High Court

After being home 3 weeks, I am headed back to Haiti. We waited 8 months to hear we got out of IBESR, and we got the email 2 weeks after coming home from visiting the kids that we need to go back. Of course! It would have been way too convenient to be able to do all of this while we are actually there :) Tickets are booked. Our appointment is at 10:00am on Tuesday morning. I'm sure James and Jovanika will be shocked that I am back to see them so soon!! Can't wait!

Out of IBESR!

Today I finally received the email we have been patiently anxiously waiting for....

Hello Lori, Your dossier has come out of IBESR today. Now, either of you is awaited here for the High court appearance. Please notify us of when you decide to come down.

There were some days that I had an unexplainable urge to check my email every 30 minutes seconds or so waiting on THIS very email to arrive!! Today was actually not one of those days. It was a very busy day and I had just left the doctor's office with Avery. I got in the car and my text "ding" on my phone went off. Instead of hitting my text messages, I accidentally hit my email and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw IBESR on my screen. Wait, what?! After looking more closely, I realized what it was! I was totally surprised! It would have been completely financially convenient for this to have happened 2 weeks ago when I was in Haiti already. But, as I have been reminded time and time again during this journey, things always happen on their own time and happen when they do for a reason. I'm sure this is no different.

Embassy appointment

Last Tuesday I went to the US Embassy in Haiti to file our I-600. Everything went smoothly. We were supposed to be there at 8am. We left the guest house at 6, because you never know what traffic is going to be like in Port-au-Prince. There turned out to be no traffic at all, so we got there with about an hour to spare. Smith met us there and gave me all the paperwork I needed to turn in with our petition. After waiting and waiting, they called me up, took my form, asked a few questions, then had me go sit back down. After waiting some more, they called me back up for my "interview". The interview was actually just asking me a bunch of questions about the kids, how many times we had visited them, about our jobs and kids already at home. It was nothing to be worried about. After she asked me some questions, she gave me a piece of paper with the date and time for our birth parent interview on it. Our birth parent interview is scheduled for August 13 at 8am. Smith will take James & Jovanika's birth parents to the interview. The Embassy will interview them and make sure they understand that the children will be coming to the States and that they are ok with all that. They already know this, but it is a very important part of the adoption process. A "bad" birth parent interview can foil everything. If the parents come across as unsure about the adoption, they can not approve it. So please pray for the interview to go great!!