Catching Up....

It has been quite some time since I have updated this blog. Since my last post, I have been to Haiti three times and Jay has been twice. We were matched in September with two beautiful little Haitians. Our son, M, turned one in January, and our daughter, B, turned three in December. Jay met them for the first time in November when we were there for our appoitnment with the Embassy. This appointment was our official request to declare them both as members of our family. We had a wonderful time with all of the families that we are on this journey with. We were able to keep the kids overnight with us the night before the appointment. The first night we had three kids and the second we had eight. It was a lot of fun. Jay was so awesome with M. He kept him all night so that I was able to spend it with B. He is such a great dad.

My mom, Jay, and I planned a last minute trip to Haiti for Christmas. With the help of my amazing friends and family we were able to give everyone at the orphanage a Christmas present. We spent most of the time playing and loving on the kids. My mom made lots of little friends right away. The kids loved her. My friend Tracey bought these ornaments for the kids. We had a lof of fun taking their pictures and putting them together. The kids were so proud of their tree.

It was nice to spend time with our dear friends, Sandro, Jonas, and Marconel. I was so excited to go to church with them as going to church in Haiti is on my "bucket list." The service was beautiful. We were welcomed by the congregation and were able to spend some time with them. We went to Magdoos for dinner. The food was delish and I got to enjoy one of my favorite beers, Prestige. I am still trying to find a way to get it in Arizona.

There has been a lot of movement in Haitian adoptions this past month. The IBESR finally announced the list of agencies that they are going to allow to work in Haiti. Our agency, AWAA, was on the list. The IBESR is trying to get things started again under the Hague procedures and the rumor is that they will be accepting new dossiers in February. This is great news for the families with our agency that are still waiting to be matched with their children. I am looking forward to seeing which children the families will be matched with!

We received a call from Michelle (our amazing director at our agency) on January 20th letting us know that we are out of IBESR for M and that B should follow soon. This is HUGE news. This means that things are moving along. If all goes well, M and B will be home by Christmas!!!

Thank you all so much for your prayers and support. It means the world to us to know that we have so many wonderful people praying our sweet babies home.

 

Haiti Dossier

Our Haiti dossier was much easier to get done than our dossier for Ethiopia. I am sure it is because it is the second time around!! After daily phone calls to my BFF at USCIS we received our approval on the 19th. It was a lot faster this time since we did not have to have fingerprints done. I Fed Ex'd it to our agency on Friday and I just received an email from them letting us know that they have it. They will send it to translation and then to the orphanage where it will be put with our children's dossier and sent to the IBESR (first step in Haitian government). The IBESR has been closed for the past few months as they are trying to get thru there back log of applications. It seems that there has been a lot of movement which is a good thing. They are scheduled to re-open on August 1st. We are PRAYING that they do!!! When they re-open our agency will send us our referral. This means that we will know which child(ren) that we are being matched with in Haiti. I fell in LOVE with two children on my first trip and we are hoping and praying that we will be matched with them. We know that God has a plan for our family and we are so excited to be on this journey!!!

One Month DTE



Dom, Stina, Jay, and Kenny. One month DTE.

This month has gone by so fast. It is hard to believe that our Dossier has been in Ethiopia one month today. Our agnecy had a rush of referrals the week that we were put on the list so we moved up almost 10 spots!! This was Dominic's last weekend in AZ so Jay and I rented a couple of rooms at the Talking Stick resort and Dominic brought his friend Kenny along. We had a great time lounging by the pool and had a nice dinner to celebrate. 

DTE!!!!!

Dossier To Ethiopia (DTE)......the day that we have been waiting for!!! Our Dossier is FINALLY on it's way to ET. Our DTE date is June 15th, 2012. This is the day that we officially begin our wait. Jay and I decided that we will celebrate our DTE anniversary every month by having dinner at our favorite Ethiopian restaurant. We took our parents tonight. My parents have been enjoying ET food for years but this was Jay's parents first time. We had a great time celebrating our DTE date together.

Finally!!!!

We finally finished our ET Dossier! It is on it's way to our agency in Virginia as I type this!!!!! Once it is reviewed by our Family Coordinator it will be sent to ET. The day that it is Fed Ex'd to ET will be our DTE date. This is what our agency goes by to determine who is next for a referral. The average wait time for our request is 18-24 months.....and the wait begins.

A life changing experience, a new tattoo, and a change of plans.....

A lot has happened since my last post. I am not that great at keeping up with this blog. I promise to do better!! We finished our Home Study in January and it was sent out to be certified by the state. They made a mistake and it had to be sent back. I was pretty bummed because it was our final step in order to send our paperwork to USCIS. They corrected it and we are waiting for the LAST form to complete our ET dossier. As soon as we get it back we will send our dossier to AWAA and officially start the wait.

I started researching mission trips for May as JD (my boss), was going to be out of the office for a few weeks and I thought that it would be a perfect time for me to go on my first mission trip. I was having a hard time finding a trip to coincide with his and I gave up the search. The next morning I saw a post on the AWAA web page about their trip to Haiti. It happened to be the EXACT days that JD was out of town in April. I emailed Michelle, at AWAA, right away. She had me fill out the application and I was accepted to go on the trip. Most of my family and friends were afraid that I would go to Haiti and never come back. I told everyone that Haiti was "the safest" place for me to go because Jay and I do not meet the qualifications to adopt from there. I decided to fly to FL a few days early to spend some time with my family. That did not leave much time for me to get ready for the trip. I had to get all of my immunizations done in record time!

 I had an amazing time in FL. It was so great to spend some one on one time with my way.too.cool Aunt and Uncle. I also got to see some of my cousins that I have not seen in years. Love that! My Aunt Lorilyn totally rocked and drove me to the airport which is 3.5 hours from her house. It was so nice of her. She will never know how much it meant to me. She gave me a great pep talk and sent me on my way.

The AWAA group met up in the Ft. Lauderdale airport. There were 12 of us. I knew right away that this was a group of amazing people. I could not wait to get to Haiti. I sat next to a Haitian man on the flight. He was so nice. My four years of french came in handy......sort of. He told me a lot about the beautiful country that he calls home. I fell in LOVE with Haiti on the first night. The beauty of the country and it's people are indescribable. We spent 4 amazing days loving on kids at the orphanages. We made peanut butter sandwiches, played baseball, skipped rope, did mani/pedis, colored, told Bible stories, sang songs,and hung out on the porch. Hearing those beautiful children sing Jesus Loves Me in Creole would melt the hardest of hearts. These four days were some of the best days that I have ever had.  I started a journal, but is was hard to put into words how I felt. I am overcome by emotion whenever I talke about Haiti. I have never felt God as much as I did in Haiti. Every time those kids smiled I felt like it was Him smiling. Leaving Haiti was so hard. I was planning my trip back before I even left!

I landed back in FL and to my surprise, my Aunt Lorilyn was waiting for me at customs. She drove all the way back to Ft. Lauderale to spend my 6 hour layover with me. We had lunch at the Hard Rock and I shared my experience with her. I told her that I wanted to get a tattoo as a reminder of my life changing trip. After lunch we were walking around the casino and there happened to be a tattoo artist there. So, I got one! la vie est belle (life is beautiful in french). I love it.

While in Haiti I discovered that it is possible for Jay and I to adopt. As soon as I got back from Haiti Jay and I filled out paperwork to do a concurrent adoption. We were approved and have begun paper chasing for our Haitian adoption. So, we are officially adopting from both Haiti and Ethiopia. I fell in love with two sweet babes while I was in Haiti. I pray for them and the people of Haiti every day.

We are so excited. I whole heatedly believe that God sent me to Haiti for a reason. He has a plan. We cannot wait to find out what it is.

Second Home Study



Second Home Study Appointment

We had our second home study appointment last night.This one was in our home. We spent the last week preparing for the visit. Looking back it was funny how nervous we were. We had no reason to be. Trina is great. We talked about our reason for adopting, feelings toward the birth parents, and a lot about our relationship and parenting techniques. Casale was quite the charmer. He layed right next to her the entire time and rolled around on his back demanding attention. When that wasn't enough.....he farted. I totally started laughing. I had to explain to her how rude English Bulldogs can sometimes be LOL!! After our discussion we took her on a tour of the house. That was it. Easy peasy.

We have one more home study appointment. We each have to meet with her in a few weeks to  discuss our family history.  After that she will write our home study and submitt it to our family coordinator and the State of Arizona for approval. Her target date is the end of the year. If all goes well we will be DTE (Dossier to Ethiopia) some time in late January or early February. We are so excited. DTE means that we are officially on the list to be matched with our child/children!!!!

Thank you all for your prayers and support. It means a lot to us.