Caroline Rose's Story
By Michael & Joanne O
My husband and I were blessed to adopt a baby boy domestically in 1998. A few years later we when we wanted to expand our family we discovered the domestic waiting list had grown and some of the conditions had changed. We were soon introduced to the WHFC agency and our journey began.
We completed the necessary pre-adoption paperwork and waited in anticipation. Our U.S. representative from WHFC was Marta Velez. She guided us through the process and was a great resource for our many questions from beginning to end.
We were ecstatic to receive the referral of our beautiful daughter in October, 2004. There are no words to describe how happy we were. We all traveled to Cali, Colombia and were so excited to see our baby girl for the first time. My son loved his baby sister instantly, and we were so glad that we made the decision to take him out of school and bring him with us. We had to stay in Colombia for about 3 weeks while the legalization papers were completed. Our stay there was a wonderful bonding experience for our family. The WHFC staff made sure that we were well taken care of during our stay, and the Colombian WHFC representatives (Trudy Bueno in Cali and Maria Consuelos in Bogota) went above and beyond the call of duty for us. We were actually sad to leave when the time came, and we will never forget our precious time in our little girl’s birth country. We look forward to returning to Cali with her when she is older.
We just celebrated our precious little girl’s 3rd birthday. She is very sweet and never stops smiling. She has been a true gift from God, and we are thankful every day for our wonderful family.
We hope the WHFC agency continues their great work bringing families together.