Adoption Decree!!!

We just found out that our agency coordinator has received the copy of our adoption decree from Haiti! Basically, that means that it is over- he is legally our son! We are going to readopt him in Maryland so that we can get a U.S. birth certificate and we still need to file for his citizenship but those are simply formalities!

Stanley's buddies have shelter!

Just a quick note to say THANK YOU to everyone who gave generously in the days and weeks after the earthquake- we started the fund for Stanley's orphanage- hoping to bring emergency supplies directly to the kids and to help sustain the organization after the wave of initial support waned. We sent some of the funds directly to the orphanage director to help with immediate needs but wanted to find a project to take on. Although many of the children had been matched with families prior to the earthquake and have been brought to the U.S. under Humanitarian Parole (or to other countries with similiar international agreements with Haiti), there are still children left behind. These kids are still sleeping outside because of their fear of the building collapsing. It has been hard to ascertain whether this is a real possibility- I mean, we have no way of knowing how structuraly sound the building is. The generator has been sent to the capital to help the director maintain energy so she can continue to work (and process adoption paperwork). This leaves spotty electricity so there is no way to keep food and medicine cold (and safe). After LOTS of logistics (mostly handled by our good friend Donna!), the fund purchased and shipped a 50 person tent that is being set up today- I am waiting to see pictures!!! The rest of the existing funds will be targeted at filling a shipping container with whatever supplies are most important, and, we hope one or two medical professionals. We'll keep you posted!

Stanley Video Montage

Stanley's aunties made him this video for his 2nd bday! Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Stanley!!!

Stanley is two years old today! We are so so grateful he is home to celebrate! The sun is shining, its opening day for the Orioles, and its Friday! Today is a very good day! Life is good.

Huge news!!!

Quick update- just received word that our Orphanage Director has received our final adoption decree (which means we exited Parquet!). To put this in perspective- the children who were at this stage when the earthquake hit, came home with finalized adoptions- we are very very close! This will make it much easier to apply for Stanley's citizenship!

Lots to update but busy living our lives as a crazy family of four- will write more this week...

More on the journey home...

Ok, I know it has been more than a month since I posted last- and once again, it was someone else prompting me to update the blog... so, let's see- when I left off last time, Michael and Stanley were on a flight to Orlando. I have to mention that although we were obviously ecstatic that Stanley and a few of his buddies were coming home, it was gut wrenching to know that most of the children were not coming back on that flight. At that point, we weren't sure if this was going to be the last wave of children to come home for a while. One of our dear friends in particular, whose husband was in Haiti with Michael, and who had been working around the clock like we had on behalf of all of the families, was heartbroken and I honestly didn't know what to say to her. I knew that there were some families who thought it was suspicious that Michael was there and Stanley was on this list- as if he had somehow influenced the process. For those of you who don't know us very well- Michael and I had a very difficult failed domestic adoption two years ago- the birthmother of our first son changed her mind after a few weeks. I know what it is like to come home without your child and the thought that these families- friends- would be going through that was unbearable. We vowed to try to continue to work on behalf of all of the children. Our middle of the night drive from Ft. Lauderdale to Orlando involved a low gas tank, a missed exit, backing up the highway, and getting pulled over! After taking one look at my friend and I and hearing our pitiful story, the officier actually gave us a police escort to the gas station!

We arrived at the airport to learn that the children had landed safely!!!! We were told that we would not be allowed in customs and that we should come back at 1 or 2 PM to fill out some paperwork. Crushed (and a little disapointed that we hadn't taken the time to pack our bags and check out of the hotel...), we decided to head to a hotel for the night. Moments later, we got a call that a nice security guard was going to allow us to come back to see the children (but only for a minute)! As we walked through the gates, we saw what looked like a hundred children laying on blankets in a big roped off area. Frantically, we scanned for our babies- and I saw Michael- and Stanley. He was sleeping (it was about 4 AM). This was it- this was that moment that I'd been preparing for 1 1/2 years. I found out later that one of the other fathers captured that moment in a picture so I've included it. Can you see all the children in the background? Looks chaotic, right? While our orphanage only had 7 children and three escorts, there were two other very large groups with almost 100 children- and very few adults. Somehow, nobody came back to escort me out and I was able to stay with the kids until our paperwork was processed- which was not until 10 PM! Yep, we sat in that room with all of those sick and tired children for another 18 hours!

Volunteers brought food and diapers but the time just dragged. The children had to be individually fingerprinted and then their files reviewed by Customs Officiers. AFTER all of the children had been processed through customs, those of us that were in Category II (Humanitarian Parole) had to go through another file review by the Department of Health and Human Services- this is because under Humanitarian Parole, the kids are actually being released to foster parents (us). Regardless, the process was long and arduous and after three days of no sleep and unbelievable stress, I started to go a little crazy. I remember feeling like we were being held hostage! I think I actually said to Michael at some point, "they can't do this, we are American citizens!" Throughout the day, they kept saying that some of the children would be flown to Miami for processing but wouldn't tell us which ones- I couldn't stop thinking of the other families who, like us, had just driven for hours to Orlando- and now, we might have to go back??? After that crazy wait, it was over. They called our names. We answered a few questions and signed a few forms. Then it was over- almost! We were stopped on our way out and asked if we had our I-94 receipt. Our what? We showed the officer our paperwork and he replied, "Oh no, you need that receipt!" After about 30-40 minutes of searching, someone else appeared with the receipt and we were finally on our way. I felt like running- as in- "please nobody else stop us..." As we walked out of customs, we handed Stanley an American flag and a Haitian flag. He looked so happy and content. We knew how he felt.

We stayed in a nice hotel that night (I'm sure we were a sight when we checked in!). Stanley slept between us in a very comfty bed- probably his first in weeks. We made a few calls, ordered some food, and enjoyed our first night as a family. The rest of the journey home was rather uneventful. A nice flight attendant presented Stanley with a certificate from the Pilot of our flight to BWI that says "Stanley's first flight" (nevermind he flew from PAP to Orlando) and the captain said "Welcome Home Stanley" on the intercom.

All of this seems so long ago at this point. Now, life is full of packing lunches and diaper bags, walks in the park, bedtime stories, really great hugs and kisses, and so many "firsts." I will write more soon (I promise) about how that is going- but, we continue to be amazed at Stanley's resiliency and Dane's acceptance of his new brother. The two of them are so fun together.

life as a family of four!

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.