Continued from Part Four...

The question posed:

If adopting from Haiti, particularly in the case of an older child, should parental visits to Haiti be allowed or encouraged before the adoption is finalized? I have heard the pros (early bonding) and cons (feelings of abandonment when you leave without the child) on this subject.

And one last response:

Agency 10

I would have to say YES, I believe parents should be allowed to visit prior to the adoption being finalized. I do not believe it is essential for families... more

Continued from Part Three…

If adopting from Haiti, particularly in the case of an older child, should parental visits to Haiti be allowed or encouraged before the adoption is finalized? I have heard the pros (early bonding) and cons (feelings of abandonment when you leave without the child) on this subject.

And more responses:

Agency 5

It is a matter of opinion.......about half of our parents do and the others do not. I myself from a personal stand point think it would be very difficult to leave the child once I held... more

Continued from Part Two…

The question posed:

If adopting from Haiti, particularly in the case of an older child, should parental visits to Haiti be allowed or encouraged before the adoption is finalized? I have heard the pros (early bonding) and cons (feelings of abandonment when you leave without the child) on this subject.

And another response:

Agency 4

Here is my opinion. One visit would definitely be great. You can take a photo album to your child, you can take him/her some special items. S/he can meet... more

Continued from Part One…

This was the question posed by a friend of a friend to a handful of adoption agencies:

If adopting from Haiti, particularly in the case of an older child, should parental visits to Haiti be allowed or encouraged before the adoption is finalized? I have heard the pros (early bonding) and cons (feelings of abandonment when you leave without the child) on this subject.

And here are the various responses (both pro and con, and somewhere in between) she received:

Agency 1

You are correct -... more

My husband and I have visited our girls in Haiti twice now … once in July of 2006 and then again in September of 2006. I was fully prepared to go on the next Parent Trip to Haiti this last January with our agency, but once the travel dates were announced; I realized that I should not go to Haiti again. There were many reasons behind this—financial, the stress of getting ready for a trip, the stress of the trip, leaving our other kids behind, leaving our daughters in Haiti. I wanted to see them, and yet I also knew that it was not the right decision to go.

Our agency just announced a new policy for their Parent Trips. Up until recently, they had Parent Trips every three months.... more

I love this photo of my husband, Tim with our youngest child, Talley. This is from our first trip to Haiti. In fact, it was taken on Talley’s first birthday … on July 13, 2006.

Before we started our journey to adopt from Haiti, I had begged Tim for months to adopt a newborn baby. He semi-agreed at one point, but a few weeks later admitted that he was seriously regretting his agreement. He felt like he was done with babies and never wanted another child under the age of three.

Eventually he agreed to adopt Georgia,... more

I’d like to tell you about our sweet baby Ruth. About two months after we started Georgia’s adoption paperwork, we decided to add another child from Haiti to our family. We were given the referral for a little girl born in January of 2005 and we named her Ruth. Had she lived, she would have turned one year old this month.

Here is an excerpt from my personal blog:

June 4, 2006

Last Friday when Tim and I were driving around doing adoption paperwork, we were discussing whether or not Tim should come to Haiti with... more

Continued from Part One...

Two months after our daughter was born, we decided to adopt from Africa. My husband told people in casual conversation. We quickly chose to adopt from Ethiopia and picked our agency. Everyone knew we were adopting well before we received referrals for our new children. With our older son and daughter, we picked them off of a video of waiting children. We showed the video to anyone who would watch it. For our little baby boy, we received photos... more

How do you tell your loved ones and friends that you are adopting a child? Do you wait until you have a referral and a photo to share? Do you tell people as soon as you sign up with an agency? Before you sign up with an agency? Do you just tell them, as if it is a casual thing? Or do you make a big deal out of it—maybe take your parents to dinner and spill the beans; or invite everyone over for a party and have a cake that says, “We’re Adopting!” on it? I am sure that it varies from person to person, and from adoption to adoption. It probably... more

I learned about our daughter, Georgia, from my friend, Tana. She had met Georgia on a Parent Trip to Haiti. She had noticed Georgia, standing off by herself, afraid of all of the commotion. Tana spent a little time with Georgia, but never got her to smile. Our adoption coordinator sent me lots of photos of Georgia in the beginning—photos she had been collecting for nearly a year. Georgia was not smiling in any of them. In fact, she was downright sobbing in some. We learned that Georgia... more