Our trip

What an amazing past week! Here's the short version - although, I guess it doesn't seem that short now that I typed it :-)

We couldn't have asked for better in terms of air travel. We were pretty freaked out by the stories we'd heard of the Port-au-Prince airport, but the airport was awfully tame - the Miami airport was probably scarier! It definitely helped that we were met in the baggage claim by Willem, the head of Mountaintop Ministries. Willem seems to know everyone, and was able to speed us through customs, etc. We stayed at the Mountaintop Ministries guest house (our orphanage is loosely associated with this ministry), which was about 13 miles from the airport. Well, 13 miles through the mountains equals over an hour and a half of driving! So, unfortunately, it was too late by the time we got there to go and see David that day. Instead, we got a chance to talk to Willem and Rachel (the director of the orphanage) about the adoption process and Haiti in general. It was so eyeopening!

After talking with them, all of our fears of the adoption possibly falling through, were completely erased. Since our paperwork got filed with the Haitian govt. in October 2007, their assumption is that David will be able to come home with us in October 2008. Of course, nothing is definite, and it may go longer than that too. Our prayers though are still that David comes home this summer (nothing is impossible for God!). Rachel & Willem have a lot of contacts in the various offices that our paperwork will go through, and they appear to be well known and respected by the people who work there. Connections seem to be so important in Haiti and our hope is that their connections will keep things moving along smoothly. Rachel actually took us to IBESR, the place where our papers are at currently, and introduced us to the director who will eventually sign off on our papers. Our assumption is that not every adoptive couple gets to meet the director, so we were pretty amazed to do so.

Coincidentally, another adoptive couple was also visiting the orphanage at the same time as us. David has 3 older sisters also in the orphanage and this couple is adopting 2 of the girls. We were very excited to get to meet them as we'd all like to stay in contact as they kids grow up. The other sister is placed with a family in Indiana that are not too far from us. We're hoping that we'll get to meet them one of these days too.

Thursday morning we woke up and headed for the orphanage! David is adorable!!! All smiles and a very happy little guy. One of the coolest parts of this week was how easy it was for Jay and I to truly feel like he's our son. All of the kids at the orphanage referred to us as Davidson's mama and papa, and it just fit - not awkward in the least. We were able to spend all of Thursday, Friday, and then Saturday morning with him. Rachel took us all around the Port-au-Prince area and David would come with us. For an 8-month old, I have never seen such contentment just sitting in a lap or being carried around for such long periods. The entire time we were there he cried for 2 times (once when he bumped his head and once when we had to pause him during lunch). The rest of the time he was so smiley. He's able to scoot around quite well, although the tiled floors cause him to slip around. :-) For the most part, he's quiet, but still does his fair share of babbling and other baby noises. Developmentally and health wise, he seems to be right where he should be.

On Friday Willem took Jay and I to the village that Mountaintop Ministries works with. The work that they do there is incredible, and it was awesome to hear and see the drastic change that has come to the village through Mountaintop's involvement. They now have clean water, which has removed so many sicknesses and enabled farming, all of the kids have the chance to go to school, there's an available medical clinic, and the 5 voodoo temples that used to reside there have all left. It was clear that the people of the village deeply respected Willem. Basically they went from being a poverty-stricken village to one of the wealthiest villages in Haiti.

Also on Friday, we met David's birth mother. I had foreshadowed this being awkward, but it wasn't. Although I definitely wished we spoke creole so that we could have spoken to her directly rather than through Rachel translating. Rachel & Willem had told us what a good woman she is, and we were able to see that first hand. We got to hear a lot of her story, and share with her about who we are. David is the youngest of 6 children. The two oldest live with their mom and the 4 youngest are at Rachel's orphanage. From the U.S. perspective, it seems like this is such a sad situation, but that's not how its viewed in Haiti. His mom was very happy to have the chance to have her children adopted. Rachel told us that no one cries about adoption (the birthmoms or the kids); instead, they see this as a positive thing. That was and still is very difficult for me to grasp, and I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to meet her and take many pictures and videos of her and David together.

On Saturday we got to spend the morning with David and then left for the airport around noon. It was tough leaving him, but at the same time seeing the orphanage and how much love and care is there, makes having him there much easier than what I had felt over the past few months. Right now the thought is that I may go down with some of the other adoptive mom's sometime in April or May. Jay and I know that there's no way we're going to make it until October without seeing David!

Click here for pictures from our visit and travels around Haiti.

Back home

Just a quick update that we made it back home today. We had a fantastic trip! I'll post more soon, but we're exhausted!

So for now here's some pics to hold you over :-)

We're on our way to meet David

In less than 36 hours, we'll have David in our arms. My emotions are all over the place! What will it be like to meet our son who according to the law is not yet our son? What will it be like to leave after having spent several days with him, not knowing when we'll see him next? Will there be an immediate connection? Will David have any understanding of who we are? What will this little boy who we've been praying for for months be like? Are we going to get lost in what we've heard is a chaotic Port-au-Prince airport?! I'm so curious to see the orphanage, meet the missionaries and workers, experience Haiti, etc. I guess my feelings can best be summed up as lots of excitement mixed with a whole bunch of nervousness.

Our bags are pretty much packed and when Jay gets home from work today we're heading off. Josh is staying with Jay's parents, so we'll head there first. This will be the longest we've ever been away from him -- lots of firsts for all of us this week! Then off to my parent's house where they'll drive us to the airport early tomorrow morning.

We'll be back in a few days with pictures and stories!