The Miskellys' Haitian Adoption Journey: September 2014

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Our First Bonding Trip, May - 2014

At the end of May after we finished up our mission trip in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, we were able to stay over three days and do some bonding with our boys. We picked them up from their orphanage and took them to stay with us at an American hotel with swimming pool. We had a blast. We had Cherdinor's 7th birthday party and present for them both. We had a great time. The only thing that took from our stay was Christy being sick with stomach problem and Cherdinor just getting over Chikungunya. He had just stopped running fever but his feet hurt him every night and he woke up crying. The highlight of this trip was the flushing toilets. They wanted to go to the bathroom all of the time to flush the toilets and wash there hands. Afterward they would get a little bit of lotion and they loved this. They had to be watched though because they kept flushing things down the toilet. My favorite thing to here them say was "pitsy, pitsy crem pou mwen?"

They had never been to a swimming pool so they were scared to death of the water. My son and I could barely get them in the water but they did enjoy sitting around the pool and playing with the water. They loved the bubbles and the balloons, too. They were also afraid of the candles on the birthday cake, or it could have just been the fire, but we could not get them to blow the candles out.

We had a great time and I will put some pictures and video on this post to let you live some of our trip with us.

I did get Chikungunya when we got back to the US and had 101.0 or greater fever for 7 days and acute joint pain with a rash. It was miserable and I understood why Cherdinor cried every night.

Sorry, Madelyn, the only family member not present.

Cherdinor has fever over 100 in this picture.

Birthday bags with their presents that they carried around all three days.

My first Bible bedtime story in Haitian Creole. (My favorite picture)

New clothes - The best.

Pool time

I was getting a shampoo, but it was a spit shampoo.

We were playing with bubbles.

Davidson is settling down for nap time can't you tell.

Our First bonding trip was amazing and I would not change a thing except we would have liked to put them in our luggage and carry them home with us. I wish Madelyn and Darby could have been with us, also. This post is a little late but we had fun our trip in May, 2014.

Miskellys' Adoption Journey Timeline

01/06/07 - Baby Paul born

04/02/07 - First ever home study

06/05/07 - Entire completed and translated dossier arrives in Haiti

06/28/07 - Baby Paul's physical and he is healthy

06/30/07 - Baby Paul has been sick and getting worse

07/01/07 - Baby Paul dies

Long Pause for almost three years as we mourn and contemplate trying again.

03/10 - Met the first Davidson and family decided to try adopting a child again

03/11 - continue to work with grandmother trying to adopt him

07/11 -Grandmother finally agrees to proceed with adoption

08/08/11 - New home study done

09/11 - Pretty much completed Dossier

09/11 - Signed agreement with His Home for Children to do the adoption.

09/22/11 - First fingerprinting done

09/23/11 - Recieved I-171, approval to adopt children

03/12 - Grandmother finally refuses to let us adopt the first Davidson and moved on to other options

05/12/12 - Tell Chris Nungester at HIS Home for Children to find us a child placing this in God's hands. She chose a boy named of all things "Davidson".

07/26/12 - Dossier arrived in Haiti and ready for Minister of Foreign Affairs to legalize the paperwork

08/23/12 - Due to new law changes in Haiti we were asked about taking a beautiful, sweet boy named Cherdinor to go with Davidson

09/15/12 - Paper sent to IBESR (institute du Bien-Etre Social et Recherches - Institute of Social Well-Being and Research)

12/04/12 - Updated home study

01/18/13- Updated fingerprinting

06/01/13 - Met the boys for the first time Face to Face.

05/06/14 - Updated fingerprinting

05/29/14 - Travelled to Haiti for mission trip and for first bonding trip with the boys and spent 3 days in hotel with them.

07/16/14 - Received notification from lawyer that we are out of IBESR and that she has dossiers in hand and will move them to the court system this month.

09/12/14 - 09/16/14 - Went to Haiti for our second bonding trip and spent 4 days in hotel with our boys.

09/15/14 - Had embassy appointment to file our I600.

09/30/14 - Cherdinor moved to the boys home to start his first day of school.

10/15/14 - Cherdinor's parents go to American Embassy to give away their rights. We learn more detail about his family.

03/22/15 - We spent a day with CJ and Davidson at our guest house in Port-au-Prince. Loved the play day. We were in Haiti on medical mission trip.

07/15/15 - Updated home study one more time to get our fingerprints updated. They would not do this without a new home study since Wilson has turned 18.

08/25/15 - Finally out of Haitian court system and we have moved into MOI. We have our official Adoption Decree and their names have been changed with the last name of Miskelly. THEY ARE OURS IN THE EYES OF HAITI.

09/01/15 - Davidson moved over to boys home with CJ and they will be together until we bring them home. They are learning English at American run school.

10/04/15 - Learned that our paperwork would have to be converted from a simple adoption to a pleniere or full adoption. This is the first time in Haiti they have required this law to be followed that was passed in 2013. This will affect several families who are almost finished to turn around and make corrections.