Happy Adoption Update! {here's how things work}

We received some hopeful news from our agency coordinator this week.  I wanted to share! :)

I've discussed here on the blog that as a pioneer family in Haiti's new adoption process, we have to expect the unexpected.  Eric and I certainly aren't novices to the world of international adoption, but I can say I am very relieved this isn't our first adoption.  This process is nerve wracking!  Praise God, we know Who to trust!

Haitian officials and creches and adoption agencies are all slowly walking out the new procedures with families.  The process is gradually unfolding.  I'd describe it as walking a rickety footbridge with the next wooden plank appearing only after your foot is raised for your next step!

Mario Valenzuela

And then comes the news earlier this month-- Haiti has joined the Hague Intercountry Adoption Convention.  (What is the Hague?  Read here for the details.)  This was expected but no one knew exactly when it would occur.  I have to admit that this news has concerned me (and other adoptive families I know).  In the past, countries have been shut down to international adoption due to failure to correctly implement Hague procedures.  This would be devastating for children and families on so many levels.

"Haiti has deposited their instrument of ratification to the Hague Permanent Bureau as of December 16, 2013, joining the 1993 Hague Intercountry Adoption Convention. The Convention will go into force for Haiti on April 1, 2014, provided the Bureau approves.  The deposit means that following April 1, 2014, adoptions from Haiti must be Hague compliant."  Read more HERE 

To break it down, the U.S. State Department is now preparing to fully evaluate Haiti's adoption procedures to see if they are in full compliance with Hague standards.  In fact, next week representatives from the State Department will travel to Haiti to meet with IBESR officials to begin the evaluation process.  On April 1, 2014, the State Department will announce Haiti's Hague status to the public.  Eric and I and many others are praying that the news will be positive and that there will be no interruptions in Haitian adoptions.  Read more HERE 

Now here's where the happy, hopeful news comes in. :)

I had been debating for several days whether or not to email our adoption coordinator to ask about how this Hague process may affect the progress of our adoption.  The thought of things being put on hold in our journey to W while waiting for 2 nations work out their "issues" is just awful!  Then on Wednesday I received an email from our agency coordinator written to all of her Haiti families.  My heart began to race.  Would this be good news or bad??

Here are a few portions of that email.  My comments are in red.

"Dear Haiti Waiting families,

As you all know the Haitian government submitted their instrument to the Hague in December 2013, and on April 1, 2014 Haiti will be officially a Hague country operating under the Hague convention.  Let me share with you what I know for today and hopefully it will help you with your questions and how we are planning on moving forward.

Right now the US government (USCIS/DOS) will review Haiti’s implementation of the Hague to determine if they are in compliance. Haiti has worked hard over the last couple of years to put everything in place that needed to be done to be compliant, things like; licensing foreign agencies to work in their country, forming and approving new adoption laws that provided for international adoption, and naming a central authority, just to name a few. Haiti is already operating under all these new laws and regulations so hopefully once the US government does their review they will find that Haiti is in compliance and adoptions will continue between US citizens and Haitian born children.

One of the biggest changes to adoption in Haiti is that The Hague does not allow for pre-identified children to be placed for adoption unless it is a relative adoption.  

This is where I got a bit nervous.  Our adoption for W is a pre-identified case.  

There should be no contact with a child prior to being approved by the US government, and a family cannot meet with or have contact with a biological parent/family.

Whew!  Ok, we're good.  We've only "met" our guy via videos and photos and stories from other families who know him.

The US government will give their guidelines and suggest that Haiti honor all cases in process, and we are hopeful that they will, but in the meantime, I will be working closely with the crèches in Haiti so that we get our pre-identified cases into IBESR before March 31. 

We are already in the IBESR review process, as of December 3rd.

I want to note here that members of USCIS and DOS (i.e. U.S. Immigration and U.S. Department of State) will be traveling to Haiti sometime in the next couple of weeks and meeting with government officials and IBESR and going over the current laws and the implementation of the Hague.  They will discuss grandfathering cases on this trip, along with many other things in conjunction with moving ahead with international adoptions under the Hague regulations.

Lastly, I think it is important for everyone to be aware and be prepared that from this point forward the two week visit trip will be required.  Once your case is approved with IBESR and you are officially matched with a child, you will be required to travel to Haiti for the two week visit trip. 

Our family is waiting and praying, and praying and waiting to hear that we've been approved with IBESR!

A social worker will observe you with your child/children  {eeek!}  and make a report that is submitted to IBESR as the final portion of the matching process.  {Ohhhh I hope that last part is fast!}  We do not have word as to how IBESR is monitoring these trips, but from this point forward we know that it is a requirement. 

We are hopeful that we will be able to travel to Haiti before the winter ends!  This is our continual prayer. :)

I just want to end by saying that I am very optimistic that Haiti is Hague ready and that they will be able to continue processing adoptions after March 31, 2014. There should only be a few changes to the process at this point, as many have already been made and we have been able to work through them. I am planning on forging ahead with a positive attitude!"

Yay!!  This is very good news!!  Thank you SO much for this encouraging and informative email. :)

I felt SO much better after reading her email.  But I did have one more very pertinent question:  How would this affect adoptions currently in IBESR (like ours)?  Will IBESR halt with processing cases currently the system until Haiti is Hague approved?  Gulp... 

I shot our coordinator a quick email and she responded very quickly:

Good question Jennifer and the answer is they will in fact try to process as many as possible!

Hallelujah!  That sounds really, really hopeful.  

"...process as many {cases, like ours} as possible {before the March 31st deadline}!"  

Like maybe we receive our approval soon and actually travel to Haiti before the end of March to meet W!?!  Oh my heart...  

Our dear friends, if you've made it to the end of this post, Bless you, you are awesome!  I know my posts tend to be long.  (My sweet hubs agrees with this--ha!)  There are just so many thoughts swirling around in my head and heart. ;)

I do ask one thing:  Will you please pray continually with us for W and this whole adoption process? 

Thank you all! 

image from poweryourparenting.com

Two Days & Three Little Lives

Warning:  this post is emotional.

My heart is full today as I reflect upon the lives of 3 precious children and their families.  It is full with the mixed emotions of love and happiness, concern and sadness.  Each one of these little lives is in the midst of huge change in their world.  I've been talking with God, both thanking and praising Him, and imploring Him to intervene.

...I am thinking about the toddler girl in Haiti who is meeting our friends, her future adoptive parents.
...I am thinking of the 7 year old Taiwanese girl now living in America with her forever family, the girl who was almost our own.
...I am thinking of the heartbroken 9 year old boy and his dad, who may be losing each other.

One of these situations brings great joy!  One a mixture of happiness and concern.  And the other brings sadness with a little "dare we hope" mixed in.

The toddler girl in Haiti...is experiencing a first time visit with her future family. Friends of ours are spending two weeks in Haiti, interacting daily with their future daughter.  This is referred to as the Socialization Visit.  This trip is brand new to the Haiti adoption process, and our friends are one of the very first families required to attend this period of "observed bonding".  Our sweet friends have loved and prayed for this girl for many months, yet this is her first experience with them-- like an arranged marriage where only one party knows anything about the other.  And the sticking point is that a complete stranger, a Haitian government social worker, is meeting with our friends and their future child to observe them bond.

Umm not awkward at all.  Not a bit emotionally demanding, intimidating, exhausting or confusing (for both child and parents).  No big deal, because it's not like heads and hearts are full of emotions trying to grasp the enormity of the situation.  And besides, it's not like the social worker will be writing a report whether or not to recommend the couple to become parents to this little girl or not.  Ugg.  Double ugg.  Oh how I feel for my friends!  (psst! this is what we will be doing with W, hopefully before the end of winter)

Adoption is an amazing, beautiful thing.  It is God's idea, in fact.  But adoption is also borne from pain and loss.  Something awful happened in a child's life to create the need for her to be adopted.  Therefore, creating a healthy bond takes time.  Building true attachment takes even more time.  Hurts don't heal overnight and trust develops with time after time, after time, after time, etc.  So now imagine trying to start this journey of connecting with your future child..with an audience.

I say all of this to ask for prayer for my friends.  Please pray for God to strengthen and sustain them, to give them wisdom and peace.  Please pray for this sweet toddler as she tries to comprehend who these people are and why they have entered her life.  Pray that the seeds of trust and love would be planted deep within her heart...so that one day when my friends return for their daughter, she will be ready to start the forever family journey with them.  God chose this little girl for their family a year ago (no, before time began), and I believe that He is working out all the details.  He is creating beauty from ashes!

About the 7 year old Taiwanese girl I mentioned... I found out yesterday that she finally got her forever family a few months ago.  Before that she was being raised in a home for HIV and AIDS patients.  Beautiful, smart, funny, sweet little girl, longing for a family...long overlooked due to her diagnosis of HIV+.  Why is this little girl significant?  She is significant because our family almost adopted her.

Yes, in 2012 "Jane" almost became a Johnson.  She would have practically been Noelle's twin, as their birthdays are only 3 days apart, and their size and physical features are also similar.  A Taiwanese friend and orphan care/adoption advocate contacted us in early 2012 to tell us about a little girl that lived in the care center where she worked.  She dearly loved (loves!) "Jane" and wanted to know if we would be interested in adopting her.  Loooooong story short, we did end up starting the process to adopt her.  We told very few family members and friends, as we hoped to get further into the process before we shared the news.  We were also debating how to share her HIV+ status with people.  We had educated and prepared ourselves for raising a child with HIV, but were aware that this reality could be difficult for some to understand or accept.

Note:  HIV is actually a chronic condition rather than a dreaded disease.  It is very manageable condition that is treated with daily medications.  People who properly manage their condition live long, full and healthy lives,,,AND it is essentially impossible to pass the disease along to others even in close family interactions.

About 4 months into praying and hoping and saving and staring at her photo, we had to come to the recognition that God was calling us in another direction.  It was sad and disappointing for us to pull out of the adoption (yes, there were tears), but we knew God was working out a bigger plan both for her and for our family.

So...yesterday I was thrilled that our friend in Taiwan contacted me to say that "Jane" is home with a forever family in the U.S., is happy and doing extremely well.  I got to see some photos with her and her 3 brothers--so cute!  And ok, I cried some, but happy tears this time.  Even better, she was evaluated by doctors here in the States and was recently determined that she does not have HIV!  Well, Hallelujah and Glory to Jesus!!

As for the 9 year old boy...  G.  G is the 9 year old son a friend of mine named B.  Well, truly, B started out as a coffee customer of mine about 3 1/2 years ago (at my previous part time coffee shop "gig" and now at my current "gig") but "regular customer" quickly turned into "friend" for me and another Christian co-worker.  The story is that B has pretty much raised G since babyhood.  G's mother is quite familiar with the "inner" workings of the criminal justice system, and B was the bail bondsman on her case.  Here's the catch-- G is not B's son.  B saw a messed up mama and a needy baby and stepped in.  These fellas are truly father and son, as much as I am mother to my daughters.  B has been the loving, stable person in this boy's life, all his life.  He has been fighting for custody for years, as G's bio mom runs from trouble to trouble, in and out of jail.  Last year, her poor life choices finally caught up with her...she is going to federal prison for several years.  B thought that now, surely now, he would be granted custody of this boy.  He had gotten his life right (doing his best to walk with Jesus) a year or so ago.  G was doing so well with him during their part time living arrangements.  The few family members left in bio mom's life had shown a complete lack of interest in G.  Being granted permanent custody seemed like a no-brainer.

The official custody hearing was this morning.

When B walked into the coffee shop, he looked like a beaten man.  I was making a drink at the espresso machine at that moment, so all I could say was, "What?..  What?.."  B couldn't speak.  He merely repeatedly shook his head.  I could not believe it!  Talk about messed up, unjust, wrong decision by the judge!

Some time later I was able to speak with B.  He said that G was in custody of the state and would presumably enter the foster care system.  One word for these fellas, my little friend and my grown up friend--heartbreak.

OK bloggy friends...Eric and I have prayed with B for many months about this situation and are praying even more now.  Will you join me?  I know God cares about G and B and their future!  Let us pray that true justice will win for this boy who needs a family, and this man, who loves Jesus, and wants to be that family!

I told you this post was an emotional one.  I'm sorry if I've been a downer here at the end (lots of other things to praise God for, tho!).  I just want to get ya'll involved in praying for these 3 situations.  Thank you.  Love you guys!  ~Jennifer