Saturday, February 24, 2007

My Son

I have been a little scared to let myself really feel this was real, because I am always worried, "what if something happens and we don't get to bring our children home." I keep a picture of Wadner at my desk at work. I don't know when it happened, but I came into work one morning last week, looked at Wadner's picture, and said to the picture "I love you." I don't know how to explain it, but all of the sudden, I feel this over-whelming love for this little boy I have never met. I feel like he is truly my son and I cannot wait to meet him and hold him in my arms. I think about him all the time; I hope he is safe, loved, warm, happy. I want so much to take him home and be his mother. I know the time will come....I just hope it comes quickly.

I also have an update. I received an email yesterday from the adoption agency that all of our paperwork came back from legalization and will be sent to Haiti. This means that we should be going into IBESR soon!

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Gifts for Wadner

Last Saturday our adoption agency had a get-together for all of the adoptive families, including their children. Some of the families are like us, waiting for their first children from Haiti. Other families have children from Haiti and are going through the process for a second time. It was nice to get to meet these families.

We were also able to give Candy, a woman who works at Lighthouse Adoptions, some gifts and things to bring to Wadner when she goes on her trip to Haiti in March. We sent him a couple of shirts, some under ware (always needed at the orphanage), matchbox cars, plastic dinosaurs, side-walk chalk, and a photo album with some pictures of us, our house and animals. This way Candy can show him who his mom and dad will be:)

Shortly after Candy gets back from her trip we should find out who are little girl will be. I am so excited! There are two houses at the Orphanage, one called the "Big kid house" that has all of the kids about 5 or 6 years old and up and a "Baby house" which has all of the toddlers and babies. Wadner is in the baby house, so he should know who are little girl is and they will be able to spend time together before they come home.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Stats on Wadner

I forgot to put some information that we received about Wadner on my last post. We found out that right now Wadner is 34 pounds and 98 centimeters (which I calculated is about 3 feet, 2 inches) and wearing a 4T. So from what I can tell, he seems to be pretty much right on track with his age. That makes me really happy to know he is healthy and happy!

Update on Second Referral

I talked to the adoption agency yesterday and we are going to wait until one of the staff members of the agency takes a trip to Haiti on March 2, to get our second referral. They have gotten in some new baby girls at the orphanage and they would like her to evaluate them before making a referral for us. The woman going is named Candy, and her trip is only until March 6, so we should know when she gets home who are little girl will be. I can't wait to know her name and see her picture, but it does help a little bit having Wadner's referral, we are passing the time with getting copies of his picture made, buying him a few toys and clothes, etc.

There are a lot of steps and it is very confusing to keep up with all of it, but everything seems to be moving along smoothly so far. Our paperwork will be sent to be legalized this week, which takes about 1 week, and then it will be sent to Haiti. We are hoping that are paperwork is in Haiti by March 1st, and then Diana, the program director of the adoption agency, said it should go into IBESR (Haiti's version of social services) right away. We are happy to hear that because from what I understand, once your documents get to Haiti, it could be several weeks until it goes into IBESR. Once we are in IBESR and assigned a file number, I will update with our file number and about how long are file will be in IBESR (from what I have heard recently, this part of the process is taking about 6 months). I am keeping my fingers crossed that everything continues to move as well as it has seemed to so far!

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Another Picture of our boy!



Here is another picture of Wadner that was sent to us by the adoption agency.

Thursday, February 8, 2007

First Referral

Well, we got our first referral today!!!!!!!!! It is for a little boy named Wadner and he is about 4 1/2 years old. His birthday is June 13, 2002. When Mike and I first went on the adoption agency's website, we saw his picture and read about him and immediately fell in love with him. I am so happy that Wadner is who are agency felt was a right match for us. I cannot wait to bring my little boy home.

We are still waiting on the referral for our little girl. The agency will be gathering some more information on the waiting girls and we should be getting the referral for our daughter in the next month or so. As soon as we get her referral, I will post the information.

I am putting a picture from the adoption agency's website of Wadner on this post so you can see how cute he is :)

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Quick Update

I just received an email from the adoption agency that all of our paperwork has been translated (into French so the people in Haiti can read them) and right now our paperwork is at the state of Colorado getting authenticated. After that, they will be sent for legalization in Chicago and after that they will enter the black hole of Haiti, where things move very slowly and we will be having our patience tested while we wait. That's all the information I have for now!

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

First Post

Hi, this is my first time ever setting up and using a blog....so please bear with me as I learn :) I wanted to find a place where our friends and family can go for updates on our adoption process and this seemed like a great place to do that.

For those of you who may not know, we are adopting from Haiti. We are hoping to adopt a little boy around 5 years old and a little girl about 2 years old or younger. Michael and I have been talking about adopting for a long time now and know that adoption is the right path for us and we are so excited to be starting a family.

We are still in the beginning stages of the process. We have already found an adoption agency, sent in the application, was approved, and we completed the only part of the process we have any control over---our dossier (which is all of the paperwork we have to get together and notarized). I got these documents together as fast as I could, it took me about 6 weeks, which is pretty fast. (I look at it like this, every day I put something off, is another day I could have had with my children). We officially started the process in the beginning of December. At this point, we are waiting for the referral of our children. This is where we find out which children will be joining our family. This hopefully should be happening in the next week or two. From there is the really hard part......waiting and waiting and waiting some more. From the time we accept the referral's the wait will be 9-12 months while Haiti's version of social services does there thing and everything gets approved. We of course our hoping it to be more on the 9 month side (or maybe a miracle will happen and it will be faster than that)! We are hoping our children our home before Christmas.

Michael and I are thank full for the support we know that our family and friends (and any one else who happens to come across this page) will be giving us. Feel free to post any comments on this blog page that you would like us to see, we will be checking it every day. I will try to update the page every few days or when we receive any updates or new information. We will also inform you of any fundraising we will be trying to get started in the near future.

Thanks again for your support and pray for us that the process will go faster than 9 months, we just can't wait to bring our children home!