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.

A new day!

It's amazing what a new day will bring! I prayed last night that I would leave Haiti feeling good about our trip, Christina and the whole experience. Today He confirmed that He is indeed in control.

Let me back up a bit. When I first tried to book our trip I tried to book tickets for the middle to end of October. To our dismay, the ONLY dates available with our frequent flier miles were the five days in November that we finally booked. Two weeks past what we wanted.

When we arrived in Haiti Friday the orphanage director of the guest house we are staying at mentioned that we might be going to see the Dean on Monday. I had no idea what this meant, but I said ok. We had been told to just be agreeable to whatever we were told, so I acted like I knew what she was talking about.

Today after breakfast (we tried to eat as much of it as we could-- the ladies here seem to be offended that we leave food, but we simply can not eat all the food they serve us!) we were told to dress up, as we were going to meet with the Dean. Now, we did not bring dress clothes. We had no idea we would have any official meetings this trip. We put on the nicest clothes we had (thank goodness I had packed one skirt!) and were driven to Christina's orphanage once again.

The kids were dressed for their school day, all matching green polos and blue jeans. Christina came over to me immediately and wanted to be picked up. She refused to let anyone else near me. One little guy, maybe 2 years old, when he saw us, came running to us with open arms as fast as his little legs could carry him, a huge grin on his face. He literally threw himself at Weston. So sweet!

Sonya, the director of the orphanage where Christina stays, told us she had been able to get us an appointment (I still was not sure what appointment she was talking about) and she needed to prepare us. So she drilled us with questions:

Why do you want to adopt when you already have three children?

How are you going to provide for her?

How are you going to love her as much as your other children?

What did our children think of the adoption?

What does your extended family think of Christina?

What will we do if she is made fun of for her black skin at school?

Does having a black child bother us at all?

Are there other black children in our neighborhood?

When we answered all the questions to her satisfaction, we kissed Christina a quick good bye, told her we would be back soon and left for our appointment.

We got to see a new part of Port au Prince. The entire city seems the same-- street after street of destroyed buildings, piles of rubble and people everywhere. We did see some construction projects: they are rebuilding the streets and drainage in some of the worst areas.

We arrived at a building with 20-30 people milling around outside, obviously waiting to go in. We were told to stay in the car. Sonya brought a man out to us and had us sign a book -- I could tell the handwritten pages were all about us. I saw our names, social security numbers and some dates. All written by hand! She told us that was the paper needed before we could see the Dean. (what the heck is "the Dean!?!")

Then she handed me the official copy of our dossier to look through. Our dossier is every piece of paper needed to process the adoption. In Haiti it is all kept in a big file folder. There are no PDFs or computer files, it is all done the old fashioned way by hand. I read as best I could (it was all in French-- I am so grateful for my four years of French in high school and college!) all of the documents on Christina. Her psychological profile, where they found her, how she was when she first arrived at the orphanage, how long Sonya waited until she decided Christina was ready to be adopted.

We arrived at a government building and were ushered into one waiting room, then another. Everyone else was dressed in suits and dress shoes. We felt very under dressed. We were also the only white people.

Sonya told us the Dean was busy but would try to squeeze us in shortly. So we waited. And waited. About an hour later we were told she had a staff meeting and we would have to keep waiting. Then about a minute later we told to hurry into the office. The staff wasn't ready for the meeting, so she would see us now.

We walked in to an air conditioned office and a stern looking woman told us to sit down. She then told Sonya to give her the dossier file and to leave the room. She asked for our passports, looked over them, compared them to the dossier file. She proceeded to ask us many of the same questions Sonya had prepared us for. She did not look happy.

These are the pictures we showed the Dean.

Finally she asked to see pictures of us with Christina.  We got out our camera and showed her a couple of pictures and she seemed to soften.  "She is very pretty", she said to us with a slight smile. "Good luck" and she signed the documents.

As we got in the car to return to the orphanage, I asked Sonya when we would have to go to court. She laughed and said "you just did! That was your court date and she was the judge! And my questions helped prepare you, no?"

I had no idea! The final document needed in order for us to go to court had come in two days before we arrived. Because it came in right before we got here Sonya was able to schedule a court date for us today! Had we visited when we originally planned, in October, we would have missed the opportunity to go to court. God knew what He was doing!

Our paperwork will now head to IBESR and await the presidential dispensation. Our wait time probably won't be any shorter but at least we won't have to come back for the court date.

We had a few minutes to snuggle Christina before we had to head back to our guesthouse. She was very sad and withdrawn. She snuggled Weston, clutching his shirt in her little hand, her head on his shoulder. In her other hand she held the picture book we had given her. It is apparent she knows we are her family. She is one smart little girl.

Another couple from Germany was also at the orphanage. They are picking their little boy up to take him home this week. We had a few minutes to chat with them (the husband spoke decent English) and he said they had been in the adoption process since May, 2010. And they don't have any other children. That makes my heart sink. Our process could be even longer than that. Sonya said to count on at least another year, but that she is praying the president signs off on our paperwork in miraculous time.

We said goodbye to all the sweet kids, kissing each one, and kissing Christina over and over. We told her we would be back. She didn't cry, she just lay limply in our arms.

On our way back to the guest house we told Sonya we were pretty sure Christina knew we were adopting her, but that we had worked hard not to tell her. Sonya said its ok for her to know. It gives her hope as she sees other children leave with their white mamas and papas. She can hold her photo album and know she has a family coming for her too. One of her buddies left last week, another cutie (who I just love!) will leave the first week of December. At least adoptions are happening, however slowly.

We got back to the guest house just in time for lunch. Rats. Another huge meal to try and finish. We were hoping to miss lunch time and save room for the huge dinner we know is coming. Tonight we have vowed to eat all the meat we are served. It was apparent that not finishing all of the duck we were served last night was a bit offensive. We may pop, but maybe we will for once show our appreciation for the meal.

We've printed out our boarding passes for our trip home. It took us close to an hour with the slow Internet and old computers and printers they have here. No wonder paperwork takes so long here! I am so sad to leave Christina here. But I am happy to go home, see my other kiddos, take a nice warm shower, wash my face with water and drink a cold beer.

A tough day

Today was a tough day. We were told we would be at the orphanage for an hour and our driver finally picked us up almost six hours later. That is a long time to be with 10 attention-starved kids. I have to admit I was really glad to see our driver when he finally showed up.

Once again we received a warm reception from the kids when we arrived this morning. They were all dolled up in their Sunday best, even though I don't think they went to church. Christina had on a cute pink sundress and her hair was undone and Afro big! Her nanny was in the middle of styling her hair. That will be something new for me to learn, it looked pretty difficult, with a squirmy little girl.

The kids gathered around us waiting to see what fun things we would pull out of our backpacks. We have learned less is more with the gifts. One for each, and nothing more. Today I handed out plastic beaded necklaces. They loved them, although there were a few fights over colors. Christina crawled into my lap the minute I sat down, much to the dismay of two other little girls who wanted a piece of my lap. Weston was trying to fit three little ones in his lap as well. We are pretty much left alone with the older kids, I think the nannies use us as an opportunity to not have to supervise the kids themselves. Even the baby room gets left unattended often. It is amazing to see how those little ones, barely old enough to crawl and walk have learned survival instincts.

After an hour of being fought over I was exhausted. We couldn't hold them all and someone was always on the edge of crying and feeling neglected. Christina exhibited some behavior that makes me think we are going to have a hard road ahead of us. I wish we had a chance to have her alone as I would like to see how she behaves outside of the chaos of the orphanage, without feeling like she has to fight for our attention. And because we can't let her know we are adopting her we have to give all the kids equal attention, which made things really tough.

There were moments of sweetness and joy with her, but also moments where she was animal-like. She does not like being told no, and will act out when she doesn't get her way. She also does not like to be helped and will fight to do things herself. She pinched, kicked, and fought at us. I have to admit after a couple of hours of watching her and interacting with her I was wondering what in the world we had gotten our family into. How in the world could we bring this feral child into our home? We will have to put locks on the doors, put up anything we don't want destroyed.

Yet once she realized we were not going to back down, she would calm down. A couple of times she completely shut down after a fit, staring blankly into space. But with some snuggles and hugs she would slowly come back to her sweet self. We can see glimpses of the little girl she can be, given time, a stable family and unconditional love. That is what we will have to cling to when she has her fits.

We really saw who she can be at lunch. She was obedient, fun and sweet all through her lunch. She smiled, played peekaboo and seemed so happy! A favorite nanny came in during lunch and it was fun to see the kids light up at her arrival. The other nannies introduced us as Christina's parents, I have to think Christina is figuring out who we are. She is a very smart little girl.

I can't believe how much these little ones eat at each meal. A huge bowl of food and they can't leave the table until the bowl is empty. Christina ate more than I could ever think about eating at one sitting. After lunch with such full bellies, no wonder they all get so sleepy! Think of the energy it must take them to digest it all! Christina's belly was so full her back was arched from the weight as she marched around after lunch.

After lunch she continued to play sweetly with us and the other kids. I observed her being kind to another child who was sad, sharing her book and offering my lap to another little one who wanted some snuggles. She sang songs, kicked a ball, we read a book. At one point she fell and began to cry and when I picked her up and cuddled her, she was all better. I feel like the chaos of us being with all the kids is partly responsible for her behavior, they all have to fight for what they want. It really is survival of the fittest. But once we had been there a while she settled in and calmed down a bit.

It is interesting to watch the kids interact with each other. You can tell who is the mother hen, who is the tattle tale, who is the instigator, who gets picked on. They have their little society amongst themselves. They are all so smart and capable of fending for themselves. In the US we would never let kids run around like these kids do-- concrete floor, sharp edges, stairs, metal gates, little pieces they can (and do!) put in their mouths: an environment not at all safe for unattended kids. Yet these kids navigate it just fine. It is what they are used to. They don't have many toys, so they play with whatever they can find, whether it is a piece of string or an old deflated balloon.

I can honestly say that after being with these little guys all day there isn't a single one I did not get along with or like. They all have their issues, but overall they are all sweet, wonderful little children, just craving attention and love. And they all have fits just like Christina. They hit each other, take things away from each other, and they all have moments where they shut down and stare blankly at nothing. None of them like being told no and they all destroy whatever they are given. That seems to be the way of an orphanage.

Weston and I have our work cut out for us. Another year of Christina being in the orphanage is only going to encourage her animal-like fits. It is what she has to do to survive here. It will take time and energy to unteach those behaviors and teach her boundaries. I have to admit, I am a bit glad she isn't coming home just yet. I am going to have to do more preparation. I am also glad my other children will be that much older, and hopefully understanding, when she does come home.

When we left the kids all waved good-bye, but there weren't any tears. They must be used to watching people come and go, so it doesn't phase them.

We will visit her once more tomorrow, and although I am tired and a bit discouraged right now I am hopeful that one more day will show us we can actually do this. I am looking forward to our last day with her and I pray God shows us more glimpses of who our little girl truly is, and who she will be once she is with her family.