A couple of weeks after we mailed our application and first fee to our adoption agency Haiti stopped accepting dossiers until June 1. That changed to July 20 in a week. Today I heard that August 1 is the new date.
I hadn't heard that from our agency, so I started researching what was happening with IBESR and learned that the Senate in Haiti may ratify the Hague Convention Agreement today. For the children of Haiti, that is good and bad. It's good because that means the adoption process will be ethical and safe when all the policies are in place. It's bad because ratification usually results in stopping adoptions altogether until the country is in complete agreement with the Hague Convention standards. It took the United States 15 years to accomplish that.
Obviously my heart is wondering if that means that our fears clear back in April are going to come true after all.
Our agency told us to go ahead and compile our dossier, which we have done. When I called today to ask if we should stop they said to keep going.
We have 2 steps left.
Our first home study visit happened last week. Our last home study visit will be in a week. We are less than 24 hours from having all the papers we need to have completed done - and notarized. All we have left is to get the home study report and have all of our notarized documents certified. We're still about 6 weeks away from being finished, but we're close.
So, here's the potential timeline.....
Our goal is to have our dossier mailed to our agency by mid-July (1 month). It will take 1-3 months to receive a referral, at least and then 1-3 months to have our child's file completed. At that time our files will join to one big file and enter IBESR. We're about 3-7 months away from being in what you might call the "safe zone". Usually, once countries ratify the Hague, dossiers already in process are grandfathered in and moved through. So our goal was to get into IBESR prior to the ratification process.
If the Senate does indeed ratify today, it will be 1-3 months (potentially) before adoptions will cease.
Here's what I don't get.......
We've had so many confirmations, both good and bad, about adopting.
Here's the biggest one yet.
Adoption is flipping expensive.
We are supposed to have a psychiatrist evaluation completed for our dossier. If we couldn't find a psychiatrist for whatever reason, it was okay to have a psychologist complete the evaluation instead. When we talked to a friend of ours, who is a psychologist, he basically said, "Good luck. Everyone is booked up for months. If you can find someone to do it, just get it done." So, I started making calls.
One psychiatrist told us it would cost us $300 for the evaluation and $400 for the letter. Another told us $300 for both. When we asked our friend who was "better", we were told that the second was a better psychiatrist, so to go with him. We scheduled.
The evaluation was scheduled to happen a couple of weeks ago. I was a nervous wreck about it because there are things about my life that are not pleasant to talk about and I was afraid of how those things would be looked at.
A friend of ours offered to watch Little Miss - for free - in the middle of the day - while we went to the evaluation.
We could NOT find a parking space and being good debit card customers, we didn't have any cash on us at all for meters, so we resigned ourselves to just have to pay for a parking ticket. As we walked to the office, we found a parking lot right next to the office building where we could park for free - for as long as we needed to.
The psychiatrist was the nicest guy. He was very normal! :) He asked pertinent and interesting questions about why we wanted to adopt - and why from Haiti. He found out all the crap I wasn't excited to share at all and was very empathetic and supportive. We spent about an hour with him.
He had asked how we wanted to pay when we first went in and we had said we wanted to just pay outright - that there was no medical need for the evaluation and that our insurance really had no need to pay for the evaluation because we were asking for the evaluation for solely personal purposes.
He finished the evaluation and completed the letter right in front of us.
When we went to leave we stopped at the desk to pay and he walked passed us and said, "No. There's no charge. Just.....good luck." Husband's jaw dropped, as did mine. We just stood there looking at him - in disbelief. We argued with him and offered to pay, again. We took up his time and valued that and wanted him to know. He wouldn't accept.
We got in the car, stunned. This man had just saved us hundreds of dollars.
Here's another one.
A couple of weeks before that we needed to get police clearances from our county. When I called, I spoke to a woman who took down all the information we needed for our letters. I asked her when she thought she might be finished with the letters, she said, "a couple of hours?" I called the woman who has offered to notarize all our documents to see if she could meet me there and she said, "How about 1:00?" Seriously? From the time I called until the time it was finished was a mere 4 hours. While Little Miss was in school.
It seems like within the last week, all the things we have been waiting on were finally getting to us. And all at the same time. It felt like things were coming together.
And then our news today.
I'm not sure what to think. If you think of us, please keep those prayers coming and we'll keep you posted.
Love,
Karyn
