The Andersons:
Chapter 9
After sending the photos to Kelly Hubbard to forward to the Andersons, Denise sent an Instant Message to Kelly. She wrote in the Instant Message that in her absence, Rick Marco was the “Acting Director” of the agency. Any issues were to be passed along to him.
Kelly Hubbard passed the information along to Andrew and Gina. This meant they would have to be dealing with the illustrious Acting Agency Director Mr. Marco.
Andrew called Marco, Marco & Bailey and spoke with Rick Marco’s secretary. He asked her if Mr. Marco were truly BBAS’s Acting Director. She answered, “No, he is not.”
Mr. Marco was not in to take that call, but he called Andrew back. He confirmed what Denise had said. If there were any questions they all had to be directed to him, not Denise.
On May 20, Andrew emailed Kelly Carter-Hubbard thanking her for Audrey’s photos:
Did you contact Denise to let her know to call or E-mail me. I prefer the E-mail. I have reason to believe that Denise is in Guat. If so, tell her to escort that Attorney to PGN and fix our two previos. They are simple mistakes that they made. So they should not be hard to fix!!!!!.
I’ll be waiting for a reply.
Kelly responded continuing the charade of by signing her email “Kelly Carter.” She confirmed her sister-in-law was in Guatemala. She said she had told Denise Andrew had emailed and called. She claimed there would be more updates when Denise was home on May 28.
Andrew sent the following email to Kelly on May 23, ignoring Denise and Rick Marco’s advice to direct questions to Rick Marco.
Subject: our case
Date: 5/23/2004 9:12:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: The Andersons
To: kcarter@bbas.org
Kelly,
I am writing this at 8:25 PM on May 23 so you will be able to receive this on Monday morning. We are asking for you to find out the status of our case by 5:00 o’clock today. We do not want to wait for Denise until the 28th. That is not fair to us considering that we have not had an update from your agency for weeks.
We have e-mailed Denise and we know that she can receive them in Guatemala. There is access to the internet at the Marriot. This is what we know and we want updated as to what is going on.
Our case was kicked out on the 4th of May with two previos. As of the 12th of May it was still in PGN waiting on someone to pick it up. The 14th of May it was signed out of PGN. As of May 21st it was not in PGN. Now we look at it two different ways.
1. Could it have been picked up on the 14th with an approval? (probably not)
2. It was kicked out the 4th, picked up on the 14th and still not put back in.
If #2 is true, then our case has again been out for 2 and a half weeks and the PGN reviewer said that they were easily remedied previous. This is not acceptable. If this is true, then our case for the month of May has been in PGN for 1 day. This PGN in and out game has been going on for 10 months now and it is time to be over.
Denise has been in Guatemala all of this time and she couldn’t tell you about our case?
We have noticed the new format on Building Blocks Guatemala adoption site. How deceiving that is. It says that Guatemalan adoptions are going strong and the Executive Director makes monthly visits to make sure the adoptions are moving in the right time frame. Since when is 10 and a half months in PGN the right time frame? She might want to change that web-site.
Thank goodness for the person helping us in Guatemala or we wouldn’t know anything. The sad thing is we shouldn’t have had to contact this person had we been kept informed of what was going on and it had been the truth.
Kelly, I know that this is not your fault, but someone has to be accountable for this adoption. We know enough about Guatemalan adoption to see what some of the problems are that delay cases. Our case has had none of these problems. Other than the Hague and that only held it up a couple of months. It has been the attorney and Denise not doing their jobs.
Cases are flying out of PGN now. We watch people’s time frames and there is no one that even comes close to ours with all of the kick-outs and taking forever to fix the stupid mistakes that are made. Please find out either from Denise or our attorney where our case stands as of Monday the 24th of May. And let us know by 5:00 o’clock today.
These pictures Denise keeps sending us are just breaking Gina’s heart. She is a mess everyday. There are so many people that keep asking what in the word is going on with the adoption? It has come to the point it is embarrassing that it has taken so long.
Waiting for a reply:
Andrew Anderson
Kelly, like her high-achieving co-worker Wendy Stamper, forwarded on the email to Denise. Andrew was right; there was email access in Guatemala, for Denise herself responded and cc’ed the email to Rick Marco and Kelly. Andrew Anderson got his reply like he demanded, but by 10 p.m. instead of 5 p.m. Note the cropped tone of the email. She was angry! They’d had her!
Subj: Note
Date: 5/23/2004 10:51:53 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: BBAdoption
To:
Cc: RMarco@marcomarcobailey.com, Kelly@bbadoption.orgGina and Andrew:
Please note we have received all emails. Please return Mr. Marco’s calls and he would be more then happy to update you on your case in my absence via phone. He has been trying to call you for the last week.
Thank you
Denise
They needed to be MARCO-IZED! Denise couldn’t handle the heat and scurried to her bestest pal Ricky Marco. She was lying about Mr. Marco trying to call them.
Here is Andrew’s response, giving it right back.
Subj: No response
Date: 5/24/2004 2:14:49 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From:
To: BBAdoption
Denise, Kelly or who ever wants to give us the time of day!
Received your e-mail about contacting Mr. Marco. Mr. Marco has not been trying to get ahold of us. We have caller ID, an answering machine and voice mail on both of our cell phones. They only time that we heard from him was last Tuesday the 18th when Kelly told me to call him.
I called him back and he was with a client. I told his secretary to have him call me back. While I was on my cell phone with Kelly he left a me a voice message saying that if we needed him for anything we would be available. He said nothing about having information on our case. We have not heard from him since.
After your e-mail today, we called him at 10:30 this morning. Secretary said he was with a client and he would call us back. We called again at 1:30. Mr. Marco is unable to talk to us the rest of today and won’t be able to talk to us again tomorrow.
So here we are back to square one as always.
Denise, what is going on with our case? We are not playing phone tag with an attorney that can’t take 3 minutes out of his busy day to inform us of OUR BABY’S CASE. Since you are in Guatemala and know what is going on then you need to let us know something.
This is getting way out of control. All we want is our baby!!!!!
Please Respond
Andrew and Gina
Denise responded in a typical snippy one-sentence, cc’ed once again to Rick Marco and Kelly. She did answer the one question he had: “Your case is in PGN and a resolution should be made in 15 days.” Exactly like the curt response she had sent us from Valerie Kamenov about Anguel’s status.
Unlike our case, though, it was another lie. Their case was not in PGN. It didn’t matter, for they were nearly finished dealing directly with Denise Hubbard. They were officially Rick Marco’s problem to sort out. Unfortunately for BBAS, they were running out to time to help the Andersons.
Andrew called Rick Marco and spoke with him on Thursday May 27. Andrew asked Rick if he’d attempted to call them. Rick said he hadn’t. Andrew expressed his displeasure at the pace Audrey’s adoption was going. The lies, the delays, the dismay at their case, the lack of progress being made.
Rick surprised Andrew by saying that he would personally travel to Guatemala to see how their case was progressing. He would travel that weekend — Memorial Day weekend — and report back to them. He promised to get their case into PGN on Monday, May 31st — Memorial Day. Would Andrew like to accompany him?
Andrew declined but smelt a huge one. Richard Marco was really going to travel down to Guatemala to handle their case on Memorial Day. Yeah, right. Another trip to a foreign land where Denise was screwing up her adoption program?
After their conversation, Andrew, using his mother’s email account and computer as he had been doing for the duration of the adoption, emailed him. He did it to be nice, but he was seething. Make no mistake. Andrew was not lying when he said they’d documented what had happened with their adoption.
Subj: Our case
Date: 5/27/2004 8:50:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: The Andersons
To: RMarco@marcomarcobailey.com
Mr. Marco,
I have given a lot of thought to our conversation about the adoption. I just want to make sure we are 100% clear on our intentions. Our only priority at this time is to get our baby home, and we appreciate all your efforts in helping us get this done.
Once we have the baby home, we fully intend to address the way our case has been handled. We understand that in any adoption case there will be unforeseen issues, and red tape that can slow the process. Our case has not been handled in a professional manner. On several occasions we have been told we were in PGN and we were not. From January 27th 2004 to May 27th we were in PGN for 2 days. I don’t feel we have gotten anyone’s best effort.
If by addressing this we keep one future Mom and Dad from going through the heartache and grief we have been through, it will be worth every bit of time, effort and expense. We have taken advice from our parents when we started this process and kept every e-mail and conversation well documented. To this day when we sit down and go through it we find it hard to believe, but to start to address it now would only take away from our focus on getting our baby home.
Thank you for your time,
Andrew and Gina Anderson
Vickie was still in email contact with the Internet Source who had helped them before – and other Guatemalan adoptive families. The Source gave them the best advice out of anybody: contact Rudy Rivera.