Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Happy Thanksgiving November 24, 2011
Our papers have been in Haiti for almost a month. Dixie has been in Canada for the same amount of time, so I am not sure if anything has happened since the papers arrived in Haiti. Regardless, the first thing that will happen is that they will send the dossier to get legalized in Haiti and this will take 2-4 weeks. At some point after that, we will receive our referral! We guessed when that would be...I said Dec 31.2011, Matt guessed Feb 17, 2012, and Kate said Jan 15, 2012...we'll see! I have been following this story of Sylvie Cormier and her family as they traveled to Haiti this week to bring their little girl, Kyanne home to New Brunswick, Canada. Such a sweet story!
Saturday, October 29, 2011
We are finished, we are just beginning! October 29, 2011
We completed all of our paperwork. It has all been notarized, authenticated, stamped by the Haitian Consulate in Chicago. Copied, correlated, organized, sorted, double checked, triple checked. Through facebook, we found a nice lady in New Jersey who is traveling to Haiti on Halloween. She offered to carry in our completed dossier! It cost us $14 to mail it to her as opposed to $200 to mail it to Haiti. She is going on a mission trip to hold and play with the babies. There are still many, many months (or years!) that these papers will need to get stamped, signed, approved by judges, verified and eventually a visa and a passport will be issued for a little girl who will become part of our family. Scary, nervous, excited and content because we know that this is the desire God placed in our hearts a long time ago while playing with children half a world away in a Russian orphanage. Feels like we are going full circle.
We also got fingerprinted this week. This will (hopefully) grant us approval from the United States to adopt.
Dixie is out of Haiti for the month of November so we are not sure where this will leave our paperwork, but at least it will be there waiting for her when we return.
We also got fingerprinted this week. This will (hopefully) grant us approval from the United States to adopt.
Dixie is out of Haiti for the month of November so we are not sure where this will leave our paperwork, but at least it will be there waiting for her when we return.
Monday, October 3, 2011
On to Chicago! October 3, 2011
Received our French translation of everything today. Mailed out the mail 8 documents (IBESR letter, Power of Attorney, Homestudy, Psych Report, 2 References, 2 Doctors notes) with there State of NJ authentication and the French translation as well as a money order to the Haitian Consulate in Chicago. They should receive it by noon tomorrow. After that I am not exactly sure of the turn around time. When we receive it all back, it will get mailed to God's Littlest Angels orphanage while we wait our referral. We have still not made the final decision as to one or two. Everytime we think one would just be just fine, we think of keeping a sibling group together as well as the ease on race issues if it wasn't all white kids and one black child. When we think of two, the reality sets in about driving a big van, the extra money it would cost to adopt a second child etc etc
Friday, September 23, 2011
A few authentications were rejected. Oh No! September 23, 2011
We sent 7 documents to Trenton to be authenticated. Mailing it through UPS was more complicated than I thought, mostly because of the return shipping. After I mailed them, I realized I must have only sent a copy and not a notarized copy of the homestudy. I found out later, I didnt even include the homestudy! I thought I checked it several times.
So that required another trip back to UPS with the homestudy to repeat the whole process! When the envelope arrived back (within the week). Three of the letters were rejected...one because the notary wasn't from NJ and the other two were doctors letters, that the notary apparently was not a notary at the time of notarization. Not sure what that means, but regardless I now have to go back to the doctors to have him sign again. That was the hardest part the first time! This time we had to hire a "mobile notary" to come to the office. Oh well. It should not delay too much. All of the documents will then be translated into French....
I can't believe how quickly this is going, although I know the wait has not even begun. I let myself think a little bit about a little girl sitting in an orphanage in Haiti today. I got excited, but immediately had to stop otherwise I would start to put a time frame of everything and its way too early for that!
The question still looms of whether we will take 1 or 2. I really am not sure what is best. With five white children it may be hard to grow up different. If there was a sibling group they would have each other but maybe they would not bond well? Of course there is the van issue as well. We still have a little time before we have to decide.
So that required another trip back to UPS with the homestudy to repeat the whole process! When the envelope arrived back (within the week). Three of the letters were rejected...one because the notary wasn't from NJ and the other two were doctors letters, that the notary apparently was not a notary at the time of notarization. Not sure what that means, but regardless I now have to go back to the doctors to have him sign again. That was the hardest part the first time! This time we had to hire a "mobile notary" to come to the office. Oh well. It should not delay too much. All of the documents will then be translated into French....
I can't believe how quickly this is going, although I know the wait has not even begun. I let myself think a little bit about a little girl sitting in an orphanage in Haiti today. I got excited, but immediately had to stop otherwise I would start to put a time frame of everything and its way too early for that!
The question still looms of whether we will take 1 or 2. I really am not sure what is best. With five white children it may be hard to grow up different. If there was a sibling group they would have each other but maybe they would not bond well? Of course there is the van issue as well. We still have a little time before we have to decide.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Authentications September 19, 2011
Things are moving along quite smoothly! All the paperwork is finished for the most part and on its way to Trenton to be authenticated. We will hopefully have it back at the end of the week and then it will be translated into French. We should have it back from there by Oct 1 and then it is on to the US Consulate in Chicago! That will be its last stop before it heads to Haiti in late October. Wow! We will have to decide if we want one child or a sibling group pretty soon.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
July 13
Well, things are happening so quickly and I am not writing them down. I know I will regret that later. This blog should have started long before July 13, 2012. It should have started back in 1994 or maybe even a few years before that!
In high school I had a youth leader that worked in state foster care. I was always so interested in their family. I remember telling my high school guidance counselor that I wanted to run an orphanage after I went to college. She told me that was a "lofty goal" and that there really weren't orphanages in the U.S.
I went on to college and began by pursuing a counseling degree. I switched part way through to elementary education. Before my junior year, I signed up to go on a missions trip to Russia, Hungray and Romania. It was in those Russian orphanages that I saw God changing my life in more ways than one. In an airport in Moscow I knew that I had met the person I would marry...really. I spent the whole three weeks watching Matt play with the kids in those orphanages. I remember them telling us that the kids got all quiet when they heard us coming because they thought their parents were coming back for them. They told us the newest arrivals were the ones with the shaved hair because they didnt want them to spread lice. I remember returning home and knowing someday I wanted to adopt and I knew that Matt and I would get married. Really. He on the other hand didn't have either of those revelations!
A few years went by, we did get married. We talked about kids. We had Kate. We had infertility issues for 2 1/2 years after that. We decided not to pursue in vitro fertilization. We went to some adoption meetings about Russia. Afterall we always knew someday we wanted to adopt. That same month (February, 2004) I found out I was pregnant with TWINS. Shortly after they turned one, I was pregnant with Andrew. In the summer of 2008, another positive pregnancy test showed up. Ben was born in March of 2009.
So our house was full, our hearts were full, our hands were definitetly full! That desire to adopt was not quite as prevelant as it had once been, although I was always drawn to people who were adopting and loved hearing their stories. I was always a little sad that we wouldnt be doing that.
Then on January 12, 2010 a massive earthquake struck Haiti. I honestly didn't pay much attention to the news the first day or so. A few days later, every major news station was showing the hundreds of orphans trying to get to their forever families. We would have signed up that day if we could have. In fact we spent the following few months signing up to help with children who needed medical visas. I came across a blog of someone who I went to college with. Her story was compelling as I felt like I experienced first hand her story of being united with her two children through humanitarian parole.
Unfortunately, we did not meet the qualifications to adopt and Haiti was not continuing with adoptions at that point. As 2010 continued on, we began researching various adoption ideas, Ethiopia, Uganda, etc...but we kept coming back to Haiti. They opened up adoptions again, but we still did not meet their qualifications because we had 5 biological children. We were in contact with Barbara Walker at Reach Out to Haiti and we were trying to help a little girl with club feet. We had secured a doctor here in NJ willing to do the surgery for free. From Dec-2010 to June of 2011 we went back and forth with the US Embassy trying to secure her medical visa. It was denied a final time at the end of May. The very next day, Dixie at God's Littlest Angels posted that they would begin accepting families with up to 5 biological children. What the future holds will be the story that this blog holds.
In high school I had a youth leader that worked in state foster care. I was always so interested in their family. I remember telling my high school guidance counselor that I wanted to run an orphanage after I went to college. She told me that was a "lofty goal" and that there really weren't orphanages in the U.S.
I went on to college and began by pursuing a counseling degree. I switched part way through to elementary education. Before my junior year, I signed up to go on a missions trip to Russia, Hungray and Romania. It was in those Russian orphanages that I saw God changing my life in more ways than one. In an airport in Moscow I knew that I had met the person I would marry...really. I spent the whole three weeks watching Matt play with the kids in those orphanages. I remember them telling us that the kids got all quiet when they heard us coming because they thought their parents were coming back for them. They told us the newest arrivals were the ones with the shaved hair because they didnt want them to spread lice. I remember returning home and knowing someday I wanted to adopt and I knew that Matt and I would get married. Really. He on the other hand didn't have either of those revelations!
A few years went by, we did get married. We talked about kids. We had Kate. We had infertility issues for 2 1/2 years after that. We decided not to pursue in vitro fertilization. We went to some adoption meetings about Russia. Afterall we always knew someday we wanted to adopt. That same month (February, 2004) I found out I was pregnant with TWINS. Shortly after they turned one, I was pregnant with Andrew. In the summer of 2008, another positive pregnancy test showed up. Ben was born in March of 2009.
So our house was full, our hearts were full, our hands were definitetly full! That desire to adopt was not quite as prevelant as it had once been, although I was always drawn to people who were adopting and loved hearing their stories. I was always a little sad that we wouldnt be doing that.
Then on January 12, 2010 a massive earthquake struck Haiti. I honestly didn't pay much attention to the news the first day or so. A few days later, every major news station was showing the hundreds of orphans trying to get to their forever families. We would have signed up that day if we could have. In fact we spent the following few months signing up to help with children who needed medical visas. I came across a blog of someone who I went to college with. Her story was compelling as I felt like I experienced first hand her story of being united with her two children through humanitarian parole.
Unfortunately, we did not meet the qualifications to adopt and Haiti was not continuing with adoptions at that point. As 2010 continued on, we began researching various adoption ideas, Ethiopia, Uganda, etc...but we kept coming back to Haiti. They opened up adoptions again, but we still did not meet their qualifications because we had 5 biological children. We were in contact with Barbara Walker at Reach Out to Haiti and we were trying to help a little girl with club feet. We had secured a doctor here in NJ willing to do the surgery for free. From Dec-2010 to June of 2011 we went back and forth with the US Embassy trying to secure her medical visa. It was denied a final time at the end of May. The very next day, Dixie at God's Littlest Angels posted that they would begin accepting families with up to 5 biological children. What the future holds will be the story that this blog holds.
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