The Miskellys' Haitian Adoption Journey: September 2015

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Finally a little movement

There has not been much to post this summer. We have continued to Skype with our boys every first and third Sunday of the month. This is a wonderful blessing that HIS Home For Children does for us.   The boys are so excited to see us at the beginning of the Skype session but due to the language barrier there is only so much we can communicate. Just as long as they know that we love them and can't wait for them to get here.

In July we had to update our home study once again because of fingerprinting.   My middle son turned 18 this summer, and he had to be fingerprinted. They would not let him be fingerprinted until we had a new home study done.   Now we have four out of 5 of our family fingerprinted.   We know that we have no criminals in our family at this point. Hopefully, no more home studies either.

I have been corresponding with our Haitian lawyer all summer.   We have been trying to get out of the court system since July of 2014, and finally at the end of August we got word that we had received our Adoption Decree.   They finally have our last name. Just knowing that in Haiti they are already ours makes us excited.   Their files are in MOI now and when they finish there they will go to Passports and we will be finished on the Haitian side of the adoption process. The dossiers will then go to the US embassy in Port-au-Prince for visa approval and travel documents.   This process will take about 2-3 months.   We could possibly have our boys by Christmas.   This is the first time in three years that we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and actually picturing them coming home this Winter. They are going to be cold for sure.

I can not tell you how excited we are and how excited our American children are. Football season and Girl's Soccer season have started at Chester County.   We are busy going to games and working so the time will pass quickly. My oldest child Darby and her friend Kristen have finally finished the boys' play room. It looks great and I will post some pictures.

Isn't that room terrific. I know that they will have a good time in there playing. They put the truck that hold the hot wheel cars down low so that Davidson can get to it easily. I can see them piled up on the bean bags watching Disney movies with popcorn.

We did celebrate my parents 50th wedding anniversary this summer and I will put a picture here of that day. This is a good Christian couple, and you will not meet any finer, hard-working, country people from North Mississippi..

I will also put a picture of Wilson playing football and Madelyn playing soccer. Fall sports are big around the Miskelly house. Wilson will soon surpass 100 pts in his career as a kicker for Chester County and this has never been done. He has scored more points than any kicker ever has at Chester County and we are extremely pleased with his success. Madelyn has worked her way into a starting position on the soccer team and we are extremely proud of her too. Darby is a Junior in college and still working hard on her degree. God has blessed us tremendously.

I will try to give an update when we have passports. Keep us in your prayers.

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.