Parenting After Adoption

I have not spoken much of my children still waiting in Haiti. In part, it is because there is little to say since we don’t have contact with them other than the photos we receive and the letters we send to them. But also because talking of them is painful for me. We have been in this adoption process for over 2 years and we have faced so many obstacles. This adoption overlapped Lucas’ adoption so we have been in active adopting mode for over three years. My mental, emotional and physical health are beginning to show signs of wear and tear.

As of right now, we are in the 2nd Legalization process. This is the step after Civil Court. Our adoption is final and now all the signatures from the beginning of the process to this point must be authenticated. This process took only a couple of weeks in 2005, but we have now been in this process for about 5 weeks.

Once this process is complete, our file and our children’s files will be prepare for then submitted to the immigration department in Haiti, who will then submit it to the Ministry of Interior. MOI will approve or deny the request. If approved, the files return to immigration and the passports are printed. The MOI process has literally taken months for most people because of the changes made early this year that lengthened the process for adoption passports.

When our children have their passports, we can proceed to obtaining Rhett and Claudia’s U.S. Visas. My husband and I met them in 2005 and I went back to visit in 2006 so they will be able to obtain IR-3 Visas. That means they will be full citizens of the United States after they exit immigration. I was the only one to meet Lucas before our adoption was completed so he came home on an IR-4 Visa. He is a permanent resident until we re-adopt him in our state then apply for his U.S. Citizenship.

It’s ironic that this is the adoption that has had numerous mountains to climb. When we began Lucas’ adoption, we said we would go forward until we met up with an insurmountable obstacle. It wasn’t easy but it wasn’t as difficult as it appeared at the time. In hindsight, it was a relatively easy adoption process although it was a slower than Haitian adoptions had progressed the previous year. We began this adoption believing it would going more smoothly and quickly. It has been anything but smooth and quick.

I take courage from the fact that a U.S. Visa was obtained this week by a family I personally know. So many changes have taken place in Haiti over the last year that our government has been slow to update the process on the U.S. side of the process. Over the last few months, the visa process has been extremely difficult, if not impossible. So the knowledge that my friends have obtain their daughter’s U.S. Visa and flew home yesterday is encouraging.

Copyright © 2007 Becky Wilson. All Rights Reserved.