In two days!!!

We are counting down until Thursday night when we finally set off to meet Stanley! We fly to Ft. Lauderdale and then on to Port Au Prince Friday morning. We found out that we could bring more stuff with us than we thought, so after some scrambling, we scored a few play mats, two walkers, and a Bugaboo chair (to help little ones sit upright). Not sure how, but we managed to squeeze all of that, along with another bouncy seat, lots of presents, clothes and diapers for Stanley, loads of stuff Aunt Julie collected from her students in Connecticut, and our stuff into 4 bags. We found out that Stanley will be staying with us for the whole time we are there! We were told to make sure we brought warm jammies b/c he won't be used to the air conditioning. :)

We got some good news and some bad news about the trip. Turns out we will hopefully be spending an extra day with Stanley. The bad news is that it is because we will not be filing any paperwork in PAP that day. There have been some problems with a few U.S. families being denied visas even after they have been through the whole process because the U.S. is not convinced that the child is an orphan. The best way to circumvent this issue is to have DNA tests on the child and birthmother before you apply. As far as we know, Stanley's mother had her DNA test yesterday and Stanley will have his when he comes to PAP with us on Monday. The results are sent back to the U.S. for processing, which takes a few weeks. So, we'll have to file this paperwork back in the U.S., which takes longer. However, it certainly beats running into problems in the end. There is one family that is adopting from Stanley's orphanage who thought they were ready to bring their child home 6 months ago and the U.S. is denying the visa and they can't find the birthmother anymore to do a DNA test. So, we are grateful that this is being taken care of now. It would have been nice to cross something off the list though! Our coodinator says this shouldn't have any real impact on our final timeline- which is, as we said, about a year.

Anyway, we won't have much (if any) access to phone/email while we are there but just as soon as we are back, we'll post pictures and updates!