Last week, one of the adoptive moms from our group visited Haiti. She was kind enough to send me these pictures of the kids:
I was SO THRILLED to get these pictures!! I love that we have this supportive group of adopting parents who get pictures and love on each other's kiddos when they are there and we aren't! This is the first picture I have seen of Jovanika's head. In the pictures the orphanage have sent me, her head is covered up with a hat. Needless to say, I am very concerned! Everyone I have talked to about it assures me it is probably a fungal thing. I was just surprised to see THAT. That looks worse than just a little ringworm or something, you know what I mean?
Speaking of surprises....
One of the adoptive parents who was visiting in Haiti sent me an email. Whenever something starts with "I don't know if I should tell you this, but..." you know it can't be good. Last week while she was in Haiti, she was at Dr. Bernard's (the man who runs the orphanage) office after going to court. While they were getting ready to head back to the guest house, a woman showed up with an infant. She was giving it up. So they all got in the car together to take the baby to the orphanage. They all started conversing. The woman said the baby was 6 months old, however, my friend said the baby girl was the size of a newborn, just tiny. The lady told her that she had 2 younger children already there who are being adopted out. When asked who her children are, she responded with:
JAMES & JOVANIKA!!!!
It doesn't stop there. She also said something about there being another kid who is older than J & J. The language barrier was a bit of an issue, so it is a possibility that there was some confusion or misunderstanding going on. But it was made pretty clear that this little baby is the little sister of our kids.
My first response when I read the email was tears. The first though that ran through my mind was "what if we get a phone call that says we HAVE to take this baby if we want to take the other two".... since they don't split up siblings. Then I kind of began questioning things, because if they don't split up siblings (which is what we were told when they told us we had to adopt James if we wanted Jovanika)than where is this older sibling she mentioned? Then I wanted details.... what did the parents look like? Were they excited their kids are being adopted? How did they know the kids were being adopted? Lots of things ran through my mind. But most of all, I worried about getting that phone call. Don't get me wrong, I would love to be able to take all of them. But we do not have the means to take care of all of them. If I had Angelina Jolie's resources (and nannies) then I would love to be able to do that. But we don't. It was a stretch for us to agree to take both children. I also feel guilty about splitting up these kids. I have to remind myself that they don't know each other. But still... I kind of wish I didn't even know. I would have saved myself the stress and guilt of playing the "what if" game. With all that being said, I am so glad that this mama told me what was going on and gave me a "head's up" regarding the situation. I know it must have been stressful on her deciding if she should say something or not.
The shock has worn off. We haven't decided if we are going to call and inquire about all of this. Part of me wants to take the "maybe if you ignore it, it won't happen" approach. Part of me also thinks that the baby has been there over a week now and we haven't heard anything, so maybe that is a good thing. So please pray that things stay on track and none of this new information hinders our progress.
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