The Miskellys' Haitian Adoption Journey: November 2014

Friday, November 28, 2014

Thanksgiving - What are we thankful for?

Thanksgiving Holidays 2014

As we enjoy our holidays with family and friends, we are thankful for so many things. Even though are Haitian boys aren't home yet, we are still having a wonderful holiday with our other three children. And, of course, we are eating more than we should. As we go to our different families for meals, my children have given us a theme this year from Disney's Bug's Life...."They come, they eat, they leave." We are also having a wonderful time catching up on our distant relatives. We have been asked numerous times, "when are the boys going to get here?" and we still do not know. All is silent in Haiti and we are still waiting to get our of the court system down there. Once they do get out, then they will have a court decree declaring them ours, and they will take our last name. We could literally go to Haiti and they would be ours, but we will still need to get passports, Visas, and finish up the USA side of the adoption to be able to come home. Not sure how long this will take but estimate of three months is good.

Even though we do not have the boys with us we are thankful that hopefully by the Spring they will be home with us.

We are thankful that God placed them in our path so that we could find them.

We are thankful for Chris and Hal Nungester for running the orphanage where are boys are, and the influence they have had on our boys in their informative years.

We are thankful for our three children here in the US that have accepted this adoption and are as excited as we are to get them here.

We are thankful to God for working in our lives and prayerful that all five of our children will come to know HIM and have an active faith in HIM.

We are thankful that Cherdinor's mother and father came to the US Embassy in October and gave up their rights to us so that we can adopt him.

I will leave you with some photos from our trip in September and some videos that make us smile. I will also put pictures of my other children. These five children are what I am thankful for most this Thanksgiving.

by the way "tout moun" means everyone.

Happy Thanksgiving

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.