For those of you who are friends of mine on facebook, you get regular updates from me about our adoption. For those who only know me from the blog, I apologize for my neglect of our adoption story.
We are still waiting to exit IBESR so we can move on to the court phase of the adoption -- the part where W legally becomes our son. However...
Currently we are facing a potentially large and maddening delay in our already lengthy process. And YET, it is another opportunity to bring caring people together in prayer and to see God MOVE on behalf of our son.
Here's a quick summary to get ya'll up to date:
Eric and I traveled to Haiti for our 15 day bonding trip to meet W at the end of February / early March. We had an amazing time with our son, who stayed at the guest house with us the whole time. In spite of the language barrier, we connected very well in 2 weeks. He is an amazing boy!
Miraculously, God resolved a tricky situation with some delayed immigration approval documents (the I-171H approval form). This approval documentation was needed for our required filing of the I-600 at the US Embassy in Port-Au-Prince. With the help of an awesome neighbor back home and a couple of individuals here in the US with connections, God got the issue resolved. Our immigration appointment took place near the end of our trip!
We also had a successful interview with the IBESR social worker. She was austere but kind woman who spoke no English. Papi Noe (one of the adoption coordinators at the creche and a favorite staff member of W's) translated the conversation, and she smiled at W a lot. Whew! It was such a relief to have both of those appointments taken care of and for both to go so well.
Fast forward to July... I joined a 6 day mission trip to the creche to spend some much needed bonding time with W. I split my time between playing with him and his buddies and working in the new creche garden. I was thrilled that he got to stay with me at the guest house for 4 nights! But I can tell you that leaving him was pure torture. The two of us sobbed off and on for about an hour on the last day. The tears started with him and this mama soon joined in. I rocked him on my lap, sang hymns and worship choruses, kissed his cheeks and spoke words of blessing over his life. He fell asleep at one point, but woke up, only to cry some more.
My heart broke into a thousand pieces when I left him behind...and some of those pieces are still in Haiti. His sweet face, deep voice and silly laugh is with me every day. A prayer for his peace, joy, safety and hope are always on my spirit.
And we arrive at September 2015.
We are more than 6 months past our bonding trip. Two families adopting from W's creche have already exited IBESR and moved forward to the court phase. One of those families traveled after us. I am so happy for these friends of mine and their precious children, but my heart has been so confused and discouraged to watch many other families pass us by as well. (Being part of the large Haiti adoption facebook group can be a blessing and a curse.) The average timeframe from socialization trip to exiting IBESR seems to be 3-5 months. Some recent families have exited after only 1 1/2 to 2 months. Wow!
"What is up with our case? Why aren't we moving forward?" has been a constant echo in my mind.
Well, this past weekend we finally got some answers.
Our adoption agency coordinator and the director of W's creche had been discussing our case. We received an email from our agency. It turns out that we were not as close to exiting IBESR as we had thought. "Any day now" turned into-- an important document is missing in W's file.
What?!?
What happened was that W's birth certificate generated by the local court was supposed to be registered in a big book at court (I'm kinda fuzzy on this point) and registered at Haiti's National Archives. The lawyer hired by the creche is supposed to take care of these details. Well...his birth certificate never got registered and therefore was missing from his adoption file at IBESR. No one at the creche even knew about this until last week.
At this point, it looked to us like the original nightmare process of getting his official birth certificate the first time might have to be re-done! This could take months! One family on the big facebook group had a similar situation happen to them and it took 16 MONTHS to resolve. 16 MONTHS, people!!
Eric and I took the weekend to reflect and pray (and I took time to freak out and cry). We also asked many, many people to pray for this issue in our adoption process. Then yesterday we sent our agency and email with more questions and a desire to learn how much of a delay we were looking at.
Our agency rep was swift to respond...with positive news!! Praise God!!
To resolve the birth certificate situation, here is what is needed (well, this is my best understanding; it may not be 100% accurate but it is close, I think...)
:
A new "judgement" is needed from the court that issued W's birth certificate.
This judgement generates official documentation that goes to National Archives to be registered.
Then an "extract" (an official copy) of W's birth certificate can be obtained.
The extract goes into W's file in IBESR, which will complete our adoption file.
We get a final signature on our file and we exit IBESR.
The PRAISE is that the adoption rep from the creche started working to resolve this issue when it was discovered last week and already has the new judgement from the court!! He also thinks he will have everything he needs this week to take to IBESR!!
So this is wonderful news, but we don't stop praying here. This could still be a lengthy delay. Eric and I are praying for favor over our case, for favor for the creche adoption representative, and for a swift and correct resolution to the problem followed by swift exit from IBESR.
You have joined us in prayer many times before...will you join us again?
God be praised for what He has already done, what He is doing, and what he WILL do!!!
