The Haiti/Ghana Connection: A Tale As Clear As Mud

I've really enjoyed having new commenters lately! Apparently my obvious desperation has prompted to you write and I cannot tell you how much your encouragement means. Of course, I am always thankful to my long-time faithful commenters. You all rock.

It made me realize that our story is probably clear as mud. I am fully steeped in all things Haiti and have lots of Haiti peeps which probably (at least in my mind) leads to confusion. I thought I'd give a quick recap of our journey just to clear things up for those of you who are new to our story. Grab your favorite beverage and settle in, cause here we go:

We said yes to adoption at the end of summer 2007. After experiencing several years of infertility and being told we would never have children we managed, quite to the surprise of my OB/GYN, to get pregnant. We had originally thought adoption would be our only option, and although we went on to have three successful pregnancies, adoption was never far from our minds.

We started out with absolutely no money in the bank, but believed with all of our hearts that this is the path we were meant for. We explored adopting from Ukraine & Guatemala, but eventually settled on Haiti after a somewhat strange encounter. We felt 100% sure that Haiti was where our daughter was. We started our homestudy and quite miraculously whenever a fee was due the money would come in.

Our original application was to adopt from Children of the Promise through Celebrate Children International. We had seen a little girl on the Three Angels website for a few months and just couldn't get her face out of our minds. We tried to ignore it since we were planning to adopt from COTP, but eventually caved. We made some calls, filled out some applications, and were overjoyed to be matched with Anchise. Finally, we had a daughter.

I traveled to Haiti in September 2008 to meet Anchise and file paperwork for the adoption. It was a trip that changed my life forever. I met new and dear friends who became instant family and fell in love with a country filled with beauty & pain. I felt "home" there and to this day it is where my heart is.

In November 2008 we received word that Anchise's mom did not wish for her to be adopted. We were devastated. It truly felt (and still feels) like the death of one of my children.

We waited a few months to see what would happen with Anchise, with the orphanage (they had no other available girls at the time), and with Haiti in general. The Haitian government wasn't looking favorably upon families with biological children and it seemed no matter where we turned the doors were closing. That was a really hard pill to swallow since we fully believed Haiti was where we were meant to be.

We learned about Ghana adoptions from another adoptive mom and ended up changing to that program in February 2009. We were matched with Mercy and officially began the process to adopt her. We were originally told it would take about six months to bring her home which was music to our ears after all we had lost in Haiti. I should have known it was too good to be true. After much turmoil within the orphanage and continually delayed court dates we finally passed court at the end of August 2009. I made an unexpected trip after the judge (on a whim) decided to require me to appear for court. We were then told it would be about six weeks before she came home.

Well, here we are almost six months later. All of our paperwork is sitting at the Embassy in Ghana waiting for her visa appointment which we cannot have without her passport.

I have been feeling like I have nothing left to give to this process. It has been mentally, physically & financially draining. It is difficult. It is beautiful. I have learned so much about myself and what my God is capable of. We continue to walk in obedience, not because it is glamorous or fun, but because we feel it is what we are meant to do.