the lbc

While I created this blog for the limited purpose of chronicling this adoption and my experiences down in Haiti, it just seems wrong not to mention any updates on London in here. I think about it every time I post something about the boys.  So, I have created the following photo montage dedicated to Mickenson and Ashley’s fabulous older sister, miss London.

London has two favorite past-times: eating (a girl true to my heart), and... sleeping. If we drive for any period over 5 minutes on a hot day or over 60 seconds at night, she will be out. I don’t know why I think these are so funny.

post-swimming (ah, swimming):

post-hiking:

post-soccer and subsequent face painting:

post-I-don't-know-what:

 post-Thanksgiving turkey's tryptophan-induced slumber:

post-skiing:

 personal favorite (london got a new robe which she refused to take off for 48 hours):

second personal favorite (london's glasses phase - dollar store frames with the lenses popped out. she needs them to see properly):

most recent, post-christmas party (quite the party animal, I am horrified at the thought of future teenage years):

Hahaha, funny.  Anyone who knows me, knows that this little girl is my favorite person on the planet. I wish I could be more like her. London is the butter to my bread (and we all know butter is the greatest thing on earth).  Merry Christmas :)



november update - gobble gobble

(Ashley, 16 months and Mickenson, just turned 4)

Handsommmmmmmme little devils!

Poor Ashley, they said he has very dry skin, looks like they oiled him up pretty good in this pic.

Ok so, Yay, I received my update for November last week on both of my boys. Such a fantastic thing to get these monthly updates, I wish they were daily. And the wonderful people at the orphanage sent me pictures of these Thanksgiving turkeys my boys made with their little hand outlines. Seriously? How freaking cute is that? I was so excited it was a little bit pathetic.

Ashley's hand cut-outs

Mickenson's hand turkey



The updates included tidbits on my boys’ progression, educationally, socially, physically, etc. But the best part was when they talked about special events...

     "Mickenson welcomed a new friend into his age group in Kenscoff. He also worked
     on a special Thanksgiving project for his new adoptive family. He was very eager to
     work on his gift for his family."

Oh my gosh, he knows he has a family? I hadn’t realized that he knew about me until I read this. Apparently once the match has been made official (only a few weeks ago) they inform the child that he has a family waiting for him or her. I wish I could have seen his face when he heard he has a family.  And the thought of him coloring his turkey for me brought me to tears. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was happy or sad? It was like this giant ache to have him here. I want them here SO BAD it hurts.

Ashley had the flu again last month, which freaked me out a little bit. I mean, it’s bad enough when your kids are sick at home, but to hear about them being sick thousands of miles away in Haiti - frustrating. As most of the world has heard, cholera has been spreading in Haiti.  Luckily, it has not spread anywhere too close to my boys, and it had better stay that way. He is fine now though and doing well. They say he is such a happy baby and is walking and trying to run around everywhere. He’s very social and "watches others with a serious face and intent concentration." Cute little serious face.

Everyone I know is of course asking when I expect the boys to actually get here. And, unfortunately, the answer is pretty much ???. I am hopeful it will be by the summer? But, until they are on that plane with me heading to the States, it is so hard to say.  Mine and the boys' dossiers are complete minus a few letters.  It is like I have this ticking clock in my chest trying to hurry the process up.  But it sounds like things in Haiti are starting to move along quicker.  My awesome friend Tonya's adoption was approved by the Haitian government in only two and a half months.  That is like unheard of.  So, I am hoping mine will fly too. Once that happens it is just a matter of getting immigration stuff settled in the U.S. and obtaining visas for the boys and the like.

Last but not least, I am trying to learn Creole. Ummmm, let me just say, that whole gift of tongues thing - I don’t have it. And because of my Spanish, I just automatically revert back to that when I don’t know the word. I need some serious help. Luckily my little fabulous sister, Katie, speaks fluent French. Creole is a derivative of French, so knowing French helps a lot. But there are African influences in Creole too, so it is not exactly the same. I think it would be an absolute shame for Mickenson especially to lose the Creole he knows. And I want Ashley, myself and London to know it too.  So, I am determined to help them retain it and learn as much as I can.

I feel like I need to end every post with a giant thank you to everyone I know for supporting me in this.  It is a remarkably long, frustrating, expensive and emotional process and I could not be doing it without help.  So, thank you truly from all of us!

update on my boys

Mickenson

Ashley

Aaaaaaahhhh, they are so cute!!!

Now that I have been officially matched as the boys’ adoptive mother, they send me monthly updates on their health, activities, eating habits, what have you. And they also send me monthly photos. It is fantastic!

The reports say that both boys are very healthy and love attention.

Mickenson is very energetic and "is a happy child who has an affectionate and charming smile. He likes to be held. He also likes to run and play."

Little Ashley "is a content baby. He expresses his excitement by bouncing up and down in his seat. He also uses his arms to gesture. He is most often a happy child and is not easily distressed."

I can't believe how different Ashley looks in these pictures than in the first one they sent me, below. This first picture was taken soon after Ashley was brought in to the orphanage, he looked so thin and disoriented. He seems so much healthier and happier already!



I am just absolutely dying to get these boys home. The paperwork is slow, but I am doing all I can to speed it up. I am hopeful that our dossiers (mine as well as the boys) will be turned in to the Haitian government before the end of the year. Then it is just a matter of waiting for the government to approve everything.

I cannot believe how hard Haiti has been hit by disaster after disaster after disaster. The last thing that Haiti needed after the earthquake was a cholera outbreak and now Hurricane Tomas. I have thankfully received word from my orphanages that all of the children are safe and secure and that they believe the hurricane has already done most of the damage it will do in the main cities of Haiti. Luckily my boys are not in Port-au-Prince or Leogane, but up in the mountains of Kenscoff. I still get a knot in my stomach every time I hear about the next devastating thing to hit Haiti.

Thank you all for your prayers and your donations. I have been amazed at how many people have wanted to help us with this and have come to me personally to do so. I will never be able to thank you enough.

trip 2

Ok, all I really want to talk about are my two boys. But, I also want to document this last trip I took to Haiti, and so I shall. Trip number two was waaaay different than trip number one. I sort of found myself in the heart of the disaster zone this time. And I now realize just how cushioned my first trip was, staying at Gina’s orphanages and traveling around the outskirts of the country with basically my whole relief group around me. It was still shocking, but nothing like this last trip.

This time I ended up right in Port-au-Prince and Leogane (the city just outside of Port-au-Prince which was hit the hardest by the earthquake). I cannot adequately describe how horrible the conditions were/are in Port-au-Prince. I was oriented with middle class Haiti which would be considered worse than the worst slums anywhere here in America. “Houses” consist of cinder block walls usually with slabs of metal siding on the top as a roof. Most don’t have beds and have about two rooms for fifteen people. The streets are chaos. People living surrounded by piles of garbage, selling whatever they can dig up all along the sides of the roads throughout the entire city. It is just mile after mile after mile of third world poverty. The only clean road I saw on my lovely city tour was a street where Wyclef has a relief group stationed. The volunteers literally just clean the street over and over again every day. I don’t know, I can’t even describe it, it is like nothing I have ever seen. My own photos here really not do the scene justice. It is such a monumental compilation of devastation, I couldn’t fit it all into a photo. If you want to see some fairly disturbing photos that sort of capture the essence of the city since the quake, here is an article on Leogane . While most of the photos in the article were taken just after the earthquake, and much of the looting has ceased, it gives a pretty accurate view of the cities. Honestly, not a whole lot has been cleaned up in the past 9 months. The major difference is the appearance of giant tent cities everywhere. Here is a video as well as a pretty good article I found discussing the tent cities and clean-up since the earthquake if anyone is interested (I find it fascinating). Only a tiny percentage of money donated after the earthquake has actually gotten through to the country.

line for a job interview - 80% of the population is unemployed

I had thought that I would be out at Gina’s orphanage during the days helping out on this trip, kinda like the last one. But, upon my arrival into Port-au-Prince, I quickly realized that “my” relief group was not actually on this trip, and through some unforeseen circumstances, I was kind of on my own. Haiti is not a great place to be on your own. I did get dropped off (literally dropped off, like, good luck and farewell as the helicopter took off behind me) in Leogane by some friends of my original relief group. Some people were out there helping build a school for a group of children who had been orphaned and were gathered and living out in a field after the earthquake. Most orphans in Haiti, sadly, are taken care of in similar situations. Legitimate orphanages or creches probably constitute about 5% of the orphans in Haiti. The other 95% of Haitian orphans usually end up being cared for by some philanthropic member of the community who has taken to looking after them, or in non-regulated make-shift "orphanages." The saddest part is that the children in these situations will never become available to legally adopt. To legally adopt a child out of Haiti, they must be associated with a true creche and adopted through a legal agency. So, these hundreds of thousands of children basically have no hope of finding families.

While I was helping at this new school site, I was dying a little bit inside. Not just from my surroundings, but I had no idea how in the world I was possibly going to find my way back to Port-au-Prince and I was pretty devastated and certain that I was not going to be able to see Gina or my orphanage this trip. Through some angelic intervention (which seems to be a common thread here), I met Hayley and Nat Yulien, a couple who were also helping out in Leogane. Hayley was an American from CA and Nat was Haitian. They met in college at BYU Hawaii, got married and decided to move back and live down in Haiti for a few years helping to start small businesses and boost the Haitian economy. I was relaying (possibly sobbing at that point) to Hayley why I was down there and how I had been hoping to at least see my orphanage during this trip, and she and Nat immediately offered to drive me anywhere I needed to go.

Seriously? Driving through Haiti is no small feat. There really are no paved roads, or if at some point they were paved, they have now been completely swallowed up by gigantic potholes, debris, garbage, dead animals, what have you. In fact, one of the highlights of my trip was during my initial drive from the airport through the city. I actually had to ask to stop the car where I proceeded to puke my guts out in front of an entire group of UN guys. One of them had pity on me and handed me a bottle of water. Good times. Given all of that, this blessed couple drove me all the way out to Gina’s valley orphanage, about a three hour journey. I have absolutely no idea how we were even able to find that place. It is way out of the city through a maze of dirt roads and I had only been there by helicopter before. It was a true miracle. I owe this couple forever.

The whole drive I was a bit worried that even if we were able to find the place, Gina might not even be there. I had assumed she was planning on our whole relief group working out there, but since that had not happened, I really had no idea what Gina was doing or if she might be up at her house in Kenscoff, near the other orphanage, way up in the mountains. When we finally pulled up to the orphanage gates, Gina was sitting right outside meeting with some people on some other projects she has going on. She welcomed us (and thankfully didn’t seem bothered by the fact that I had just dropped in on her out of the blue) and said she would love to talk to me one on one about my being matched. We sat down for a few minutes and she expressed to me that she knew how busy I was as a single working mom and she was being careful with choosing a child for me to fit into my circumstances. She said she initially had one baby boy in mind for me who turned out to be HIV+ and she didn’t think that would be a good fit for me. Of course I told her that this was my life, my kids, I came all the way down to Haiti just to talk to her about it, and I would not want to rule out a child because of their health issues. I believe she saw how serious I was. She still said she did not think that boy was right for me, but there were a few more children who were probably going to become available soon. She said that she would call me as soon as she heard news on the children’s availability.

By then it was almost dark, and not a good idea to drive through Haiti in the dark, so it was time for us to leave. We had about 10 minutes to see the children, some of the older ones were awake, but the little guys were all sleeping. We played with the older ones, and I went in and watched the little ones sleeping and just felt happy to be able to see them. They were all still there, safe, taken care of. I really feel like they are all my kids somehow. That orphanage just feels like home to me.

That night I stayed at a hotel directly across the street from one of the tent cities. These cities have become extremely dangerous. Rape is apparently one of the biggest problems, although widely ignored. In fact, rape was not even considered a crime in Haiti until 2005. Malnutrition, disease, and abuse are rampant. And just to add to the mix, the prison in Port-au-Prince was severely damaged in the earthquake and 3,000 prisoners escaped. About 1,000 have been re-captured, but the other 2,000 are just roaming around out there in the general population.

The next day I was able to go with Hayley and Nat to visit an orphanage run by an LDS bishop right in the heart of the city. I dare anyone to walk through that place and not wind up in tears. It was filthy, giant walls missing, and no toys except one dirty little doll I saw throughout the entire orphanage. It was so sad. (Since I came back I have asked around about that particular orphanage and heard that they are trying to get a new building for those kids. Also pretty much everyone I know has offered to donate toys, clothes, shoes for those children, and donations are going down there soon. Thank you everyone.)

Wow, I know I have probably left out a LOT of details from this trip in contrast to my first trip. Perhaps because they are things I don’t quite want to remember. It was a life-changing trip. When I finally left Port-au-Prince and got off the plane at the Miami International Airport I seriously felt like falling on my knees and kissing American soil. I know I have said this before, but I am so grateful to live in America. The stark difference between the airports alone was overwhelming. I had an 11 hour layover in Miami and took a shuttle to an airport hotel. It was like I had died and gone to heaven. I seriously had not eaten anything in Port-au-Prince for about 24 hours. There was nothing to eat, I certainly didn’t feel like finding myself some food on the streets alone and chance getting lost or worse or catching some disease that I hadn’t already caught. So, when I finally got in to Miami, I took my shuttle to the hotel, showered, ate the best salad I have ever had in my life, drank water from the tap (ahhh), and slept in my comfortable air-conditioned room. Viva America and pray for Haiti. I will never complain again.

While I would never have dreamed this last trip up, and would never ever in a million years want to repeat it, I am so grateful that I had the experience I did. First of all, if I had not been able to meet up with Gina (for that whole 20 minutes) I am fairly certain that I would not have gotten my call to be matched with my boys as soon as I did. That call came four days after I met with her. Secondly, I was able to witness first-hand how life really is in Haiti. Like, every-day normal life. And it is not just post-earthquake life that is hard. Before the country was hit, it was already one of the most poverty-stricken countries in the world. It is beyond hard, it is unimaginable. If children make it past birth in Haiti they are a miracle and then so many can not be cared for by their parents. It is not like these parents don’t want these children, they literally can not care for them. There is no food, no money, no education, and no work. And for the vast majority of the population, no chance of bettering their situation in the future. It is just survival. Barely.

view from my hotel in port-au-prince...

view from my hotel in miami...

our haitian babies?

So, I guess I should have entitled this blog our haitian babies, because we have been matched... with 2. Aaaahhhh! I got news on Tuesday that Gina had matched us with a sibling group, 2 little brothers, the older one is 3 (named Mickenson) and the little one just turned 1 (named Ashley). Of course I naturally assumed Gina had become a raging alcoholic and must have been horribly inebriated when she concluded on this match for me. But, after my initial shock, I took some time to think about it.

Gina did not give me any information on the boys at first. She said she wanted me to think about it for a while because she knew that I was only looking for one child and I should give it some serious thought and decide if it was something I thought I would want to do and something I could handle. After an intense 24 hour deliberation with much thought and prayers from me and my family (and I will admit, initial absolute denial on my part, there was no way I could do this financially or logistically), I knew it was right. I am so excited! I have no idea how I am going to do this, but I am so excited! After I let them know that I was ready to move forward, they told me that the information on the boys, their pictures etc. would probably take at least a week before they would be able to send it to me. About 15 minutes later, they sent me all the info. They are soooooooo freaking cute!!!

As thrilled as I am, I think London is even more. She cannot believe she is going to have 2 brothers (clearly she does not know the full ramifications of such an addition), but she is stoked out of her mind!

The most amazing thing to me is that the very first picture I saw at the beginning of all of this, while looking through my friend Ty's orphanage pictures, was of Mickenson praying over a bowl of soup and peeking his eyes open during the prayer. :) I vividly remember looking at the little boy in the picture and deciding that it was finally time for me to adopt and get down there. I just cannot believe it. On my first trip, I played with him and even have several pictures I took of him!

These first two pictures are the ones sent to me from the orphanage with all of the boys' information. The last 3 are pictures I actually took on my first trip out there!

Mickenson

Mickenson and Ashley (I am dying for more photos of Ashley)

Mickenson in the yellow woody woodpecker shirt!

how cute is he???


Mickenson again in the yellow, look at those lips.

I just know that this match would not have taken place so soon if I had not been able to meet with Gina last weekend during my whirlwind trip. And the fact that I was able to meet up with her at all was nothing short of miraculous. But I will fill you in on all of that next time!

I have two little boys!!!

how much longer will this take

Ok, before I launch into my description of this last trip (which was, if I had to describe it in one word, horrifying) I want to give a little run-down of the adoption process down in Haiti. Several people have asked me where I am at, how much longer will it take, etc. So, here is a little insight. It can basically be broken down into 5 steps...


1. Get oriented with your agency and orphanage (if you are adopting from an orphanage of course)

2. Home study (done, months ago)

3. Get matched

Maybe the trickiest step with Haiti's unique circumstances right now. Usually a match is made after your home study is complete. Gina evaluates you and your home study and feels out which child might be the best match for you. But, right now, and as I have described in past posts, many of the children cannot legally be matched because they do not have legal orphan status yet. Waiting to be matched is proving to be more a question of gathering all the child’s legal documents at this point (I did get some updates from Gina this time though on me being matched, which I will write more on later).

4. Dossier/child’s dossier (long and tedious albeit necessary process; more fully described back in my “documents” post)

My dossier is almost complete at this point. Even if I am still waiting on being matched, I can get my dossier ready in the meantime to hopefully speed things up once I am matched. The child also has a dossier completed and this is happening while they are finding documents regarding their orphan status as well. So steps 3 and 4 are kind of simultaneous.

5. IBESR (the “black hole”)

The last step, IBESR, is where the adoption applications go once they are completed and submitted to the Haitian government. The wait time here ranges anywhere from a few months to a few years. Kind of like a UPS delivery estimate (um, can you just plan on staying home all day?).

going back!

Aaahh! I'm going back to Haiti. Tonight. At midnight. Last minute relief trip where I was able to tag along so I am taking it. I found out about it around, oh I'd say, 11:00 this morning. And thought there was no way I would be able to get on that plane by tonight. But somehow, within 45 minutes, everything had fallen together with remarkable ease. Clearly had some help from above. Most importantly, of course, Little Miss London is all squared away and will be in good hands with my wonderful fam and Micah, I am sooooo grateful for them. I have pretty much heard nothing since my last post on which exact children are available or which child they might have in mind for me. So, I have felt like I really needed to get back down there, as each person in charge of this particular relief trip can attest. I have pestered them incessantly for weeks now (sorry relief trip dudes, I salute you and your kindness towards me). I am hopeful to be able to spend some time with Gina and the children. And I want to help out down there as much as I can, Haiti has become a little part of me now. Wish me luck and keep my in your prayers!

update on being matched

After the earthquake, the number of children brought into the orphanages more than doubled. People were coming out of the woodwork trying to get these post-earthquake children adopted or "moved" out of the country (some for good reason, some in ridiculously idiotic ways, others for personal gain and reasons too horrible to imagine). The problem was that nobody knew if these children were truly orphaned or if they had families somewhere looking for them. One of the reasons why new adoptions were going to take so long was because the government needed to give time for families to come forward and claim their children or find documentation showing true orphan status (ie: parents passed away during the earthquake or relinquished their parental rights, etc.). Frustrating to wait, but clearly for a good reason. It would be devastating to adopt a child and then find out that they had a family looking for them.

This period of time where the government was waiting for families to come forward is coming to a close. And last week I got a report that 25 of the children who were brought in to the orphanages I visited have been reunited with their families since the earthquake. 25, just in the orphanages I visited. Amazing. There are of course several more who are sill in limbo, waiting for documentation one way or another. And there is a much smaller number (about 6 or 8) of the new orphans brought in after the earthquake that have finally been determined actual orphans and will become available for adoption very soon. I really feel like one of these is mine. Gina (the amazing orphanage director) has been reviewing my home study and is extremely insightful in her decisions of which child should go to which family. It is a very personal and spiritual process for her, and London and I have been praying for her every night that she will be directed to the right child. Needless to say, I am dying to find out who he or she is. I think I check my e-mail like 50 times a day at least, waiting for word on which children are available and if we have been matched. Every time I get a little bit of information on the process, it is like my empty tank gets refueled. Everyone I know who has gone through an adoption has described the process as a roller-coaster of emotions. Which it absolutely is. Got to hang on to those ups.

Hopefully in my next post I will be able to include pictures of the little guy (or girl)...

If you are interested in statistics (I am and I’m not afraid to say it) here are a few stats on Haiti. Keep in mind, all of these numbers were from before the earthquake:

Haiti is considered to be the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and one of the poorest countries in the world

Population 9.2 million
Number of estimated orphans in Haiti (in 2007) 380,000
% of the country with no access to clean water or basic health care 60%
Percentage of the country living in poverty 80%
Percentage of the US living in poverty 13%
Percentage of the Haitian population that is illiterate 50%
Percentage of the US that is illiterate 01%
Average total years of education in Haiti 2.5 years
Average total years of education in the United States 16 years
Average life expectancy in Haiti 57 years
Average life expectancy in the US 78 years

utah haiti relief is awesome

First of all, THANK YOU so much to all of you who have already ordered some of our little flowers for Haiti! You are all so incredibly sweet and we appreciate your support more than you could possibly know!!! Our plan to cover the world in flowers is off to a great start.

I know somewhere earlier I mentioned that my friend Ty was still actively involved in helping down in Haiti (with Utah Haiti Relief). Well, he is and I wish everyone could see the amazing things that they are continuing to do down there. Oh wait, they can here on my wonderful blog.

Clearly, one of the biggest problems since the earthquake is how to house the approximately one million displaced persons in and around Port-au-Prince. Thanks to incredible world-wide donations, most of these people are now living in giant tent cities. While the tents are definitely better than nothing, the threats of disease, crime, heat, hurricanes, etc. make them extremely dangerous for these large groups of homeless people to live in for much longer.

A few months ago, Ty (and company) went down to initiate the construction of some styrofoam houses in these tent cities. Yes folks, styrofoam houses. These buildings are made entirely out of foam panels, glued together, and then covered in a concrete composite solution. They can withstand winds of up to 150 mph and hold up to 2,000 pounds on top. An amazing alternative to the tents, these foam houses will provide safe shelter that will hold out during hurricane season.

In these photos they were building a four room foam house to be used as a women’s medical clinic/delivery room in Sean Penn’s camp (around 50,000 displaced people are living in tents in Mr. Penn’s camp). As they were building, Haitians were learning how to construct the houses themselves, an awesome skill for them to have.

Each house costs a few thousand dollars to build. A minuscule fraction of the cost of a normal house, but still requires significant investments to create these shelters for large numbers of people. They are working on generating more funds to keep these houses coming. Ty just informed me that they are also coming up with other domed structures that are cheap and fairly simple to construct. I will keep you posted when I get more pictures!

Pretty amazing what a few good people can do when they put everything they have into a really good cause.

If you want to learn more about Utah Haiti Relief, I have a link to their site in my right-hand column. There is also a youtube link to see a video of the construction of the foam houses down in Haiti.

Ty (far left) & Company

Mr. Penn

flowers for our baby

So, as briefly stated in my last post, I am currently working on finishing up my dossier, planning my next trip to Haiti, and, the biggest hurdle, coming up with the funds for the adoption.

I will whole-heartedly admit that I am not, by nature, a good sales-person or fund-raiser. And, for those of you who know me well, I have this somewhat-unfortunate fierce independent streak. But, my family means more to me than my silly pride so we are coming up with all sorts of creative ways to get money together. The adoption will cost around $26,000, so any amount we can raise will help.

London and I decided to make some pretty flower brooches and baby poppy clips to raise some funds for the adoption costs. The peony brooches have magnets on the back so you can attach them to a shirt, bag, head-band, scarf, what-have-you, and the baby poppies have a little baby hair clip on the back. The peony brooches are $10 apiece and the little poppies are $5 (see pics below). If you would like to buy one there is a link on the right-hand side column of my page where you can choose whatever style you want and add it to your cart. :) Please, tell anyone you know who might like to buy one!

The cost of our particular adoption is, shockingly, considered cheap for an international adoption. I remember thinking, going into this, that there is no way an adoption could cost that much. Where does all the money go? There is a link on my chip-in page to my adoption agency that breaks it all down. About one-third to one-half goes to the Haitian government and the rest gets sucked up pretty quickly. Completely ridiculous and the main deterrent for most people wanting to adopt. Hopefully one day they will be better able to streamline these costs for adopting families.

Thank you for all of your support, it means so much more than you could ever know! We love you all. And please feel free to share if any of you have other fundraising ideas (I know some of you are experts).

my stunning sister and her daughter graciously agreed to be my models

peony brooches (gray, white, mustard, or olive)

baby poppies clips (mustard, pink, or white)