Let's start over...from scratch

It’s bright and early Saturday morning in Panama; I am just sitting on the couch with Layton and watching him as he fighting to stay awake lying on a big pillow next to my side. It’s the peaceful calm of the morning where everything is quiet, the sun is shining and it’s my time to relax and regain my thoughts, and to go over the events of this past week, or at least try and forget them…

Friday morning came about and we had a nervous anxiousness about calling the DNA lab. It has been over three days and we were promised that the results should be completed ready to send to the Canadian Consulate. Could this be the start of getting out of Panama with Layton? This is what we had so desperately hoped for. When I spoke to the DNA lab on Tuesday they said that it would be at least three days, and they would have known if there was anything wrong with the sample already to everything was looking good…. so we had thought, and so we had been told.

I called the DDC Diagnostic’s lab in Toronto at around 10am their time, I spoke to the same receptionist that I had always spoken to over the last week, when I asked her about the sample and explained I just wanted to make sure that everything was still looking good I was shocked by the dead silence on the other end of the line. She proceeded to explain to me that because the representative from the consulate had not written the names of the persons the samples were from on each separate paper envelop that the chain of command was broken and the samples were void and could not be used. She then proceeded to tell me they found this out the day before and let the consulate know but had not informed us as to what was going on. My heart sank so far down that I think I felt it hit the floor…. what could I say, all that my body could do is form tears that rolled down my face wanting so bad for this nightmare of a process to be over. She explained she was sorry, little help this did, and then told me they had already sent out another test for us to perform and if we were lucky we would get it by next week. Great, another week of waiting and wondering if we were ever going to get home.

It’s hard to explain what Daniel and I are feeling, lost, desperate, held hostage, alone, confused, angry…the list is endless as to all the emotions we are having every single day and each day that we have no answers is when we feel a little more damaged from these turn of events and I don’t know how quickly these wounds will heal anymore.

We spent the entire day yesterday making panicked phone calls to consulate members, the ambassador, the hospital, anyone we could think of that could be of any help to us and pleaded our cases to as many people as possible. We didn’t get very far, but we do have another meeting with the Canadian consulate on Monday to see what we can do and possible next steps.  We find people are sympathetic to our cause, but really don’t want to step in and offer any help, even when I tell them about my sister who happened to pass away two days after we arrived in Panama.

I don’t know if this is all just a run of bad luck, or is our government really this messed up that process’s don’t work, and people just don’t understand how the system is supposed to work for the people they are put in place to support and to help. We have had a whole new outlook on anything government related, the CIC, Passport Canada, the Canadian Consulate etc. We had thought initially that Panama would be our biggest hurdle in this surrogacy procedure and we had never thought that our own Country would be the barrier that is preventing us to return home.

Deflated and tired, I think that sums it up for how we are feeling at the moment. We aren’t letting our emotions show around Layton, this situation is not his fault and nor would we change any of it. Our Layton has already grabbed a hold of our hearts in a way we can’t comprehend and even though we are struggling every single day we are down here we would go through it all again to have him in our lives. We desperately hope next week brings us better news; we just cant bare to have any more delays or bad news come our way….