We're Back

Short Post:

We made it and it's done!

Long Post:

It started at 5AM. We drove down the mountain and around 6:30AM we got a call from Jacque who was with Lou's birth mother (same guy as last time). They were there and waiting (we found out later that they were there since 5AM).


We got to about Pitit Goave and Jeff (our great driver) got another phone call and he thought were we supposed to meet them at Grand Goave (which is a little further - apparently there are two Grand Goaves). We got to an impasse in the road due to flooding and had to turn around. We called him back and found out that there was a miscommunication - they were in Petit Goave. Not too big of a deal. We were early and thanks to the water covering the main road, we called him and found out more details about having to turn back. Praise God for that flooded road which saved us time!


(Sub-Story: As we approached Petit Goave for the first time, I took this picture below but paid the price. I felt a pain in my arm but held to take the picture of the city's sign. It turns out that I put my arm on a wasp and he got me. I made it through my whole life not getting a sting and I come to Haiti and get three.)


We head back and in Petit Goave (after many phone calls) Jacques says he is at the Shell station. We got to the last gas station in town - National - and look closely for them. Sure enough, there they were. They weren't at a Shell station, but a National station (Jeff made sure that he was clear on that - that he was telling us the wrong place). We have many stories with Jeff of people telling us one address/place and that not ultimately being the right place (the orphanage a year ago when we pick up Lou, the orphanage director's office a few weeks ago, this one...and I am sure there are others).

We pick them up and head to the office. We get there are are about 45 mins early. After it hits about 10AM which is when our appointment was. We start doing the paperwork game and come to find out that the birth mother needs a passport-sized photo, too. I don't know why they can't tell us everything they need from the very beginning. I got a great email from the US Embassy, Immigration office that states that they don't get involved in telling the lab (Dr. Elie's office) what to tell their clients/patients. Nice! Who sets the rules in the first place? (Their take is: "Pa faut mwen!" - which is often said and means "Not my fault!")


So we leave to go find a photo-taking place. We took the photo's without issue (well...beyond what you would normally expect here anyway). We came back and took the test. Lou freaks out with anyone who has blue rubber gloves on so we had to tiptoe around the fingerprint taking and we had him watch other people get swabbed for the DNA test which made it fine for him (we had him watch the birth mom, too).

We drove them to the place where they can take the tap tap home and off we went.

This whole thing was such a struggle that we are not yet quite feeling the joy of jumping over this hurdle in the 2+ year-long hurdle race of a Haitian adoption.

This will be a good way to tell you how we felt... We went to the grocery store and bought one gallon of ice cream. It's been more than 6 months (if I am remembering correctly) since we bought our other gallon of ice cream.

There are more stories to this adventure (as there always seem to BEE), but that's all I got for right now.