Itsy-bitsy update

I got an email from Chareyl (our agency adoption worker) today. She periodically sends out an email update to all WIAA waiting families within the Haiti program. It was mostly a little nuts and bolts type email about the current process and how things are going in Haiti.

The only change that really affects us is that IBESR is now requesting the second foreign fee to be paid to them just before referral (it used to be afterward). So, once they have our file ready and a child referral ready for us they will request that fee. Once the fee is paid they will issue the official referral. So, we will need to be ready with the money a little bit sooner, but not a huge change...more than that I know that when I get a call from Chareyl it won't be with info and a picture about our child, it will be to request our next payment. It will be interesting to see how much variation there is in the timeline between submitting that fee and actually getting the referral. I would think that knowing the referral is so close at hand will be a bit torturous, so I hope that they are fairly regular with how quickly that's actually issued. Right now it is so unknown when a referral will actually come that you can't just sit by the phone hoping it will ring...that may be more challenging not to do that once you know that your referral is imminent.

Stuff like this doesn't really change anything, but gets me thinking (and feeling). I wonder when it will be? I wonder...I wonder...I wonder...

Things can be both big and small.

I'm not concise with words, so if you don't want to read everything (this is my journal, you know...so it's therapeutic for me to get it all out) then at least scroll to the bottom at look at the photos!!

So! Two weeks ago we passed our one year mark since changing from adopting from Ethiopia to applying to adopt from Haiti. There is nothing important or ceremonious about this, but documenting time seems to be something we as humans like to do. When recognizing anniversaries of any kind I think people find an increased element of sentiment...around the anniversary of marriage, death, birth, or other big life event. We look back and reminisce, we look forward and imagine what we hope will be or perhaps think of what could have been.

While turning in adoption papers (again) may not be as life changing as a birth or death, it certainly marks the beginning of something that eventually will be that big. It's easy to think forward to what that date next year will hold.  Will we have seen her face and know a bit of her story? Will we have met and held her? Will we be nearing a time that we could be bringing her home? Then there is the sentiment of the holidays, which is clearly a factor to how I've felt lately. I'm wondering how much these things (anniversary of turning in adoption application and the holidays) has played into this feeling that I've had lately...a profound feeling that someone is missing. It's not like I don't already know that, but I have been feeling it lately.

I've heard other people talk about this feeling. I've experience it multiple times lately, but I can pin-point where I was twice when it happened: Once was when our family was at Christmas Village together. We were having a really nice time enjoying hot cocoa and looking at Christmas lights and displays together. It wasn't particularly busy, but I kept counting and re-counting the boys and kept wanting to look for a fourth child and had to keep reminding myself that we don't have a fourth child yet. It sounds like a simple mistake, but it felt more profound and urgent that that. The other time was when we were pulling out of our driveway and I checked to make sure we had everyone and stopped the car because I thought we left someone. I had to check a couple times and remind myself that there wasn't another head to count! So, it was more the feeling than anything else...but if you've experienced this you know how strange it feels.

So! With the context of added sentiment and this strange occurrence happening, perhaps it shouldn't have caught me off guard when opening a certain birthday gift this month sent me into another room in tears. Let me tell you about it. One week ago and we were enjoying a nice combined birthday celebration for myself and my sister-in-law (Katie) at my parents house. We were having a nice time and each opening nice gifts from our siblings and parents. Katie handed me a birthday gift from her and Matt and I opened it. 

I saw a stack of beautiful cards and immediately knew they were from Haiti. I continued to look and saw two photos of beautiful children. Katie began to explain that she had seen me posting about sponsoring education for a child through Haitian Roots. (She obviously also knows that we are waiting to adopt from Haiti) She wanted to buy me a gift that would help support the cause of educating children in Haiti and found a place that sold art work from children in Haiti. These children produce this art through a fantastic nonprofit organization called ACFFC that helps provide empowerment and education for children in Jacmel, Haiti! How fantastic is that?! I continued opening the gift and found the most LOVELY painted bowl (made perhaps from paper mache?)...it looked like something that would stop me in a store window anyway, but knowing that these children made it in Haiti made it even more precious.  There was also a beautiful yellow bird ornament. THEN, to really ramp up the sentiment, Katie asked the organization to send her a couple images of the children who make the art-work (she knew I'd love that) and she printed them to include with the gift. I seriously could not handle it. These beautiful children. The thoughtfulness Katie put into this gift. Haiti. This beautiful gift. I couldn't hold in the tears. It was just too much, but in a good way. Eventually I had to leave the room and pull myself together. 

Here are the beautiful hand painted cards - the young man who makes these is deaf and these provide him income to support himself in rural northern Haiti. The photos are of the children who made the bowl (you can see some they are working on in one of the photos) and the ornament...

Such a thoughtful birthday gift. It is perfect. Absolutely perfect. Thank you putting the effort into something like this, Katie & Matt. I love it. And I love that you knew I would.

I titled this post "things can be both big and small" because, an anniversary date is just a date...but it can also feel like something big. A little gift can be just a bowl, card and ornament...but it can also be something big - providing an income and education for someone and also filling my heart to overflowing. So yes, something can be both big and small. If in this post I had just written that it's been a year since we turned in our first adoption application for Haiti (with no other context) and that my brother and sister-in-law gave me this gift (insert photo)...it wouldn't have seemed like anything very big. But those have been huge to me this month. I suppose perspective really can determine size.

FAQ

Since I'm mailing out holiday cards tomorrow and I shared this blog in the card's text, I figured that I'd better throw an update of sorts up here (for the 2 or 3 people that decide to take a peek anyway)! ;)  I decided that since most people aren't going to want to wade through pages of posts, I'd just try a quick question/answer form of update here with the questions that I get asked the most:

Q: How long have you been waiting to adopt?

A: For a more thorough answer read my previous post here.  More concisely: on Dec. 12th it will have been one year since we turned in our application to adopt from Haiti through WIAA.  We originally started our adoption process (from Ethiopia) 3 years + 2 months ago with AGCI and that program eventually closed.

Q: How old will she be when you bring her home?

A: Likely around 2 years old.

Q: Do you know who your child is already?

A: No. We haven't received a referral of a child yet.  We are hoping that will happen sometime in 2016. 

Q: What does it mean when you talk about "referral"?

A: A centralized government authority (IBESR) in Haiti is the one who matches a child with a specific prospective adoptive family. Once they deem a child legally adoptable they issue the official referral.  We receive a picture of the child as well as any history available on the child.

Q: What happens after you get a referral?

A: After we receive our referral we review the information and submit an official acceptance for the match.  Then we travel to Haiti for a mandatory 2 week "socialization trip" where we will spend time with our child and be observed by a Haitian social worker.

Q: Once you've met your child, how long until you can bring her home?

A: This varies greatly, but my best guess is anywhere between 6 months to 1 year from the time we meet her until we get to bring her home.  We definitely will visit her as much as possible during that part of the wait.

Q: Why does this process take so LONG?

A: This is a very complicated question, with long multi-faceted answers.  Here is the simplified version of that, broken into four parts that I'm guessing that most reasons will fall under: 

1. Part of the reason it takes so long is that there are procedures in place to ensure that adoptions are completed ethically, that families are properly vetted and that children being placed are indeed in need of adoption.  That takes time.

2. Another part of the answer is simply government red tape and bureaucracy including sometimes unnecessary, frustrating hold-ups (sometimes on the Haitian side, and sometimes on the U.S. side of things).  Haiti is frequently tormented with social and political turmoil, which can periodically put the brakes on the processing of adoptions.

3. Also Haiti recently overhauled all their adoption laws and also became Hague ratified (joined the Hague convention which oversees the international adoption of children), so it takes time to change and implement all these new guidelines, and there are bound to be wrinkles to iron out when so many changes happen. 

4. Lastly, simply because it's Haiti. Things take time to process through our U.S. government with all modern conveniences.  Documents in Haiti are all hand written and documented (not typed or digitally archived), and people can be difficult to track down for interviews and signatures.

Q: Why Haiti?

A: I answer this question differently depending on my mood.  I usually answer in one of 4 ways...

1. Simply "because that is where we feel like our child is." 

2. We've always had an interest in adopting internationally (we decided this before we got officially engaged to be married) and we actually began paperwork to adopt from Haiti back in 2006-7 after we adopted Noah, but we ended up being offered another opportunity for IVF which worked and brought us Lincoln (and later Max from frozen embryos). When we began revisiting the idea of international adoption for our family, Haiti was grappling with the after affects of their big earthquake and it wasn't a good time to start the adoption process there. I began to feel led to pursue adoption from Africa and we began the process of adopting from Ethiopia.  When that fell through we felt strongly that we should pursue adoption from Haiti again.  And so here we are full circle pursuing an adoption from Haiti again!

3. Because there is great need there. Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. They were so even prior to the 2010 earthquake that devastated the country killing 100,00-200,000 people (estimates vary greatly) and decimated infrastructure and creating even more acute struggle with disease and abject poverty. Haiti has struggled to recover from this and disease and severe poverty are still very much a part of life in Haiti, and the number of children in need of homes has increased dramatically.

4. "Why NOT Haiti?" Every child everywhere deserves a home and a family. No child should live on the streets or in an institution, be forced into child slave labor (prevalent in Haiti, called restaveks), die from lack of care, or be left for greedy/evil people in the world to exploit them in various ways.

Q: Does it bother you when people ask how the adoption is going?

A: No! Thank you for caring about us and wanting to ask. We may not always have anything noteworthy or interesting to tell.  Or you may catch me on a day that I get weepy or want to vent, but as long as you're cool with not hearing much...or possibly hearing more than you wanted to - then always feel free to ask! (And if you're curious, but don't want to risk possible tears or taking on psychiatrist duties then you can always check this blog for updates too)

Q: I know someone who is interested in adopting. Would you be willing to answer some of their questions?

A: Of course! Our answers will be based on our own opinions and experiences obviously, but we are very open with sharing what we have experienced and know regarding adoption or infertility struggles/treatments. We have been very blessed by adoption and modern medicine and we enjoy being able to share our thoughts and feelings on those topics. Heaven knows that we've reached out to strangers we don't know during this roller coaster journey of international adoption.

Q: How can I help? Is there anything I can do?

A: This is such a thoughtful question to ask (thank you to those that have)! Mostly just keep us and our future child in your prayers (I pray daily that she is being fed, held, and kept safe). Other people you can pray for specifically are our agency's adoption worker Chareyl (who we have huge trust and respect for), our child's birth family and care takers, IBESR (that will be referring a specific child to us), and the people of Haiti in general. The only other thing I can think of is that if you ever find yourself with travel miles that you aren't going to use, we would gratefully accept donations of miles that we would use for the multiple trips we will be taking back and forth from Haiti.  We've been working on accruing and saving those too.

Q: Do you think adoption is the answer for Haiti's problems?

A: No. I don't. I do think that it is the answer for a child who needs a home and family now though. I believe lasting change for Haiti will come from Haitians. I also believe that to facilitate this, children need education. This is something that is difficult for most children to obtain in Haiti. The cost of providing education for one child is more than most entire families make altogether in a year. Because of this our family has chosen to provide an education for one child in Haiti who has an intact family to support them during their education and who will be staying in Haiti to someday provide for her own family and make a difference in her own community and country there. If this is something you are interested in, then I can wholeheartedly recommend Haitian Roots as a non-profit through whom you can sponsor a child or make a one time donation. For only $25/month (or $300/year) you can provide an education for a child in Haiti. This not only can change their life, but provide you and your family a deeply enriching experience as you are able to periodically communicate with the child you choose to sponsor. One-time donations are also gratefully accepted and can be done here online. The volunteers who run this organization have deep personal connections with Haiti and are doing much to ensure the continued success of their education sponsorship program, and of each child sponsored with them. 

Other random stuff:

This wasn't a deciding factor in why we chose to adopt from Haiti...but how wonderful and terrible is it that Haiti, who is in so much economic/social/political turmoil, is so close geographically to our own country? We love that we live close enough that we will be able to visit our child while we wait for her paperwork to clear, and that we can take her back to see where she came from later, and that this proximity will allow us to find ways to serve this country as a family. We love that our children participate in French immersion (one of the official languages in Haiti) and hope that this may provide some benefits that we don't yet see.

Some days I long to see our little girl's face and to get her home, other days it feels like it's gone on so long that it's become somewhat abstract.  I can only imagine what it must feel like to our kids.

3 years!

When someone asks me how long we've been waiting to adopt I never know what to say.  How long since our paperwork actually made it to Haiti? (7 weeks) How long since we finished our dossier for our Haitian adoption?  (4 months) How long since our home study was completed for ourHaitian adoption? (7 months) How long since the beginning of our Haitian adoption process? (10 months)...or do they mean including our prior failed adoption from Ethiopia? The answer to that question would be 3 years.  Three years ago today actually.  Three years ago today we turned in our initial application to AGCI to adopt from Ethiopia.  We were so excited, a tiny bit naive, and very hopeful.

The way I look at it is that there are likely reasons that I don't know or understand why we felt led to adopt from Ethiopia when we did, just for it to result in all that lost time and money. That being said, one thing that I do believe is this: the course things took led us to adopting from Haiti and at this time because there is a child there that is meant for our family at this time. I also believe that a lot of the things we went through during that 2+ years pursuing our Ethiopian adoption helped shape us and prepare us for this adoption. Things we learned, people we met and have communicated with, people we relied on in our lives here when things were rough, adoption stories we've become familiar with, familiarity with the unpredictable nature of the international adoption process, our concern to do things properly instead of just quickly...all these things weave together to bring us to where we are (and who we are) today. So, even though everything we went through with our Ethiopian adoption process isn't technically related to our current Haitian adoption, I certainly still consider it part of our adoption journey and part of the story of how we found our way to our daughter. In fact it feels inseparably interwoven.

So! If you ask me today how long we've been waiting to adopt our daughter I will say 3 years! And while another day I may not be feeling quite as ok with the wait, today I'm feeling faithful in His timing and encouraged knowing that it will happen someday and that it will all be worth it!

On that note! Let me share something that we participated in today that was really great to be a part of! We supported a fundraising effort by Haitian Roots to raise money to educate children in Haiti who could not otherwise afford an education. A couple close friends and several of my family members supported my "team" effort to spread this fundraising effort by donating money or purchasing t-shirts to wear while running or walking on October 3rd (today)! I named our team "Bay Espwa" and it means "Give Hope" in Haitian Kreyòl.

While adoption is obviously close to my heart, and I believe that every child deserves a home and family, I do also feel very passionate that the way to combat severe poverty (which is ultimately the cause of a great number of children who are in need of adoption) is through education of the people that live there. Education that will empower children to someday acquire jobs to provide for themselves and their family, but also to contribute to bettering their community and their country. Naturally, this is closer to our hearts because the effort is taking place in the country of our future daughter's birth. By adopting a child from Haiti we feel like we are in essence adopting another country into our hearts also.  Because of that it means a lot to me for so many of those people that we love to support this effort - it feels like them also rallying around us in our preparations to welcome this little girl into our family someday.

Here is a photo of my family in our "Running for Haiti" t-shirts:

While the Running for Haiti fundraiser had nothing to do with adoption, we are obviously waiting to adopt a child from this country. So, doing a little something today that we hope can be a drop in something larger that will help benefit the country of her birth...well, it seemed like the PERFECT way to "celebrate" our 3 year milestone since starting our adoption journey.

Now here's to hoping that it isn't another 3 years before we get her home.

We are in IBESR!!!

We got an email from Chareyl today congratulating us on our papers arriving in IBESR (this is the division of government in Haiti that will eventually give us an official referral of our child).  We still have a long way to go, but this is a HUGE concrete step toward our little girl!  Feeling pretty over the moon right now!!!

Here's a screen shot of my phone showing a receipt that says when our dossier was received and accepted by IBESR:

OUR PAPERS ARE IN HAITI!

I just heard from Chareyl today that our dossier was sent to Haiti a couple weeks ago!  It arrived one week ago today, was reviewed by a paralegal hired by our agency and then was submitted for the legalization process last Thursday (the 20th)!

It generally takes 2-3 weeks to complete the legalization process in Haiti before our papers can officially submitted to IBESR (they are the government agency that will eventually issue an official referral of our child to us).

This is a really big step for us and I'm very excited!  Woot woot!

Maybe it's the rain...

The last couple of weeks I've particularly had baby girl on my mind.

Sometimes I just wonder if she's born yet, if she's being fed or held, if she's safe.

Sometimes I wonder if her mother is still carrying her and if something horrible (disease, death or other tragedy) is yet to happen or if her mother already anguishes knowing the upcoming decision is she's going to be faced with due to circumstance.  I worry if her mother has support.  I worry if SHE has food and if SHE is safe.

Sometimes I feel awful that the blessing and joy that will come into our life has to be preceded by trauma and heartbreak for our child and her first family.

Sometimes I wish that I could just see what was happening with her and her family right now, and other times I think that it may be best that I can't.

Sometimes I feel ashamed at the privilege and excess that I enjoy, and other times I'm grateful that I have it to share.

I have been able to see pictures of someone we know that is in Haiti now visiting their daughter while they wait for her adoption paperwork to process in Haiti.  She is a lovely little girl.  I can't imagine how difficult it must be each time they have to leave her there now that they have held, cared for and loved on that sweet little person.  Looking at the pictures has made me pine a bit more for some progress in our journey.  To be a little closer to holding our little girl.  We surely have at least another year before we'll see our daughter's face, possibly 2 years until we bring her home...but we've already been actively on this journey for nearly 3 years now.  Sometimes it just feels too long.  Other times it's just how it is.

I've read lots of adoptive parents in situations like ours write down similar aching that they've had while waiting for their child, only to go back later once they have their child and realize what was going on in their child's life when they were having those stirrings in their heart.  I wonder if maybe this is one of those things.  Maybe she was recently born into difficult circumstances.  Maybe trauma is occurring in her family that will result in her soon being brought to an orphanage.  Maybe I'll know someday, and maybe I won't.

...or maybe it's just the rain today.