First Visit

Our tickets are booked and plans are set to go to Haiti in the middle of January for about 3 days. We'll get a chance to meet David!, see the orphanage, and have a mini-tour of the area.

David update

We just got an e-mail letting us know that as of this week, David can now stand up by himself in the crib. Woo hoo, way to go David!

I love hearing snippets of information like this. But it also makes it a lot harder not to be there with him. We're planning a trip for mid-January to go to Haiti and meet him. We wish we could go there tomorrow, but practically we know that it makes more sense to wait. We're definitely looking forward to planning the trip!

We have entered IBESR

Our dossier is now in the hands of IBESR.

Here's a more detailed description of the steps to come (taken from this website). We're through the first two parts and are onto the third part.

Minister of Foreign Affairs (MFA) (2-4 weeks)
First Legalization (1st Legal). This is where all of the papers are authenticated.

File prepared for IBESR (Concurrent with MFA) (1-4 weeks)
When the paperwork is at Foreign Affairs, your lawyer must prepare your file for IBESR. IBESR requires that the paperwork be in a certain order. The social history and psychological examination required by IBESR for your child must be made during this period. It involves putting the child's social information into a home study format with your home study information.

IBESR (2-6 months)
Your child's paperwork is put together with your documents and the file is then presented to IBESR (Haiti's Social Service Department) where a social worker will look over all of your documents and decide whether to approve your adoption request.The director of IBESR, the IBESR lawyer, the head of adoption services at IBESR, and the IBESR social worker must all sign off on your dossier. This is four stages of approval.

Parquet (2-12 weeks)
This step involves one person(?) releasing the child(ren)'s file(s). Parquet is the head commissioner. He is intertwined with court. He asks all of the birth parents to come for interviews to make sure that they understand that there children are being adopted. Apparently there was some fraudulent activity going on and he wants to protect the birth parents interests. i.e. make sure they are in agreement.

Civil Court Legalization (2-8 weeks)
The adoption is finalized. After this point, the children are legally yours. (2nd Legal)

Minister of Interior Affairs (MOI)/Haitian Immigration (2-14 weeks)
The file is submitted into the passport process. The passports are printed in the adopting parents last name.

DHS Processing (U.S. Parents) (1-3 weeks)
I-600 is filed by adopting parents. File is reviewed and approved by DHS.

DNA Testing (0-6 weeks)
May or may not be necessary. Depends on DHS' opinion.

Consulate/Visa Appointment (1 week lead time)
Child receives visa in preparation for travel to their new home

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Total Time: 19 week - 76 weeks (~5- 19 months)

Cry of the Orphans Week

A year ago, Jay and I tuned into some radio broadcasts during 'Cry of the Orphan' week. What a life-changing week that was for us! From those broadcasts, Jay and I first began to seriously discuss adoption as a possibility in our lives.

Well, its that time of year again and Family Life Ministries has teamed up with some other organizations to dedicate this week of broadcasts to the Cry of the Orphan. If you want to listen to these broadcasts, they will be on the radio, downloadable from online, or available as Podcasts. Here's a link for more info.

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Here's a copy of the e-mail I received last week:

Today there are more than 143 million orphans in the world. That's approximately one-half of the population of the U.S.! Most of these children live in poverty, are malnourished and experience daily rejection. For this reason, FamilyLife™, Focus on the Family®, and Shaohannah's Hope along with Crown Financial Ministries are joining hands and voices with more than 75 orphan care providers, church-based orphan ministries, and adoption agencies to plead the cause of orphans in need. But we can't do it alone. No matter who you are, where you live or what you do, you can make a difference. From praying for orphans, to going on mission trips, from mentoring a child, to adopting one (or more), there is a place for everyone because you are God's plan for the orphan. To learn more, listen to the special radio broadcasts during "Cry of the Orphan" week on “FamilyLife Today," “Focus on the Family," and "Money Matters" Nov. 12-16, and visit cryoftheorphan.org. Join us as we boldly endeavor to answer God's call.

Introducing....

The referral came (and has been accepted!).

We'd like to introduce you to David!

Our caseworker called us Thursday night to let us know that she had received some pictures and David's medical record. She dropped them off to us on Friday. The medical record was still in French (the English version is coming next week), but thanks to numerous online translators we were able to figure most of it out.

David is 6 months old (born May 2, 2007) and is a healthy little guy who at 4 months olds weighed 14 pounds (more than Josh was at that age) and was 25 inches.

We accepted the referral and now wait some more. This time we're waiting on the Haitian government. Depending on how quickly their adoption offices are moving, David could be here with us anywhere from a few months from now to a year or more. Prayers are greatly appreciated! Our hope is to visit David in Haiti within the next few weeks, but we're waiting to hear back from our agency and the orphanage to see if they'd rather we get through the first few government steps before visiting.

Here are some more pictures. These are from the end of August, so he's about 4 months old at the time. The woman in the pictures is David's birth mom, Gerda. Jay and I were pretty choked up looking at her and realizing how difficult this whole situation is. There are definitely a lot of emotions involved from every angle. We also know that these pictures are going to be like gold to David as he grows up.

We'll keep you updated as we find out more.

Grants

Several months ago, Jay and I got into grant application mode. Basically, we researched adoption grants and then applied for everything and anything we found that seemed to even remotely apply to us.

We're happy to announce that a few weeks ago we received a $3000 grant and today we got a phone call that we received a $2500 matching grant. Woohoo!!

News from the agency's Haitian visit

Lots more info! The people from our agency who visited Haiti and the orphanage 2 weeks ago are back and gave us some updates. Every little bit of info we receive about Haiti, the orphanage, etc. makes the finalized adoption just seem closer.

Some cool news:

• According to the orphanage's attorney, our dossier is in perfect order (Definitely nice to hear after the work that went into it!)
• Talks and processes for our adoption have been going on the past few months even though we haven't been aware of it :-)
  
• There is a little boy that had bloodwork done two weeks ago. The assumption is that he'll be referred to us :-) We've been told not to be in 'expectation mode' yet for this specific child, because there are always lots of unknowns, but it sure is nice to have an idea that he could be the one.
  

Here are some quotes from the e-mail we received. Its eye-opening to the differences of life here versus there.

"On our way to the hotel they gave us a little sight seeing tour around downtown PAP. People are always outside socializing, selling, and buying. There is virtually no infrastructure in Haiti - most have no power at all and those who do may only get it for an hour or two a week unless you have a $10,000 generator/inverter set-up (only the wealthy have this.) There is also no public water so everyone has to get it from streams (dirty) or buy it from the water truck."

"The orphanage is a small house with a foyer which is the play room, a dining area with a child sized table and two long benches, a bedroom with a row of bunks and a couple of cribs, a store room, bathroom, and kitchen. There is no power or running water. The food is cooked on a camp style stove and water is purchased in big "culligan man" style bottles. A refrigerator and stove were donated but there is not power to operate them. We will be doing a fundraising effort to help purchase a generator (~$7,000). Nothing is cheaper in Haiti - almost nothing is made there so things are imported from the US or other countries. Land is expensive, food is expensive, gas is expensive, everything is expensive. I think this is shocking to most people as we tend to assume the US dollar would go far in a poor country - not so here. "

"The children were all delightful each with their own personalities and senses of humor. At first they just took us in but when the playtime started (Rachel can start an instant party by pulling out the plastic sunglasses) they were such a hoot. They wanted us to hold them and play games with them and loved seeing their faces in the digital camera. There are three caretakers for the children who do all the cooking, cleaning, laundry by hand, and child minding. We dined with the children and were amazed at how good rice and beans (and I think eggplant) could be and at how much the children eat. Little ones eat a big plateful and they don't leave a morsel on their plates."

"The office [I'm assuming government office] is hard to describe - hotter than heck, people everywhere, people behind old desks with manual typewriters, and yes, a storage closet full of dossiers. I did see one man on a lap top though. It appears that they [the heads of the orphanage] have good relationships with the officials but everything seems to take a long time here - nothing is logistically easy."

"On our last day we returned to [the orphanage] where [the director] was already there visiting with birth parents. We sat around on little toddler chairs and talked about their lives - and family planning. It is hard to put yourself in other people's shoes. It was very hard for me to accept the reality that these children have families who love them but who are so desperate that they want to relinquish them in the hopes that they will have a better life and that it will lessen their burden such that they too may have a better life. You can't help but want to scream at the injustice of their lives."