Afterthoughts...

We've been home from our trip to Haiti for just over a week now.  I have had some time to reflect on and process all that I experienced.  My first shower back was heavenly -- warm and clean water!  Washing my face with water for the first time in a week was divine.  I hope I never take that for granted again.  I missed my kids so much and I was glad to be back home with them (and even the dog and cat were a welcome sight).

Christina and her daddy

I am thrilled that after looking through our pictures of the trip, our kids are they are excited to visit Christina in the future.  They all took pictures to school to show their teachers and friends, even my oldest, who was the most resistant to the adoption.  I will never forget the laugh in his voice as he commented "we are going to have our hands full, she is a nut!" as he watched a video of us playing with Christina.

Eating lunch

The hardest thing about the trip was having to leave Christina behind. She is well cared for and safe.  She has plenty of food and sweet friends to play with.  But she doesn't have a mom or dad or siblings.  No nanny, however wonderful, can fill those shoes.  It was so hard to hear that even with our surprise court date and our paperwork finally reaching IBESR (Haitian Social Services) that we still have 17 months to wait.  Seventeen months!

Why 17 months?  Because we have to wait for the Haitian President to sign off on our documents, saying he approves of our adoption.  That can take up to 6 months alone -- our paperwork sitting in some pile on someone's desk in the Presidential Palace, waiting until he has enough adoption cases to make the time to sign them all.  Then multiple Directors from multiple governmental offices have to sign the documents.  Again, our paperwork can languish on each of these desks up to three months.  Pretty soon those months add up to 17.

I know our paperwork is not important to these people.  Christina is just one child in a country full of orphaned children.  I am sure there are many more important issues they have to deal with daily -- Haiti is a country with significant challenges.  I have been researching different Haitian blogs and news articles trying to understand their culture and politics.  Race and oppression is a huge hot button. Americans are not exactly loved by the Haitian people.  And they do not love the fact that we are taking one of their own away from their country.

I am going to have to learn how to do her hair!
Giving us a sad face -- this is how she greeted us each day, such sad eyes.

Me, I would rather Christina have the opportunity to stay in Haiti as well.  To be with her birth family, to keep her language and culture.  But there is nothing for her in Haiti.  No family, no opportunity.  Nothing but growing up in an orphanage and someday being forced to live on the streets or in a tent, with no job prospects, no future.

Even though we only spent four short days with her, she is ours.  Despite the challenges we know we will face, we know she belongs with our family.  We are excited to be a Haitian-American family, to learn Kreyol and Haitian traditions and incorporate them into our own.

We spent a lot of time drawing pictures together.

So my prayer is that those 17 months shorten to 9 months.  That each step takes the shortest time possible, that each Official feels an overwhelming urge to clear his/her desk of all paperwork.  That the President decides to sign adoption dispensations the day our paperwork hits his office.  9 months allows  for all of the necessary steps without any unnecessary delays.  The only way we can get it done in 9 months is through a miracle.  It has never before been done that quickly in the history of Haitian adoptions.  I know we don't deserve a shorter wait time than any other family going through the adoption process.  But I am praying anyway, because we serve a huge God who has a perfect plan for Christina.