Hague!

It's official, today Haiti became a Hague Adoption Convention!!  It basically means there are more stringent laws put in place to protect and safeguard the adoptive children and prospective families in the adoption process. 

Now the big question is, how will this affect OUR current adoption process?  Will this make things run smoother, faster, quicker?? I really hope so.  It seems as though no one really knows or has the answers. We will just have to continue to wait.  70 days since our dossier arrived in Haiti......

Notice: Adoptions from Haiti to Begin Under the Hague Adoption Convention on April 1, 2014

On April 1, 2014, the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-Operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (Convention) will enter into force in Haiti.  The United States will be able to process Convention intercountry adoptions from Haiti that are initiated on or after April 1, 2014.  However, please note that delays may occur while Haiti’s adoption authority, the Institut du Bien-Être Social et de Recherches (IBESR), implements a Convention-consistent adoption process, including finalizing the schedule of in-country fees. 

Understanding the Hague Convention

The Hague Adoption Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Inter-Country Adoption (Hague Adoption Convention) is an international agreement to safeguard intercountry adoptions. Concluded on May 29, 1993 in The Hague, the Netherlands, the Convention establishes international standards of practices for intercountry adoptions. The United States signed the Convention in 1994, and the Convention entered into force for the United States in April 2008. Read thefull text of the Hague Adoption Convention.

The Hague Adoption Convention applies to all adoptions between the United States and the other counties that have joined it (Convention countries). Adopting a child from a Convention country is similar in many ways to adopting a child from a country not party to the Convention. However, there are some key differences. In particular, those seeking to adopt receive greater protections if they adopt from a Convention country. (See our chartcomparing the Convention process and the non-Convention process.)

Convention Facts

• It requires that countries who are party to the Convention establish a Central Authority to be the authoritative source of information and point of contact in that country. The Department of State is the U.S. Central Authority for the Convention.
• It aims to prevent the abduction, sale of, or traffic in children, and it works to ensure that intercountry adoptions are in the best interests of children.
• It recognizes intercountry adoption as a means of offering the advantage of a permanent home to a child when a suitable family has not been found in the child's country of origin. It enables intercountry adoption to take place when:
  1. The child has been deemed eligible for adoption by the child's country of birth; and
  2. Proper effort has been given to the child's adoption in its country of origin.
• It provides a formal international and intergovernmental recognition of intercountry adoption, working to ensure that adoptions under the Convention will generally be recognized and given effect in other party countries.

http://adoption.state.gov/country_information/country_specific_alerts_notices.php?alert_notice_type=notices&alert_notice_file=haiti_5

From Haiti 2 Home (T-Shirts)

Received our "From Haiti 2 Home" T-shirts in the mail today. These t-shirts were being sold as a fundraiser by an adoptive mom in the Haiti adoption Facebook group.  Love these shirts and the message! Me and the hubby both purchased one. Would like to wear them when we travel to Haiti.

Free stuff is always nice :)

So in three days (March 23rd), it will be two months since our dossier arrived in Haiti.  Seems like an eternity even though I know it could be another four months or more before we hear anything about our referral.  I wonder what they are doing with our paperwork right now. What is going on?? Have they chosen a child for us? Are the birth parents being interviewed? I wish I knew! This is driving me crazy, lol.  Of course people are starting to ask questions about our adoption status. It's a somber feeling when you have to keep telling them you know nothing and are just waiting :(

Since I never win ANYTHING, I had to post about the little contest I entered on Facebook.  The Haiti Market Facebook page decided to have a contest and give the winner one of their new handmade metal cross necklaces.  All I had to do was "like" their page and post a message in the comments section.  I think there were around 60-70 entries.  The next day they messaged me and told me I was selected and they will send me my necklace in the mail.  Below is a picture of the necklace.

HAND-MADE by Haitian Artisans: Crosses are handcrafted using metal from old oil drums. Workers cut, then hammer designs into the metal. Cross Necklaces are made by Apparent Project artisans. The beads are also made at the Apparent Project artisan house.
No two items are exactly alike! They are similar, but unique.

http://www.markethaiti.com/index.html

My necklace when it arrived

I love this organizations! They do great things for a great cause. You can read more about the Apparent Project below in one of my previous entries. I'll wear this close to my heart. Hopefully this is a sign! Lord, let us please hear something SOON!!!!



When You Believe

I love this song by Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. They lyrics to this song give me much hope as we move forward with our adoption.

"When You Believe"

Many nights we've prayed
With no proof anyone could hear
In our hearts, a hopeful song
We barely understood

Now we are not afraid
Although we know there's much to fear
We were moving mountains long
Before we knew we could, oh yes

There can be miracles when you believe
Though hope is frail, it's hard to kill
Who knows what miracles you can achieve
When you believe, somehow you will
You will when you believe

Oh yeah, in this time of fear
When prayer so often proves in vain
Hope seems like the summer birds
Too swiftly flown away
Yet now I'm standing here
My heart so full I can't explain
Seeking faith and speaking words
I never thought I'll say

They don't always happen when you ask
And it's easy to give in to your fears
But when you're blinded by your pain
Can't see the way, get through the rain
A small but still, resilient voice
Says hope is very near, oh

You will when you
You will when you believe
Just believe
I believe, I believe
Just believe
You will when you believe

Memorable Haiti keepsakes (artwork & jewelry)

Discovered Etsy www.etsy.com for the first time last night. If you have never heard of it, it's a pretty cool site where people that are into crafts, display their work and sell it online. There were a few things from the Haiti Adoption search I did that I really like. The first two are personalized wall art items. I would hang these in the baby's room. Maybe have his name engraved with the date we brought him home or the date he was born. 

Hand embroidered country hoops

Personalized Haiti Love Map

These others are jewelry items that I saw that I would like maybe after we confirm our match. Just something to keep with me and wear close to my heart and as a reminder of what is to come :)

Trische Cameron who is a mother in the Haiti Adoption Facebook group posted pics of her son's room to show the Haiti art that her and her husband made. I asked her if I could post her pics to my blog. I LOVE the Haiti cut out that is on the wall, with the American flag as well. I definitely will have to find someone who would be willing to make this for me.

I Wished for You....

My first post of the new year. I have a feeling this is going to be a great, unforgettable year for us!! Now that I'm about to turn 35 years old in a few days, I feel like there are things I want to experience in life. Meaning do different things, take risks, be spontaneous! Not that I haven't taken a few mild risks in life, but if in the next year we may be bringing a child home to live with us, now is the time to do some crazy fun things:) First thing I decided to do for the new years was to chop off a chunk of my hair last week and go back to the style of having bangs. It was a little scary, but I like it and it makes my forehead look less huge in pictures and makes me look a little younger, haha. I also went skiing and snow tubing for the first time! My husband and I took a trip to Banner Elk, NC which is in the western part of NC. We stayed at a little cozy B&B about five miles from Sugar Mountain Ski Resort. I'm glad that we experienced skiing, but I don't think it's something I would do again lol. We also just signed up for our first 5K run in April! Wish me luck on that one. 

Sugar Mountain Ski Resort

Since my last post, a few things have moved forward with the adoption. We had our fingerprints taken at CIS in Durham, NC. Two weeks later we received our I600-A approval from the US Department of Homeland Security.  This was a huge step because this approval is saying the US Government is allowing us to bring a foreign child into the United States.

This approval was the last step in completing our dossier. We sent it off for French translation and it was back a week later. Seeing the French translation on all of our documents is kind of cool.  At this point we gathered all of our documents together and started making copies. We had to make four copies of each document. I never did count how many documents it was, but seemed like hundreds. As you can see below, I took a pic of us trying to get all the dossier documents in order, with copies and then the final stacks. 

Meanwhile, I had some thought of possibly doing an adoption fundraiser.  International adoption is VERY expensive.....period! Will and I both have our reservations about doing fundraisers, so if we do decide to pursue this idea, then we will probably do the Apparent Project bracelet fundraiser. You can read all about the Apparent Project here: www.apparentproject.org It's a great cause for the women and families of Haiti and also for those of us who are adopting and want to raise funds to cover some of the expenses.  I decided to order one of the bracelets myself just to see how they look and the quality. I was actually pleasantly surprised!! The bracelet is very nice (see below)

If we decide to do the fundraiser in the spring, we would get 150 of these bracelets (multi-colored) and sell them for $8.00 each. $4.00 would go back to Haiti and we would keep $4.00 for our adoption fund.  Pretty cool!

I was doing some searching online a few days ago and somehow came across a forum or page that had books on families that adopt. I saw this book titled "I Wished for You" which is about a mother bear that adopts a baby bear and she tells him about how she wished for him for many, many months he grew in her heart and loves him very much as her own biological son. I read a lot of the reviews on Amazon and everyone raved about how it is such a good book to read to children who have been adopted.  I could not help but to order it that day.  When the book came, I almost shed some tears. It's very heartwarming and makes me feel so happy to know that we will soon have a child to love. I will save the book and read it to our son when he arrives.

Year's end progress

12 more days until the new year begins again.  I'm excited for what is to come and ready to make some changes in life as well.  All I can think about is the adoption and the child we will be bringing into our lives.  There are still so many unknowns about what is going to happen.  I'm thinking I will be less anxious once we finally have a match and know exactly who this little person will be.

In the past five months since we started the process, I feel as though we have acomplished a lot considering that there is so much a couple has to go through to adopt. I admit I'm pretty organized and like to get things done efficiently. I don't precrastinate when I passionate about something, and this, I'm definitely passionate about.

Right now our dossier is 99.5% complete.  We are waiting on our I600A approval from USCIS and then we will have that document and our lab results translated.  Then we can finally send everything to CAS.  We received our authentication papers back from the US Secretary of State and the Haitian embassy in Washington DC on Monday. It was pretty cool to see John Kerry's acutal signature on our documents.  I wonder if he actually reads everything, lol.  I get kind of anxious when I'm sending all this stuff through the mail. I always woner, what if something gets lost or misplaced. I would literally have a heart attack if our dossier got misplaced or destroyed. 

Tuesday we had our fingerprints taken at the US Citizenship and Immigration office. It was a pretty cool experience.  They took all 10 fingerprints and then rolled each finger across the screen.  I wonder what they can do with fingerprint ID, hmmm.  Maybe I will google it. Now that our fingerprints have been submited to the government, hopefully we will get our approval soon!!!!!!!!!! I'm so anxious, I just want to get everything down to Haiti ASAP.  I want to know who will be coming home to live with us.  This approval would be the best Christmas/New Yeas present ever!!

OUR COMPLETED HOME STUDY AND DOSSIER CHECKLISTS!!

Home Study Checklist

Dossier Checklist

This Christmas will be a quiet one with just me, Will and Rocco. We made reservations for Dinner on Christmas at "Flight" restaurant in Raleigh. Will's parents will join us, so that will be nice. We will catch a movie later that night, either "Mandela" or "American Hustle." We are also looking forward to our ski trip in a few weeks for my BIG 35! I'm getting old😏

*Making these check lists REALLY helped me with the process of preparing for the home study and completing our dossier. Without them, I would have been totally lost. Also, just seeing the list each day motivated me to get things done.