Adoptions taking less time in Haiti now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was on Dixie's blog today... I am doing the dance of joy right now!!! You can't see me but I am just so trilled and happy!

Someone called me yesterday to talk about adoption lawyers and if I could refer them to a couple of good lawyers. This person had been doing some “private” adoptions for American families and the lawyer she was using was becoming “difficult” and she was considering changing lawyers.
It was the news she told me after we talked about lawyers that got me excited! She said that from IBESR to Passport was taking her about 8 months! I find that SO exciting! Wow! We haven’t had adoptions here in Haiti that have taken less than a year for the last 4 years or more! Haitian adoptions have just taken longer and longer and it was trend that just has been happening in the last 10 years.

Since we have just recently had dossiers go into IBESR, we do not know how long it will take for an adoption to finish. Now, I have a time line that I can push our lawyer to meet! If another lawyer can do up to the passport in 8 months, then I expect our lawyer to do the same or even less!

For me, this is such exciting news! If we can get adoptions finished in less than a year, families and children will be so blessed! Babies might still be babies and older children will spend less time in an orphanage setting.
Please pray with us that this will continue and children will go home to their “forever” families quickly!

http://godslittlestangelsinhaiti.org/andlifegoeson/2011/02/26/adoption-news-2/

Why Kyanne and not Kyanna???

When we first picked out her name while in D.R. 2 years ago, we decided on Kyanna. During those 2 years, we have always said that we would probably call her Kyanne as a nick name but her real name would be Kyanna. So to make a long story short, when it was time to write the letter to GLA and to accept the referral we had to put her Canadian name and we decided that we were going to go with what we would be calling her at home instead of having a nick name and make it more confusing because she knows her name as Berline now. I really like that name as well, but when we chose her name in D.R. it was a special moment as well and it’s really meaningful for us. By having both names, she is being watched over by all her guides in heaving watching over her.

Kyanne: It had been over a year that we were trying to figure out a name for our daughter and the day after my dad passed away, we were on vacation in D.R. and the name just came to us and we both knew that the tought came from a higher level and someone watching over us and her.

Berline: I went to see my sister in law last night with the pictures and she thought that we had picked Berline for her name. When I explained that it was the name given by her birth Mother, she said we thought it was you because Ber ( Bernice, who was my step-daughters mother’s name who is now looking over us with my dad. I am confident that she had it all planned out with my dad and the rest of our Guardian Angles and Guides.) Line (my mom is Noëlline) so the Name Berline is once again as meaningful as Kyanne.

Some thoughts about my mom!

I thought I would share what my mom said after she seen the pictures of her grand-daughter for the first time.

After she carefully looked at ever picture and described how beautiful she is, she said now Sylvie... you know you’ll have to feed her meat LOL! If you know my mom, we grew up having meat on the table every day. Being the fussy Sylvie I was and still is, I mostly ate bread and ketchup for supper while growing up. I never liked meat and still don’t. It was a challenge for me while I was young because I had no other options. Now I have found lots of other type of food that I love and that is good for me. I’m sure I’ll find the right diet for Kyanne. I’ll just have to make sure that I prepare her a lunch box if she does over nights at her grand-ma LOL! I’m just kidding. I love my mom very much and I can’t wait for her to spend time with Kyanne. She’s going to be the perfect grand-ma a child could ever have. My cousin that lives next door to my mom has the most beautiful little boy ever. When he goes to my mom, he always ask her for his cookie. After all those years that my brother and I grew up... she still buys the arrowroots cookies for kids. xoxoxo

Picture I included is of myslef, my mom and brother, Mathieu.

How can you love someone so much and you have never even met them!

How can you love someone so much and you have never even met them!

Well that’s the case for Kyanne Berline Cormier. Monday when we received the proposal it all seemed like a dream. I’ve been waiting for this moment for 2 years, 7 months. I had scenarios recited on how this day was going to happen. Every morning I would wake up, made sure I was ready for the big day, listen to our home voice mails 5 times a day in case they would call our house, had my cell with me at all times, emailed JR each time we went on vacation to make sure they were aware and they would try to reach us on our cell to give us the news. The one day that I had finally said it out loud that whatever the universe had planned for my future, I would accept. I was at lunch with my cousin and I told her in the exact words that if for some reason this adoption would not go through, something else would go wrong, I would just accept it and not try to change my destiny. I would just get 2 more dogs and enjoy life and stop trying to plan my life. I would just live my life in the PRESENT! For those of you who know me.... this is not a skill I have. I always have to plan; do roll play in my head to make sure everything is going to work out as planned. Well to my surprise, 30 minutes after I said that I was ready to just live and let things happen on its own... I get the call for our little princess. It was so weird because that day I had told everybody that yes Dixie said on her blog that we were match with our child, however... we didn’t know how many days...weeks...months it would take the province to give our proposal. And what do you know, I was sitting at my desk, phone rang, I was going to let it go to voice mail because Melanie was at my desk showing me something with my travel claim and something made me pick up the receiver and there it was... the phone call I was waiting for and I was not even prepared for it LOL! So lesson learned!!! Enjoy every moment of your life and live in the present and be able to accept your future as it comes.

So to get back to my ‘How can you love someone so much and you have never even met them!’ I can tell you that I was not ready that day to say, I’m Berline’s mommy. It was all too much and I was too excited to play out some scenarios. We just left to get our proposal. That was it... As soon as we saw her beautiful smile and healthy rolls on her arms LOL, we knew she was ours. That evening, it I was just processing the idea that she was my daughter but it was just all in my thoughts. The next day when we signed the acceptance letter and Elaine told me it was already sent to Dixie, I then felt a warm fuzzy feeling that this was the moment that I am now a mother and I have responsibility for this little girl. We have picture of her everywhere in the house and we just sit and stare at her pictures. I can feel her in my heart. Now till it’s time to bring her home, I’m going to live in the moment... try to study (was not able to do any of that this week). I have lots of things to keep me busy so I have confidence that Kyanne Berline Cormier will be home with us sooner that we expect it! This is going to change our lifestyle for a much better one! We are both committed to this and are ready to give her love and guide her as she grows up to be the person she chooses to be. She will have many doors of opportunity waiting for her.

When is Kyanne coming home... When can you pick her up???

As many of you are asking the same question... When is Kyanne coming home???? When can you pick her up????

Well here is a list of the adoption process for GLA. These time frames were before the Earthquake so I TRULY BELIEVE AND KNOW that things will be much smoother and quicker. Just for one good example, Step 6 could potentially take 1 to 6 months and some have already waited 12 months to pass this stage. Last month, a dossier passed IBESR in 1 month!!!!


So please send positive energy to Kyanne Berline Cormier and lets all make her dossier pass all these steps quickly so we can have her home.

Process for Adoptions at GLAHere is an overview of the adoption process in Haiti process, including approximate timelines for the various stages:
1. Arrival – Completed Dossier arrives in Haiti at the orphanage. We review it to ensure all the required documents are present and legalized by the Haitian embassy in the originating country. (Time is approximately two days.)
2. Legalization at the Minister of Foreign Affairs – Completed We prepare the dossier for legalization at the Minister of Foreign Affairs office. They legalize the signature of the Haitian Consular Officer who legalized the dossier at the foreign Haitian Embassy in the originating country. (Time is approximately two to four weeks.)
3. Waiting for a referral – Completed Once the dossier is legalized, we hold it until a proposal is ready for the family. (Time varies, based on requested age, gender, length of waiting list, etc.)
4. Referral – In Progress The referral is sent to the family, private adoption agency or government authority. The family responds with questions or acceptance of the referral. Upon acceptance, we prepare the dossier for IBESR and send it to the lawyer. (Time is approximately one to two months, but will vary if any documents are difficult to obtain, such as a death certificate from another district.)
5. Lawyer and social histoire – The histoire social (a combined social history of the child and the adoptive family) is prepared for the dossier as we are preparing the dossier for IBESR or when the lawyer receives the dossier. The lawyer reviews the dossier to ensure it meets legal requirements. (Time varies from one to three weeks.)
6. IBESR (Institut du Bien-Etre Social et de Recherches) – Haitian social services reviews the dossier and gives approval for the adoption. (Time varies from three to six months, but could be longer if you need a Presidential dispense.) If you have biological children, a dispensations from the Haitian President will be required. This can take 3-6 months. You need to be aware of this as you go into the adoption process.
7. Parquet – After approval at IBESR, we prepare the dossier for Parquet (District Attorney). (Time varies from one to six months)
8. Courts – Once the adoption is approved by Parquet, the court papers are prepared for the finalization of the Haitian legal component of the adoption process. (Time is approximately two to four weeks.
9. Attestation signature (National Archives) – The National Archives of Haiti issue a paper to state that the signature on the act of adoption corresponds with the signature of the authorized party who signed it. (Essentially, this is a legalization of the signature.) (Time is one to 2 weeks.)
10. Legalization at the Minister of Justice – All of the Haitian legal papers must be legalized by the Minister of Justice. (Time is approximately two to four weeks.)
11. Legalization at the Minister of Foreign Affairs– Legalizing the signature of the Minister of Justice. (Time is approximately two to four weeks.)
12. Passport – The passport process actually involves a two step study of the application by the Minister of Interior’s office, and then finalization and printing at the Immigration Department. (Time is approximately three to four months.)
 13. Final review and visa application – After the passport is issued, all of the paperwork is reviewed and any errors are corrected before the dossier is given to the required authority for the child’s visa. Minor errors do not cause a problem in the process of the adoption, but some countries will not issue a visa for small errors. The visa process and timeframe varies widely by country, and for the United States and Canada, some paperwork is completed by GLA and/or the family prior to this point. At this point, the remaining visa process takes approximately:

a. Canada: one week

See Kyanne Berline Cormier in action

I am so blessed to have selected GLA as our orphanage or should I say, so grateful that they accepted our application after saying no twice because we have not been married 10 years. I knew there was something with this orphanage and I just couldn’t let it go. I tried a 3rd time and they said yes. Yes to this beautiful little girl is what I am so grateful for. I can't wait to squeeze her in my arms and give her big kisses! xoxox

When we received our proposal, there were 20 pictures and 4 video clips included. This is so precious. We’ll have souvenirs for our little Kyanne of when she was little.

Here she is in action... the one and only Kyanne aka Berline @ GLA.

Check this out… we haven’t even met yet and she is already into Yoga like her mommy! I know that we’re going to make a great team.

It’s a girl… and she’s mine!!!!!!!!!!

I can finally say after 2 years, 7 months 3 weeks 1 days... that I am going to be a MOMMY! Wow! It’s 11:30 pm and I am still staring at her picture. I feel that I am in a dream and that I am going to wake up soon so I am enjoying every moment of starting at her beautiful/perfect face.

My cousin and I (Margo), we go to lunch every Monday. We were talking about babies and I said that I was keeping it positive and I was going to give the province a month to get the call for our referral before starting to make some calls...

Once I got back to work, I had a question for one of my colleagues and she had just dropped by to see me and the phone rang. I was not going to answer and just let it go to voice mail but something was telling me to just pick it up. It was JR. I was shocked. I thought he was going to say that we forgot something when we did our home study update or something in that nature. But No! He said I am calling to give you your REFERRAL! I could not believe what I was hearing. I thought he was joking. He said that the SW would give us a call for sure this pm. After I hung up, I tried to remember our conversation and I just had no idea what he said. I even called him back later to make sure I was not dreaming. He was laughing! He said, Yes the SW is going to call you and you will see some pictures today!!! Before I was able to call Victor and give him the news, Nicole called me at work and she was wondering why I was screaming so I had to tell her. I immediately hung up and called Victor before he found out by someone else heheheheh!

We had to drive to Richibucto (1hr) drive to meet the SW. She could not come and meet us at our home tonight so we said that we would drive there. While we were driving, we were trying to guess if it was a girl or a boy, because we had put on our request that we would accept either gender, however the orphanage knew that we wanted a girl. When we arrived at her home, she said “votre petite poupone est très belle”... so we knew that it was a girl before she told us. Trying to describe how I felt, I just can’t. I was in total shock! Victor was more emotional than me. I just had that glaze in my eyes trying to figure out if this is real or a dream! We are going to give her the name Kyanna like planned so she will be named, Kyanna Berline Cormier.

When we got home, Nicole and Renée, my stepdaughters came by to meet their little sister. As Nicole looked at the first picture, she recognized Berline instantly. Nicole had gone to the orphanage during Christmas for a week and she spent some time with Berline. I remember when she came home, she said she fell in love with a little girl... well little did she knew that it was going to be her sister! That is so special. Nicole already held, hugged and kissed her little sister.

Meet the newest member of our family!!!

I think this is it!!!! We're almost there BABY!!!!

For the past few days now at work, everyone is stopping me in the kitchen or washroom and asking me how our adoption is coming along. I came home tonight telling my husband that something is up in the air. I can feel it. I said, things are really moving for us I think.

Tonight, as I am currently studying I just felt like checking Dixie’s blog for the 10th time probably today. And to my surprise... This is part of her blog. I really want to scream and jump up and down but my husband is sleeping... I think I am going to wake him up... he deserves to know as well.

Here it is: I need families who want to adopt children from the Toddler House and not just babies! It has been a long time since I did not have a waiting list of families whose dossiers were here at GLA waiting for a proposal. Everyone that is on my list now, has a baby scheduled to proposed to them and they are sitting on my desk. I just need a quiet day so I can do them all in the same day! Hopefully, tomorrow, I can get 2 or 3 more proposals done and make some families very happy!

What does she mean make some familes very happy!!! I am just freeking out right now!

Please continue to pray hard for our little Kyanna to come home.

Finally… some light at the end of the tunnel!

This was on Dixie's post (GLA) last week "We have 34 children needing adoptive families.  We have only 6 dossiers completed and in Haiti.  We are looking for Christian Families to adopt these children! " Happy happy… we are 1 of the 6 dossiers.

An adoptive mother that is on the GLA Yahoo group emailed me this week saying:"Dixie said that she hoped to offer referrals within the next week or so, as she is just getting paperwork together. " I've never had 2 good adoption news in a row so this was really exceptional.

As I have just stated 2 good news in a row is not the norm so on the same day that I got the news that Dixie was preparing paperwork to send out referrals, I found out that NB had CLOSED ADOPTIONS IN HAITI as of January 14, 2011. As you can imagine, I sort of flipped out. I will tell you the short version of this little episode… Our NB Representative for Adoptions assured me that we would still get our referral. I was so scared because Dixie had posted on her blog a while back that a couple would not be getting their referral because their Country had closed adoptions as well for the time being. I felt so bad for them. I cannot imagine what they are going through.

Adoption news

Adoption news... This was posted on Dixie’s blog today:

It is really nice to be receiving more children in the last month. Our halls have been pretty empty lately. I had to let three more nannies go from the TH because they only had 18 children! They are now up to 21 children! Slowly but surely we are receiving more children for adoption. I think we have 36 children right now for adoption with no adoptive family designated for the child! We are working as fast as we can to get their paperwork together and ready for adoption.


GOOD NEWS! We received a signed dossier from IBESR!! It only took about one month, YES, I said ONE MONTH, to get it signed! That is a miracle in itself! Someone in Luxembourg is going to be a very happy mama tonight to know she is one step closer to getting her child home!”

So basically this means that things are looking good to get a referral and that the Haitian Government is faster at processing documents then before the earthquake!!!!

I know that someday… I will be posting the big OMG post that we have a referral! Someday…