Today

Exactly 1 year and 5 months ago today we turned in our application to adopt from Haiti, changing from Ethiopia.

It was 3 years, 7 months, 1 week, and 2 days ago that we excitedly turned in our papers to begin our adoption journey (thinking that would be from Ethiopia at that time).

Yes, this has gone on a long time.

Yes, we still have a long way to go.

Yes, someday it will definitely be worth it.

Mother's Day

The day before yesterday was Mother's Day.

I had a nice day.  Mark and the boys let me sleep in and made me breakfast.  When the smoke alarms went off like they always do when cooking bacon - all 3 boys jumped in bed with me and gave me cuddles and then gave me cards they made.  We visited Mark's parents and mine.  And Mark made me a delicious dinner of salmon, brown rice/quinoa, green beans and an amazing salad (how lucky am I?).  I feel beyond blessed as I think of my own mother and the woman who raised my wonderful husband...and as I looked at the three amazing little people that I've been blessed to have call me Mom.

And yet...there is always that twinge of pain on Mother's Day.  For different reasons.  Of course there is the part of me that remembers the years that this holiday was so painful as I yearned to become a mother - and my heart goes out to all the many women (and men) in that situation now.  I also think of Noah's birthmother who brought him into the world and struggled so deeply with her decision to place him in our family, believing that it was what was best for him but breaking her heart to do it.  And then I think of what is going on somewhere in Haiti...

There is a mother who has met some level of intense tragedy.  Perhaps it was a fatal one.  Perhaps she is unable to care for her young child and has had to make the difficult choice of placing her into an orphanage just for her to survive.  My heart aches for this woman that I will likely never know.  It hurts to know of the heartache that must inevitably precede the joy this child will bring to us...and I worry about that child.  Her tender heart is going through trauma and loss too.  Is she being cared for?  Is she being fed?  Loved?  Where is she?  How old is she?  When will we meet her?  And while she isn't mine yet, my mother heart aches for her.  To be able to hold her, to know her, to give her a home and family and teach her to rely on the consistency that we'll offer her.  For our family to be complete.

The wide range of emotions that I've felt over the last week or two as Mother's Day approached has been all over the map.  Overwhelming gratitude.  Sadness.  Joy.  Hope.  Heartache.  And so I have prayed.  More than normal.  For those aching to become mothers, for those who have lost children, for those who have lost mothers, for children who desperately need a family, for the women who broke their own heart because it is what was best for their child.  And I pray for my heart to find focus on the love and gratitude.  And to know that He is in charge and watching over everything.

*I ran across this post from five years ago (from my personal blog that I don't post to any more these days), and wanted to come back and include it here.  I didn't even remember writing it and it echoes a lot of what I just said: http://hollyandmark.blogspot.com/2011/06/mothers-day.html

Cookbook & Creole

There is only so much you can do during a wait like this to keep yourself sane.  I'm trying to channel it in productive ways the best I can!  I just bought a Haitian Cookbook and am excited to try a few things out of it! I also registered Mark and I for a Haitian Creole class to start this summer!!! I got the workbook/dictionary in the mail yesterday and am really excited to learn some basic Creole for when we go on our socialization visit to Haiti and meet our little girl.

Wishes and waiting

Today I took Max to the park. Just him and me. It was one of those days that I remembered what a short amount of time I have left with him at home before he'll be at school every day and I soaked it in. It was really nice, we played together at the park and laid on a blanket together and stared up at the branches of the tree above us. It really was a perfect Hallmark movie-esque diversion from the normally hectic schedule of life that we bounce between.

Finally we decided we were tired and walked home. He still lets me hold his hand and so we walked hand in hand home and periodically he'd break away to scramble to gather the best sunshine yellow dandelions to present to me...until he ran across whispy seeded dandelions. He picked one and blew it to make a wish. I asked Max what he wished for and without skipping a beat he said, "Two baby girls. I'm going to get two little sisters."

While that's not likely to happen, I just thought that it was the sweetest cap to our little outing.  For a four year old whose life revolves around whether our pantry does or does not have fruit snacks, when he can play with his friends, and if he can play a game on my phone...the fact that without hesitation he wished not only for his little sister, but to double the wish for emphasis was just so sweet that I had to share it here.

I also got to thinking and realized that when we began this adoption journey Max wasn't even quite 16 months old yet. We felt an urgency to start the process when we did and since we knew it would take years to complete we weren't shy about starting while Max was still very young. However, because we did and have been talking about "baby girl" for over 3 1/2 years now Max can't even remember a time when we didn't talk about her. While the process has felt long for us, I can't even imagine how long it must feel to Max.

Which reminds me of one more story like this that I have to share like this from yesterday!! I told Max that we needed to stay home from the gym yesterday because my tummy was hurting too much. Max got very excited and with a lot of expression perked up and asked, "Does that mean baby girl is coming today?!!!" I realized that he thought baby girl was coming from my tummy. I had to re-explain that she is growing in someone else's tummy, etc, etc. I guess it's been a while since we talked about that. It was just pretty cute/funny to see him jump so quickly to that.

I also wonder if all the intense amount of feelings/thoughts I've been having about our little girl are bleeding over somehow to Max. I don't talk about the things I'm thinking or feeling to people very often since everything is still so abstract and far away (and honestly after 3 1/2 years people must get tired of hearing about it), but there are weeks that I just feel it more than others. I've been feeling it lately and I wonder if Max has noticed that somehow, or if it's just coincidence that two days in a row he's brought her up all on his own...

You can't say the wait is all boring

So, there are often stretches of time during this waiting section of the adoption process where there isn't anything really new to share.  However, the unpredictability of the timeline, process, and climate of things in Haiti keeps a constant underlying level of tension that is always there. (For me anyway)

If I step back and look at the last 3 1/2 years it looks like a roller coaster though.  Sometimes that rollercoaster is exciting, sometimes terrifying.  Sometimes I wish it would go faster and sometimes I feel like it's so bumpy I might fall out.

We recently had some ups and downs that I didn't write about as they were happening, but I'd like to share about them now just to be thorough about documenting this process...

For about 2 months I worked very hard alongside some amazing women to pull of a fundraising gala for Haitian Roots.  It was way more time and work than I ever could have foreseen and was very all encompassing.  I was stretched way out of my comfort zone, and there is only one other time in my life that I've run on that little sleep for that many consecutive weeks.  Anyway! During this time I snuck away for a 2 night getaway with my friend Allison to see a band we love play and to try and re-set a bit.  I was feeling physically and emotionally drained and as we were road tripping I shared how things were going with the adoption.  At one point I got a phone call from Mark.  He told me that he'd gotten a call from our CPA regarding our taxes.  

Now let me give a bit of background...we drained our savings and supplemented with a loan to invest in starting a physician owned surgery center.  So, Mark receives founder share payouts each month and taxes aren't taken out. We had to estimate how much to set aside from each payout every month hoping it would cover the amount we would owe in taxes at the end of the tax year. So! Mark got that phone call and we found out how much we would be owing in taxes. With some deductions that we qualified for this year we not only had enough in our tax savings account to cover our taxes, but that the amount left remaining in that savings account was exactly the remaining amount we needed to have set aside to complete paying for our pending adoption.  I was over the moon! It felt so good to have that milestone met, to have that money ready for whenever we get the good news of our referral. I was crying happy tears and it felt so good to get any good news associated with our adoption!

Now fast forward to less than 48 hours later (on March 14th).  An email popped up on my phone from our adoption worker and I could tell that it wasn't good news.  The subject line read 'Alert: Update on Haitian Inter-country adoption procedures and important cautionary notes. PLEASE READ.' Phrases like "approvals are now on hold" or "this is an urgent situation" popped out at me. My heart sank. All I could think was, "Not again!" and I proceeded to read the email.  I will try to summarize what happened.  In recent years Haiti not only overhauled all of its own adoption laws, but also joined the Hague convention (a neutral entity that regulated the ethics of inter country adoptions for participating countries). The specific guidelines and laws pertaining to Hague convention were to go into affect 2 weeks later on April 1. One thing that is understandably enforced by the Hague is that children adopted from Hague countries can't be selected prior to their referral. More specifically adoptive parents can't have any contact with the orphanage director, birth parent, or care taker of the child prior to receiving an official match. This is important in order to prevent unethical behavior to develop in the adoption process leading to child trafficking. Now to how this became a problem...

The U.S. government began to interpret some of the Haitian laws and look at the process of adoptions and felt that there were things being done in violation of Hague process. They were saying that agencies can't have affiliations with specific orphanages or creches.  And that orphanages/creches can't suggest referrals to IBESR. However, this is precisely how the referral process is set up in Haiti. They were saying that had to cease, and there is not only not a way for referrals to generate in Haiti but not a way for agencies to arrange travel for their adoptive families when meeting their child without having contacts through the orphanage. In affect, adoptions would either have to go on hold until a new system could be developed that was completely centralized, or adoptions would have to cease.

Chareyl, along with 2 other ASP (adoption service provider) heads hired an attorney in D.C. to help research the law and represent them to the U.S. government. We didn't know how this would shake out and I was really overwhelmed and upset.  I was hopeful things would work out, but realistic in knowing that sometimes that could take a VERY long time, and that sometimes it just doesn't.  I didn't even tell Mark about the email when I got home late that night.  I discussed it with him the next day.

On Wednesday there was a conference call for all adoptive parents with the US department of state and US immigration.  We were on a muted conference call where they went through all the intricacies of the situation and at the end parents were allowed to cue in and ask questions.  I was very impressed with the thoroughness of things and came away with things thinking that it sounded hopeful.  I was able to confirm my deductions the next day with Chareyl and felt so much relief.  Here's what it boils down to...

The US department of state is now saying that they will allow agencies to continue to pass on adoptive parents' paperwork to orphanages, but the orphanages can't communicate information back about specific children. Those orphanages can still recommend specific families to a specific child in their care to IBESR for referral, but IBESR retains the right to follow or reject the recommendation. This I can live with. This sounds reasonable to me, and this allows adoptions to continue happening and for agencies to continue fulfilling what they legally agreed to with the Haitian government in arranging travel for their adoptive parents during their socialization visit and picking up their child. I'm so grateful for this!

Families that already had a referral would be approved on a case by case basis (reviewing the application of their case with the Hague) and families with an I600a application had until the end of the month to get a referral and they could still process as an I600 case (pre-Hague).  Families who were being processed as I800a families (that's us) who have had no prior knowledge of a child or contact with their prospective referred child's orphanage will be able to accept referrals and proceed without issue.  Us not having ever traveled to Haiti or had contact with an orphanage and being an I800a family puts us in the best possible situation for families right now.  

The crazy thing is that we were almost an I600a family.  We had I600a approval with Ethiopia that was still valid and I could have just transferred it to Haiti when we started the process, but being aware of the Hague enforcement date (I looked it up at the time) I opted to just start clean as an I800a family and we applied for Haiti that way from the beginning.  I also very much wanted to travel to Haiti to learn more of this country of our child's birth and to find some way to give back while I was there...after thinking it through I decided that Mark and I wouldn't travel to Haiti until after our official referral "just in case" there was ever a circumstance that our having been there could have been misconstrued and would require more investigation and/or delays in our adoption.  

I am now so grateful that we are in the circumstance that we are right now.  I800a family never having traveled to Haiti. I don't think we made these decisions by chance. And it wasn't because I was clever. I feel that the situations we witnessed in Ethiopia and the widespread corruption with adoptions there currently, that I approached our adoption in Haiti much more conservatively that I would have otherwise.  I normally jump into things head first and full on. I would normally welcome something that would have been faster (not having to get new I800a approval) and less expensive,  and would have jumped at a chance to go start building my bond with Haiti right away...but our experiences made me more cautious and reserved.  I'm grateful for that now, and don't see that as a coincidence. I believe that the Lord has had His hand in our adoption all along. This may not have been the only reason why things happened the way they did for us with Ethiopia, but I am convinced that it is one of the reasons. I may be anxious to see our little girl and to know her story, but I am also equally convinced that things have worked out the way they have, with the timing this way for a reason.  And that my Heavenly Father knew just what little girl would join our family and when. I hope that is sooner than later, but more and more I am learning to trust Him and His timing!

So! We had the excitement of finding out we have our remaining adoption fees all set aside, followed by being unsure if our adoption could even happen anymore, followed by finding out that amidst families who still have to undergo more hold ups and scrutiny - that we'll be spared this and allowed to proceed with our adoption as expected.  I'd say that week counted as a roller coaster.

I have to add that because of the huge push on both the U.S. and Haitian side of things to get I600a families referrals before the deadline that there was a HUGE flow of referrals with many agencies.  This is primarily wonderful for these children (and their families), but also could potentially speed up the process of us getting our referral too!  So back to hoping we meet our little girl sometime this year!...

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.