We started this blog as a way to keep our family and some friends in the loop about our journey to bring Stanley home- having no idea that it would take this long or end so dramatically! What we also didn't account for was that so many people (some of whom we don't even know) would be following. We had no way of predicting that so many people would be rooting Stanley on! I received a funny email from someone today saying that some of her friends (who apparantly wrote letters on Stanley's behalf, prayed, etc.) were bugging her for updates! I am so grateful that people to hear our story, so here is the latest:
After flying to Fort Lauderdale, where we were originally anticipating Stanley and ALL of his buddies to arrive, we learned that the embassy turned our agency coordinator away on the day of our appointment (Friday 1/22). A flury of calls to the State Department later and she was told she could return but by this point, the children were on there way back to the orphanage- it was (as we had been warning) not safe for them to wait outside of the embassy, without supplies or security. Our agency contact was told to come back on Sunday. She continued to work and lobby through the weekend but the logistical support people that she was working with to coordinate flights, etc. began to pull out. This is a topic for a whole other post, but apparently UNICEF, etc. were applying pressure to aid organizations NOT to help in the transporting of orphans in the name of preventing child trafficking. We knew that our coordinator needed support so Michael and two other fathers volunteered to fly to Haiti to help. Admittedly, I really really wanted to go but we needed a few people who could go and be calm, rationale, flexible, etc. We also needed people who would work on behalf of all of the children. The fathers agreed to not even go to the orphanage- which I would have been unable to do! I even tried to lobby that since I am still breastfeeding, that could go and feed some of the children... :)!
THAT may also be a story for another post- some of you may not even realize that we have another child- we purposefully never mentioned Dane on this blog before. If you've been following, you know that Stanley's file had been stuck in a stage of the process known as IBESR because we are under 35 years old. The preferred criteria for adopting from Haiti is between 35-50 years of age, married 10 years, and no biological children. We had been in the processing of adopting Stanley for months by the time we got pregnant and were scared that having another child would jeopordize the adoption. We had no idea we would be in IBESR for a whole year! We just decided that until we were out, we would not mention Dane on the blog, since it is public.
Ok, I guess we have a lot to update- did we mention that in the wake of all of this chaos, we found out that we had actually exited IBESR on December 24th? Apparently, our contacts were notified on January 11th and our signed file was delivered to the oprhanage a few days after the earthquake!!!
Back to the trip... as you can imagine, I scared to have Michael go to Haiti but knew that I couldn't join him- as Michael said, one of us needed to stay behind for Dane, "in case something happened." That may sound melodramatic now, but at the time, we had no idea what the conditions were and where the guys would be sleeping, how they would get around, or how long this process would take. Noone had any faith that our appointment would be honored on Sunday. Back in Ft. Lauderdale, as more of the families gathered (remember we were all expecting our children to be home that evening), we decided to mobilize and do what we could to help coordinate flights, keep everyone informed, and advocate for our agency/orphanage. There was a little command center set up at the local small airport. The pilots and staff were AMAZING and let us take over their lounge around the clock. One of the families took over greeting the arriving families and collecting copies of documents and information and some of us worked on trying to arrange flights, airports, and logistical support. Some of the aid organizations would say that they had extra seats flying out of Port au Prince at a certain time then we would try to figure out which Florida airport they could get into and try to determine if that airport had access to medical support and customs. We worked with a local church and the Red Cross to get carseats for the families, we rented a few large vans, and tried our best to communicate with the guys on the ground.
Speaking of, Michael and the other fathers arrived Saturday afternoon and spent the entire day at the airport. I should really let Michael tell this part of the story but apparently, they were able to sleep in a tent in a tent city of aid workers that had been set up. They were able to figure out the process for getting kids onto different planes (the planes were coming and going and could only sit on the runway for a hour, which meant we would have to act fast when the kids were released for travel). At different points we were told the kids had to be travel-ready in order to book seats OR that we needed a plane and its tail number in order for the kids to be released. The guys had a few very uncomfortable run-ins with UNICEF and folks working on their behalf but I think I'll let Michael tell that story- for those of you who do not know, UNICEF DOES NOT support international adoption and it is largely believed that many of the delays in this process was as a result of their influence.
I'm not sure if anyone is still reading (sorry this is so long)... On Sunday, the dads met our agency coordinator at the embassy. Apparently, Michael was able to gain entry for himself and the others ONLY after showing his government ID. At the embassy, they waited with our agency coordinator tried repeatedly to get information. They were told again and again that "we were next." As the day went on, we were all losing faith that this would happen- until at about 2 PM, a man emerged with a list of 7 names and said these 7 were needed for photos- and Stanley was on it! The dads knew that these 7 would be the first to get processed but still hoped that the rest would be soon to follow. Those 7 kids (all under 4 years old) were quickly loaded up into a van and driven to the embassy. That means, no goodbyes, no gathering of belongings. Michael and another father spent the next 8 hours or so waiting with these 7 babies at the embassy. Finally, at around 10, they were given their travel documents. Around this time, we were also told that beginning the next day, the Prime Minister himself would need to approve all travel documents before kids could leave the country. With little sleep in the past few days and the history of the unpredictability of Haitian adoptions, I thought that if those kids didn't get out that night, it was never going to happen. With the help of some military contacts, a flight was secured and the kids were rushed to the airport. I must have sent Michael a million texts begging him to get the plane off the ground. He had a hard time responding because he was holding two or three sleeping children. At about midnight, the flight took off. Instead of flying to Ft. Lauderdale or Miami like we thought, we were told it was headed to Orlando!
I think that I'll save the rest of that night for another post. I'll also write more about how we are doing as a family. The long story short- is that we are great! Stanley is relatively healthy (nothing a little antibiotics, the BRAT diet, and a lot of love and consistency won't cure) and we are settling into a routine. In one month, he has survived an earthquake and TWO blizzards- we have had record snows which has given us time to be snowed in together as a family. I'll say it a million times and it will never be enough- thank you for your support, prayers, letters, and good vibes- Stanley is one loved little boy.
