roman times people have flocked to mend their bodies in the thermal springs of Bath.The hotel’s private water reserve bubbles to the surface at 47 degrees centigrade, packed full of rich natural minerals, for the hotel’s guests to reap the benefits in this totally immersive experience coupled with the timeless venerated British use of aromatherapy, the healing culture will continue.Reviving the ancient practise of social bathing, The Gainsborough Bath Spa has created a one hour ‘Bath Circuit’.A ritualised self-guided tour of the thermal pools, saunas, steam room, ice alcove and elegant relaxation rooms, visitors will embark on a bathing journey akin to ancient Rome, concluding with a very special Water Ritual Ceremony.Three thermal pools lie in the heart of the spa set apart by Romanesque columns and beneath a glass atrium.The Aroma Bar provides guests with a plethora of lotions and potions from which they can blend their very own oils.An exclusive Spa Suite and two further spa rooms will be the only guest rooms in the UK to offer in-bath access to the thermal waters via a second tap, giving guests the extraordinary choice of bathing in thermal water.20 May 2015
The all business-class boutique airline La Compagnie has introduced flights between London (LTN) and New York (EWR) starting at £1100 per round-trip.The French startup company is wanting to revolutionise business-class air travel by offering luxury services at premium economy prices. Previously only offering flights between Paris and New York, co-founders Frantz Yvelin and Peter Luethi anticipate finding their competitive edge through low prices. Inflight features include 74 spacious lie-flat seats, délicieux French cuisine and exceptional personal service. With the loyalty programme, MyCompagnie, passengers earn points with every flight.
The Cyprus Medical Association (CyMA) has decided to call on its members not to join the national health scheme (Gesy), a decision which is widely seen to be critical to the scheme’s future.They said the plan “poses serious risks to the quality of health care and patient safety”.In a statement, they explained they had set out conditions under which they would participate on October 27 last year, but they said the overall response to their key demands was negative.The association’s main grievances are two: they want the flexibility of being able to enter into private practice within Gesy, and are calling for an increase in the budget due to concerns over remuneration.The government has said no to both demands.“CyMA remains committed to providing high-quality health services as well as protecting the medical profession and the dignity of physicians,” the statement said.The members of the association met on Thursday at 7.30pm and they reached their decision late in the evening.The association represents some 40 societies of physicians and medical scientists.The association of private hospitals, the oral and maxillofacial society, the association of private doctors, the vascular and endovascular surgery association, rheumatologists, intensivists, urologists, nuclear medicine physicians, ear, nose and throat (ENT) doctors, endocrinologists, paediatricians and gastroenterologists all decided not to join Gesy by last week. Cardiologists said its members would each decide individually.You May LikeLivestlyChip And Joanna’s $18M Mansion Is Perfect, But It’s The Backyard Everyone Is Talking AboutLivestlyUndoPopularEverythingColorado Mom Adopted Two Children, Months Later She Learned Who They Really ArePopularEverythingUndoGundry MD PrebioThrive Probiotic SupplementCardiologist: This Is What Happens To Your Body When You Eat GlutenGundry MD PrebioThrive Probiotic SupplementUndo Remand for pair in alleged property fraud (Updated)UndoPensioner dies after crash on Paphos-Polis roadUndoThree arrested in connection with hotel theftsUndoby Taboolaby Taboola