Continued from Part Two...

The following week, John asked to see the photos of the children on the website. As we went through the photos, he saw Nathaniel's photo, and he exclaimed, "Him! I want him to be my brother!" That was enough to initially cause me to take notice, but I brushed it off as a coincidence believing that I must have influ-enced John in some way. However, Ellen asked to see the children's photos the next day, and her experience could not be rationalized nor denied.

When she saw Nathaniel's photo, she exclaimed, "That is my brother right there, and I am going... more

Continued from Part One...

A few months later I met with a family who was adopting a group of four sib-lings. One child was with them on a medical visa due to a heart defect, but the other three were still in Haiti. While I visited with them, we talked a lot about adoption, which kept moving back toward adopting in Haiti. Later that evening, I went to a website where their children's photos were located among others at their orphanage. These children... more

Here is the first of hopefully many Haitian adoption stories. It is written by my friend, Becky:

Our youngest was not quite four months old in when I first felt the inclination to assess our options regarding adoption. Megan was only our third child via birth, but my pregnancies were progressively more painful than the last due to a ge-netic anomaly with my hip. We were considering whether our family was now complete or whether we would continue welcoming children into our family via adoption.

Once I overcame the initial exhaustion of the newborn months, I knew that our family was not complete though subsequent pregnancies were not an option. I knew our other... more

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

This is just a short little note to let you all know that I haven't disappeared completely. My computer decided to crash early Saturday morning. My husband has been trying to fix it (and salvage as much off of the hardrive as he can), and it appears I will have to replace it. I will do my very best to post on a regular basis until I do have a new one. However, I will have to use my husband's business computer whenever he isn't using it. I will have a limited amount of time with a computer for the next little bit. I hope I will be able to write a few posts during the week, and then a few posts on the weekends.

I am certainly not going anywhere, so keep checking in with... more

"Misery won't touch you gentle. It always leaves its thumbprints on you; sometimes it leaves them for others to see, sometimes for nobody but you to know of." (From The Farming of Bones)

A couple of months ago, I read the book The Farming of Bones, by Edwidge Danticat. The Farming of Bones takes place on the island of Hispaniola in the 1930s. It begins in a fictional village in the Dominican Republic; at the same time Dictator Rafael Trujillo began his policy on Haitian genocide. We... more