Meeting Savannah

As we rushed into the Marriott Hotel in Guatemala City, we found an friendly staff that spoke English very well. We were able to check in very quickly and made our way to our room to freshen up to meet Savannah and the foster mother.

Before we knew it, the half hour we had was up and we were heading downstairs to meet them before retiring to the Marriott's "Baby Room" on the 3rd floor. The "Baby Room" was a nice feature of the Marriott. They had converted two rooms on the floor into a giant suite containing a bath/changing area, a microwave and bottle cleaning items, spare food and snacks left behind by families, Internet access, and a lot of highchairs comfy couches and toys. It was very nice to be able to head to the room to gain a little more space and privacy when we met the foster mother and Savannah.

When we arrived in the lobby, we were surprised to see our translator and the foster mother already sitting there (we had been warned that they are often several hours late!). Savannah was sitting on the foster mother's lap, acting very well behaved and in good spirts. Lori felt a flood of emotions hugging the foster mother and thanking her for taking such good care of Savannah. The pictures we received of Savannah during the adoption process did not do her justice, she was very beautiful. We quickly headed upstairs to the baby room.

Meeting the foster mother was a wonderful oppurtunity. We felt her warmth and love for Savannah and learned some things about her patterns and her likes and dislikes. It was a wonderful oppurtunity. We let the foster mother hold Savannah until she was ready to let us hold her. After about a half hour of talking and learning she placed Savannah in my arms. What a feeling of joy to meet her. Once we had done that, we took some pictures, paid for the foster mother's cab ride and provided her with some humble gifts as a thank you for being a great provider for Savannah. You could tell Savannah was in a loving home while she waited for us to come and get her.

Once they left, we retired back to our room. I called the wonderful concierge to place an order with the local drug store for Savannah's formula, baby cereal and some bottled water. We hung out while we waited and eventually decided to take a trip downstairs to find something to eat in one of the three restaurants. We eventually decided on the Champions Sports Bar, which was themed much like your typical American sports bar, with typical American sports bar food....yeah brave choice! It was here we discovered that Savannah enjoyed Cheerios, which was good considering we needed some sort of food to be able to calm her when she was feeling restless.

The food at Champions was OK, we ate what we could and retired to our room to spend some time with Savannah and get some rest for our big trip to the Embassy early in the morning. Fortunately, the first night was uneventful for Savannah, she slept very well. I had a slight battle with the altitude as I ended up feeling deydrated. I kept drinking water about every 2 hours or so, but did get plenty of rest. Fortunately the television was very good in the hotel and gave us plenty of choices to fall asleep to. There was a raw CBS feed (no local commercials) and several South American TV channels (AXN, Sony) that would show American TV shows with Spanish subtitles. This provided plenty of entertaining options.