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 you and begin to mentally prepare themselves for a life with you. The child can receive an explanation that this is simply a visit and that you would love to take him/her home but that you can't until the government allows you to do that. The director of the orphanage can help in that discussion.

After that, you have to make your own call on whether or not you should make a second visit. Most of the families we have worked with adopting older children have found a second visit to be excruciatingly painful for the child. The child is assuming/expecting/hoping that after you leave the first time, the next time will be for you to take them home. Most recently we had an 8 year old boy literally have to have his fingers pried off of his adoptive mother as he is screaming hysterically (and of course she couldn't help sobbing) and taken into another room where he had to be physically restrained so he didn't run in front of her van as she was leaving him for the second time. For him I am now worried that he was hurt so badly that he may close some things off. The end of the adoption is still months away. I fear that it will take him quite some time to open up to the level he had
before with her. Not that it won't eventually be overcome--I think this will be a successful adoption. But the mother feels, and I agree, that the second visit was probably not a good thing.

In general I do believe that "no love is ever lost" and that the pros of visits outweigh the cons. However, even my infant son suffered some backlash from me leaving him a second time. He was under 10 months old when he came home but I had made several visits to see him during the process and when he came home he did not seem to trust me for several weeks. He wanted to be held by me constantly and would not even dare to fall asleep--would jerk his head back awake to make sure I was there--but would not smile at me or laugh or anything for several weeks. It seemed to me that he did not dare to fall in love with me again. He's been home over a year now and all is well. But
if it was that hard for a 10 month old to learn to trust again, it must be much more difficult for an older child.

So, there's my opinion in a nutshell. I feel one visit is advantageous for everybody. I feel more than that may cause emotional damage. I'm sure you will hear other stories where they felt the more visits the better, but this has been my experience.

Continued…