This one broke my heart

Moving along

I am shocked at how fast this is all happening. We received word today that our paperwork is in 2nd legal. It has exited Parquet (district attorney) and has entered the courts process. Generally 2nd legal takes approximately 4 months. After 2nd legal is complete, the US side of things kicks in.

The Lord has been gracious to us. Many families have had just as much faith as we have and waited 3 years for the children to come home. I don't understand it, but I am thankful. Lydie and Samson will be home before we know it!

We received pictures from our friends who visited their children this past week. I was shocked to see Samson's head completely bald! He also has a terrible case of molluscum on the right side of his face right now. Our friends said Samson likes to crawl crossing his legs. Cute!  I don't know how many pictures we have of Lydie sleeping, but here's another one.

Prayer request

There are several adoptive families back in Haiti again. New adoptive families are filing their I-600's like we did back in March and some of our March traveling companions are back there as well. We heard that one of the new adoptive families found out their little 2-year-old Haitian boy has leukemia.  Patrick (from our adoption agency) is trying to get a hospital in the US to sponsor him so that he can come home to get treatment. Please pray that hearts are moved and his VISA is granted to get him here. We're not sure if this little boy is from Maison or not. I can't imagine hearing that kind of news while visiting your child for the first time.

If you want paperwork to move...

Just blog about how frustrated you are that it doesn't feel like anything is moving! We received this email today from our adoption agency.

Hi Stephen and Naomi,

I just wanted to let you know that we received word it is expected your dossier (along with both kiddos) will be out of Parquet next week!  That means that we’re moving closer to the time when the Adoption Decree is issued!  

We will of course let you know when we receive final confirmation, and will let you know the next steps then.  Hopefully we’ll be in touch soon!  

~Kim

Parquet?

I'm trying to be as patient as possible, but it's getting difficult! I read a blog today that stated somebody got out of Parquet in 2 weeks! Yikes! I don't even know how that's possible. It's easy to get swept up in rumors and other people's news when you don't have any news of your own. We're hoping to hear something very soon. Here's a refresher on what Parquet is all about:

Parquet Court
The 'step' we refer to as Parquet court is actually a very complex series of steps and processes involving multiple offices and repeated trips between them. 

1. Attorney addresses a Request for Judgment to the Chief Justice of Parquet Court
2. Birth parents are interviewed in Parquet Court
3. Parquet Court signs off on "approval judgement for adoption
4. Facilitator takes approval to DGI for stamp of authorization
5. Back to Parquet for enforcement of the approval judgement
6. Authorization and redaction from the Civil Registrar Officer for legal Adoption Decree
7. Verification in Parquet of the adoption documents by the Civil Registrar before signing the adoption decree
8. First Legalization of the Adoption Decree, in Parquet Court
9. Second Legalization of the Adoption Decree, at the Ministry of Justice
10. Third Legalization of the Adoption Decree, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
11. Obtain attestation of Adoption Decree from the National Archives

Haiti to tighten adoption rules

Haiti to tighten adoption rules

This is a headline that can really cause a lot of anxiety. The Haiti team that we stay in contact with has been discussing this all day. There is always a lot of unknowns and theories during international adoptions. It can be risky if proper channels are not used during the process. Thankfully, we are with a reputable adoption agency and our orphanage (which is technically a creche-pronounced cresh) is reputable and authorized by Haiti to adopt internationally. Only a creche in Haiti is legally allowed to adopt children out. A person can't just visit a random orphanage in Haiti, pick out a cute kid and start the adoption process. Most orphanages do not have proper means to go through the adoption process. I can get pretty upset thinking about the group of baptists who took children out of the country without using the proper channels. They refused to respect the law and did what they thought was right. Although Haiti is a very difficult place for children, we must be respectful of the process, no matter how long it takes. Now, because of the acts of a few who thought they were doing the right thing, they may have jeopardized the adoption process for many others. Let's pray that doesn't happen.

Frustration

For the past month we have been had some frustrating emails back and forth between the Haitian Embassy, our adoption agency, and our lawyer in Haiti. On May 12th we received an email from the Haitian Embassy stating due to the fact that our children were not biologically related, an extra fee was to be paid to process their immigration file. The frustrating part about this is we were told by our adoption agency (Judy) many months ago that we would need to pay the fee while we were in Haiti. Unfortunately, in the meantime Patrick took over for Judy and was not aware of this issue. We asked several times before we left for Haiti if we would need to pay anything while we were down there and the answer was always no.

Well, they were wrong. You would think that it would be an easy problem to fix. Just wire money down to our lawyer, and he could go to the embassy and settle the balance. We went around and around with our adoption agency and finally we got an answer that the money was to be sent to the Dept. Of Homeland Security in the United States with a letter explaining the check and everything would be fine. Yesterday, we got the whole packet back, plus our uncashed check stating that they could not process our request. Grrrrrr!

We called Patrick and told him what happened. He said he was pulling his hair out at the lack of accurate information of our own United States agency. So we are back to square one. We found out that even though the American Embassy in Haiti and the US are run by the same people, they don't communicate with each other the way we think they should. So, we are back to looking at the option of either wiring the money to Kiki in Haiti and having him walk it in, or Patrick is taking another group of families to Haiti in July, and he would be able to pay it then.

Every adoption has a frustrating story, and this one looks like it's ours. Thankfully, this doesn't slow down our process at all because US Immigration is one of the last steps in the process. The lesson for future families adoptiong from Haiti is THERE IS A SEPERATE FEE FOR NON-BIO KIDS FOR US IMMIGRATION. Sometimes it's frustrating being the guinnea pigs.