Let the Roller Coaster Begin

It feels like we have been standing in line for months. No fast pass. No short cuts. No VIP experience. Just a whole lotta patience…on top of a bunch of hair twirling (or pulling), puzzle-solving, hoop-jumping shenanigans. Not to mention a few stalls here and there. All just waiting and waiting to get on the craziest roller coaster we’ve ever been on…

Last week, Drew and I drove up to Loveland, CO to submit some forms and make some payments to our adoption agency. Doing that got us one step closer to boarding the ride. We had jumped through every hoop to complete our home study and now we have sent it off to be “approved” by the state and then by Homeland Security. During our visit, we were able to chat with Kate, the Executive Director and International Program Director who happened to be leaving for Haiti that afternoon. We joked that she should sneak some little cuties back home for us and asked her to keep an eye out for us at the orphanage (called a crèche). We wished her safe travels and left it at that. Meantime, we’re still jumping away through all of our Dossier hoops (our international application submitted to Haitian courts for approval): totally separate and totally different than our home study hoops. Practically every form must be notarized, we had to complete a psych evaluation, get letters from all sorts of organizations including doctors, banks and friends and pretty much do everything short of standing on our heads. Such is the adoption process!

So you can imagine our surprise, when I got a phone call from our agency asking if we’d be interested in a sibling group that was a little bit older than we had originally planned on. Drew was out and about doing his real estate thing, like he does so well, so I said, yes! of course! Now, time out for a second: HOLY CRAP! WHAT just happened? Let me explain what I mean: The way the (used to be) “standard” adoption process works is once our Dossier is complete, we have to pay a pretty penny to have it translated and then sent to Haiti for approval. That’s what we’ve been working on and fundraising for. Once that is translated, submitted and approved, it’s an average of a 6 month wait time before you are “pre-matched” (not official, yet). It’s basically the agency and orphanage saying “hey, this matches your requirements, are you interested? (kinda like they just did with us) and you say yes or no. If yes, IBESR (social services) does an investigation into the child and their living relatives, making sure they understand adoption and verifying that they are no longer able to take care of their child. Once those interviews and investigations are complete, you would be traveling to Haiti and spending 15 days with them. At the end of that period, it becomes an “official match” if you so desire (who says no, btw?). You would then head back to the U.S. and wait approximately another year to return to Haiti and bring them home (crazy, we know). And that’s what we’ve been expecting all along.

So again, you can imagine our surprise when we get a phone call asking us about a pre-match BEFORE OUR DOSSIER IS TRANSLATED, SUBMITTED AND APPROVED! (a surprise fast pass, if you will). Holy moly…that was not expected, and yet it was and is so incredibly exciting…terrifying…a huge blessing…and a huge financial burden all at the same time! We’re just so overwhelmed with joy and yet so scared that something could change in an instant. Such is life, I suppose. We’re just focused on the risk and reward because this isn’t something we do every day. But the reality is that anything could change at any given point; we just don’t dwell on that because otherwise we’d never leave our homes or take any chances at all. It would remove every ounce of joy in life because we would be so focused on the “what-if’s”. In this case, the risk is that nothing is for sure. Right now we are waiting to hear back on their social history and blood work before we can get TOO excited. But if all that works out to our specifications, we will continue on with the process and plan to have our dossier translated, submitted and approved in the next few weeks.

All that to say we still need help with fundraising and rallying to get this next fee of $5,000 to submit our dossier covered. We’re doing fundraisers throughout the summer but our focus right now is to keep this ball rolling! If you would share this blog, our video, our fundraising page or all of the above and help people understand the urgency, we would so appreciate it! If you have thought about giving but haven’t gotten around to it, would you consider giving now? And a great big THANK YOU to everyone who has already donated to help us bring our kiddos home. Because of your generosity, we reached this exciting point on our journey and we cannot wait to continue to share and celebrate it with all of you!

For now, we’re just strapping into this crazy roller coaster, putting our hands up in the air and trusting that whatever happens is meant to be because we serve a God who loves us! It’s going to be a wild ride and we thank you all in advance for your continued love, encouragement and prayers! Let’s do this!