Our Referral: All the Feelings

Note: Not long ago, I received some great advice from a woman/adoptive mama/blogger that I greatly admire about the power of brevity and editing in a blog post. Today, I did not heed that advice. At all. I am striving to be less wordy in the future, but today...it all poured out. Grab yourself a big mug of coffee, paragraphs are ahead.  

Bonjou! (good morning!) 

A few weeks ago, I started to draft a blog update, as we were approaching a couple of milestones in our adoption process:
1. November 2015, we began our long, complex adoption journey. 
2. November 2016 (11/4/16, to be exact), we first glimpsed baby K, on a Waiting Children list, and immediately began to pursue her. On top of this, I was acutely aware that her second birthday is later this month.

As I was drafting the post, I was struggling to put my emotions into clear language. Over the last year, K has been regularly on our minds and hearts. If you've followed along with the blog, you'll recall that while we were hoping and praying that we would get the referral for her (aka, the official "match"), we experienced a couple of hiccups along the way where we believed we would not. As November rolled around again, I was feeling frustrated and sad that we did not have any more news to share. Ultimately, I ended up just setting this post aside, and told myself I'd come back to it.

Then, a few days later, I received a call from our agency. "This is a unique situation, and I wasn't sure if I should call you yet...but, after talking with my supervisor, we decided it would be best that we reach out. The crèche has lodging held for you on the 22nd of this month." 

Long story short, the crèche where K lives is remote, and has limited lodging available for families. The crèche directors felt "sure enough" that our match for K was going to come through that they had held a room for our socialization trip. This is quite uncommon; the "typical" process is that we would not receive the call announcing our match until IBESR had officially signed off on it. But, since the notice was so short, our agency wanted us to be able to begin our preparation as soon as possible (i.e., let our work know, buy plane tickets, secure coverage for Eisley and Dublin, purchase necessary items for the trip...)

We were overjoyed, but slightly skeptical, and held our breath for the next week. One week after this call, on 11/15/17, the official word indeed arrived. We received our referral for K! We still have a long way to go, but this is a huge milestone in the international adoption process. We are incredibly excited and incredibly overwhelmed. 

(As an aside, we were just saying the other day that we were starting to feel "at home" in our new house and neighborhood. Then, BAM! The referral comes through. His timing sure is amazing, huh?)

So, here's what's next 

J and I will be flying to Haiti for 2 weeks, to spend our "socialization trip" with K at her crèche. Fortunately they were able to push it out one week, or we would have literally had one week's notice to get everything in order and get on a plane. We have chosen not to bring E with us on this trip, as we think the length of time away from her routine could be a bit disruptive for her right now.  

While we'll be there to spend time with and get to know K, we will play with her and other kids in the crèche, and potentially lend a hand around the facilities, if possible. We'll also spend some time with the crèche directors, to connect with them and see if they may know more about K's background. (We learned that one of the directors is a big whiskey man, and J is looking forward to bringing him a small bottle as a gift!) We're planning to pack large portions of our suitcase with toys and books to play with and leave at the crèche, as well as other items to donate.

After the two weeks is up, we will fly home, without K. This is painful to think about, but is part of the Haitian adoption process (not every country does this). After we arrive home, we file more paperwork, essentially asking the US to designate K as a "relative", so that she can enter the US, and informing Haiti that we are indeed agreeing to adopt K. We will then move back into the waiting phase, relying on two disparate governments to complete their work. I'm sure it will go smoothly and quickly (joke)

There are quite a few paperwork checkpoints for us to get through. Once all of these are complete, we'll be allowed to fly back, pick K up, and bring her home. There is no specific time frame that we can expect for this, but it appears to be taking about 6 months to a year for most families.

A few reality checks

While our upcoming trip is called a "socialization" trip, we've been cautioned that the time we spend with K may be limited, and/or challenging. While we have been dreaming of her regularly, to her we are strangers. It will likely take time for her to warm up to us (one family we talked to shared that their little girl wouldn't make eye contact or smile until four days into their trip). In addition, we cannot realistically attach and bond with her in this short amount of time, nor would it be fair to her to expect this, when we know we will be leaving her again for some time.

After our socialization trip, we can go back to Haiti as often as we'd like to visit K. I'm not sure yet if we will be able to (more plane tickets, more time off work, and we would need to arrange our own lodging and transportation), but it's comforting to know that it is an option. (Prior to the referral/match, we aren't allowed to donate funds or go to the creche, as it could appear to be bribery.)

Many of you have asked what we can share about K. Until our adoption is final, we are not allowed to publicly share information about K (aka, post on social media). This includes posting identifying pictures of her, information about her crèche, or her full name (hence why we're using her first initial). While in Haiti, we will be able to take pictures and video to our heart's content. And you best believe we will!

What you can do

Pray and/or send all the good vibes our way. Neither of us have ever been on a trip to one place for so long, and we are feeling apprehensive about the time away from home, and the many unknown factors of what to expect while we're in country.

Learn more about Haiti! Google will serve you just fine in this effort. If you are a podcast fiend like myself and would like to understand the history of the country, check out the Revolutions podcast, and find the "4" series (4.0-4.19) to hear the riveting story of the Haitian revolution.

Brush up on your Haitian Creole. Justin and I are working on learning some of the building blocks of the language, but I'll admit that I'm feeling really challenged in this. Not only is this important for us to learn more of and respect her culture and heritage, but we don't expect that K will known much/any English. When she does come home with us, being able to share her mother language will be extremely beneficial for communication and learning.

On to the next stage of our adventure...

Renmen (love), J & J

Waiting for Referral: One Year

One year ago today we entered IBESR, meaning we officially became "referral ready".  I was putting off writing this post in the hopes that we would beat the anniversary, and receive a referral before today. Alas, that was not meant to be.  

Here's why we were really hoping to have more news to share today. Two weeks ago, we received the following email from our agency:

Hello, Jordan and Justin:

If you remember, there was a delay in K's case, because of the birth father considering parenting her.   However, it seems that she is now legally available for adoption.  I asked the creche for an update on her case, and got an email from them today saying that her dossier is now complete – it has been submitted to IBESR with a request for match with your family.  (IBESR has had our request for that match for quite a while now, and now they have our creche's request and the child’s dossier, too.)

So, keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll approve the match! 

As you know, things are slow and unpredictable in Haiti… so, both the family’s and child’s dossiers can be 100% ready for referral, and still wait for months, if not longer, due to many issues unrelated to the dossiers.  Still, I am becoming more and more excited now that I have recently had two match requests approved and the families are in Haiti, as we speak, for their socialization trips! 

I’ll keep you posted. 

-M

Cue the happy dance! 
We haven't heard anything further since this, and are eagerly waiting/praying/holding our breath. K turns two in just a couple of months (November), and it would bring me no greater joy than to get to hold her in my arms to celebrate her birthday with her.

In the meantime, we're working hard to stay afloat in all of the other areas of our life. Work has been insane for both of us, and it has felt like we're working two jobs: our corporate jobs in the day and then coming home and putting all of our (remaining) brain power and elbow grease into getting our house on the market and searching for our next home. We have accepted an offer (our second, actually, but that's a story for another time) and have found a couple of homes that would be amazing for our little family. But, this has proved to be quite a challenging process (take your pick of metaphors: a roller coaster, a crazy game, a fragile web...) It's also time to gear up for REACH camp, where I'll again be volunteering in the camp director role. It is a lot of prep work, but my most favorite time of year.  Oh, and Eisley will be moving to a new daycare next month (under our office at work; it will be amazing to have her so close). So, you know, not a lot going on here. ;)

In some ways, I think that being this busy is a good distraction from this long wait, because when I pause for too long, I can get mired down in frustration and sadness. To balance this, I am trying to more regularly express gratitude for the abundance of good in our lives.  So, thank you to each of you for your ongoing support, patience, and kindness.  

Breathing and Living Life

Well, my personal goal of writing at least once a month has slipped by me, but I'll work harder on this. Life just moves too quickly these days.
Regardless, we don't have any specific adoption updates to share, but I'm jotting down a couple of things going on in our life right now. 

First: Justin and I just returned from six days in New York City. We are equal parts refreshed and exhausted, but I feel so grateful that we were able to go. (Why is it that you always seem to need a vacation after a vacation?) 

We love to travel. If I were to boil it down, I would say that one of the main reasons I work my butt off is to support my family and our future, and to travel. In 2009, not long after we were married, Justin and I took our first trip to New York City and fell head over heels for the city. We are both suburb-born-and-raised, but are drawn to the bustle, walkability, and culture of a metropolitan life. We call NYC our "second home", and often daydream of our retirement plans, which typically includes owning a home or renting long-term properties in various areas across the City. Since that first trip, we've gone back about every other year, but put this on pause when I got pregnant. When we began the adoption journey, 16 months after Eisley was born, we decided to pause any "major" life choices (or, I should say, any MORE major life choices).

And here we are: 19 months since the start of this journey, 10 months into the "referral-ready" phase. We don't know if baby K will be referred to us any time soon, or at all. Things still appear to be moving for others in Haiti, although at molasses speed. In many ways it feels as though we're holding our breath. So, we decided to plan a trip, and breathe for a minute. We are blessed to have two sets of grandparents nearby who willingly/lovingly took Eisley for the week, so it was just the two of us. It was an incredible trip filled with sunshine, music, walking, and reconnecting as a couple. Oh, and so. much. good. food.

Second: We've decided to sell our house and move.

When we bought our home in 2008 we were young, newly married, and had no idea what our future truly held. We knew that we wanted kids and that we wanted to live closer to Seattle. Now that we are raising one child and preparing for another, the itch to be in the city has become stronger. Many of our friends (nearly all of our friends with kids) live in Seattle. We work in Seattle. Eisley's fabulous school is in Seattle. We find ourselves driving there most weekends for activities, and we are oh-so-tired of this commute. But, as we worked to complete our home study, we made the decision not to move until after the adoption finalized and our little girl had been home for some time, so as to create the least amount of unnecessary transition for her. We know that our schools nearby are well-rated and fairly diverse, but our neighborhood and community is not very diverse. Our daughter needs (deserves) access to racial mirrors.**

We again began kicking around the idea of moving earlier this year, quickly talking ourselves out of it because of all of the work it would take, and because of the sheer craziness of choosing to buy a house in one of the hottest and most expensive markets in the country right now. And honestly, there's something in my brain that has said "If you just stay put for one more minute...one more week...one more month...your referral will come through." I know this is unrealistic (superstition?), but it is part of what's been helping me feel tethered. Either way, I am working to breathe, let this go (and let God), and keep living a full life. To cap this off, we were also both blessed in crazy and unexpected ways at work this year, and so we decided to take the plunge. 

Moving will mean redoing part of our home study (paperwork and fees, which our agency ensured us is not totally abnormal), and investing a ton of work into packing/selling/buying in an insane market. We have honed in on a couple of key neighborhoods (Beacon Hill and West Seattle), met with our real estate agent, secured a mortgage provider, and begun the process of packing and purging and cleaning. We have discussed contingency plans for what to do if we sell, but cannot quickly buy (a distinct possibility). I have spent hours poring over neighborhood blogs, maps, and school reviews. I am crazy stressed about this (because, yes, it is crazy), but know that we are doing the right thing for our family.  
To close this train of thought out, I'll note that this was even more clear to me after our time in NYC. Walking the streets, we were surrounded by a plethora of people, languages, cultures...It was a dream. We even looked up Haitian restaurants and had multiple options to choose from! 
[See earlier note of "so. much. good. food." We had a delicious lunch: me, a plate of legumes and diri ak pwa (vegetables with red beans and rice), and Justin, poulet creole (chicken stew). We both tried a good dose of pikliz on our meal, too (a spicy cabbage/vinegar condiment, often made with scotch bonnet peppers). I'll be building my heat tolerance for that!]

So, if you have an interest in cleaning carpets and roofs, running countless loads of donations to Goodwill, or are an expert at carefully piling items into boxes, your services are welcome! 

N a we pita! (See you later!)

-------------------

**Additional, important thoughts about racial mirrors:

Mirrors for my Daughter's Bookshelf

Having Just One Black Teacher Can Keep Black Kids In School 

From "The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl" by Issa Rae: "You guys know about vampires?" Diaz asked. "You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There's this idea that monsters don't have reflections in a mirror. And what I've always thought isn't that monsters don't have reflections in a mirror. It's that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn't see myself reflected at all. I was like, "Yo, is something wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don't exist? And part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might seem themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it." 

Still Waiting

Hi friends, I know it’s been since the holidays that I’ve posted an update, and many of you have kindly checked in to see how things have been going. In a word, they haven’t, but we know that is pretty much par for the course at this stage, and we are trying hard to remain patient and positive.

Over the last couple of months, we’ve heard scattered reports about how things are generally going in Haiti, and also had a very brief “non-update” from our agency, so I thought I’d at least share those highlights.

On 1/13, I received an email from our program manager asking if we could connect. She called us after work, when Justin and I were enjoying a mini Friday date-night (happy hour beer and plate of pickle chips) before picking E up from my in-laws. He took the call in the hallway away from the din of the restaurant, and I sat a bit paralyzed at the table, staring out the window. Since I couldn’t see Justin to read his body language during the conversation, I just sat there fretting and holding in tears—it could be good news (the referral?) or bad news (officially “losing” K?). Turns out it wasn’t really either. Our program manager knew that we hadn’t heard anything in some time, and wanted to pass along a brief update that she had heard from the crèche. 

When we were first presented with K’s information in November, details about her were scant.  Recently, her dad has begun voicing his discontent that K is to be adopted. However, he has not done anything to take action against this, such as stepping forward to say he will raise her. Our program manager let us know that this is not unusual, and may not ultimately impact anything. He could fade away again, or he could choose to step up and take care of his daughter (or other relatives could choose to do so). We can’t know what will happen around this, and I initially felt more angst than appreciation at receiving this update. However, in the end, I believe that a child should have a family, and in many cases, I recognize that biological family is preferable. If bio-family is able to step up and care for K, providing the unconditional love and guidance and support that she so desperately deserves, then my heart will be well. Either way, I'm vacillating between feelings. On one hand, I'm frustrated that things aren't moving for K--she is missing out on precious time with her family, even if that is not us. (For perspective, K was just about to turn one-year old when we first learned of her, and she is now 16 months old.) On the other hand, the busyness of our day-to-day provides a welcome distraction, and Eisley's growth and development is incredible and keeps us on our toes. 

In this conversation, we also learned that the other family (mentioned in my last couple of posts—they were also seeking a referral for K, were “chosen” ahead of us, and then pulled out of it because another referral was apparently already in the works for them) did not end up receiving a referral. This may have occurred because of first seeking K, but is unclear. My heart aches for them.

One thing we’ve been learning to navigate through this process is that intel about what’s happening on the ground in Haiti is hard to come by and hard to validate. While our program manager provides updates as she has them, they are often sparse. To fill in some of these gaps, families in our social media support groups will post what they’ve heard, and I’m so grateful for these connections. I’ve begun to rely on these virtual friends for updates; I often hear from them first when things have stopped or started in Haiti.

With that, we’ve picked up some good tidbits over the last few months. Here are a few key notes: 

• One of the reasons things have been particularly quiet lately is because IBESR has been experiencing infrastructure issues. It appears that there have been periods of time when their printers and copiers were not working, electricity was spotty, and/or the generator was not functioning well. This makes me realize how much we take our modern, first-world amenities for granted. Something as “simple” as a printer going down halted movement for countless children and families. Judging by our social media groups, it looks like some of these issues may be resolved now; some families are reporting receiving their referral, embarking on bonding trips, and even moving into the final stages of their child’s adoption. Praise!
• It appears that more staff is being added to support (and speed up) the matching/referral process. IBESR has stated that they are working to implement procedures this year so that a family’s dossier should only sit with IBESR for 6 months and at the judicial phase for 6 months, meaning that hopefully matches will occur and move forward within a year. (Apparently this was an intention shared when Haiti transitioned to Hague, but is being reaffirmed!) This is incredible news for those of us waiting (and waiting, and waiting). There is still a backlog of families waiting for referrals (some waiting since 2014), and it sounds like the focus is to get these completed first.
• IBSER will continue to meet throughout the year with agency representatives and crèches, to hear concerns and ensure procedures are being followed. I’m hopeful that this will keep the doors of communication open, aiding in the flow of accurate and timely information, and may help to put emphasis and spotlight on the pain-points in this process that could be improved. (Here is where my process-improver brain goes into hyper drive. Evaluate resource needs! Streamline steps! Document for continuity and consistency! Set and communicate expectations! Obviously, that is me trying to control the uncontrollable, and is embarrassingly oversimplifying things with which I have but only a small window into. Not to mention my bias… J I do trust that those working on this are the right, skilled people, representing both the child and the family’s best interests. /end moment)

I think that’s all for now! This “non-update” turned out a bit longer than I anticipated—par for my style of writing and talking, I suppose. Love and hugs to you and yours.