Another Blog

I started a fun HAPPY blog with Katryna. It will be posts and things that will make you smile. With some Ventriloquism mixed in. ;) Check it out here. 

Bazzy Day

It's Bazzy Day!!! One of the absolute most incredible happy burst at the seems days in our lives. 

I remember it so vividly, even though it was almost 8 years ago. Wow.

Seven years ago today, we looked at this empty crib for hours while we were waiting for our son to be brought to the Marriott Hotel in Guatemala City where we would be able to finally have our son forever. We had visited him about 4 months before and had to hand him back to his foster mom along with a huge piece of our hearts before returning home. I also will never forget that feeling. Watching my baby boy drive away in a cab and not knowing when I was going to see him again. Still makes me cry. 

We were supposed to wait in our room to get "the call" around 9 am that our son was down in the lobby. Instead of getting that beautiful call, we got a call saying that they were running behind and had another family who's child had just arrived so it would probably be more like 11 before we got THE call. We had waited 8 agonizing months and that final two hours felt like years. Years. Kris paced inside the hotel room and tried to watch some tv. I couldn't relax so spent most of those hours standing out on the balcony overlooking Guatemala City and watching cars pulling in to the parking lot and wondering if one of them contained my little boy.

Finally the phone rang. We grabbed the gifts for his foster mom and ran to the elevator. 

I scanned the lobby and saw them and ran again. Then this happened. 

I will cherish this moment forever. Can't even help the tears while I type. It was like the delivery room in a hotel lobby. Getting to squeeze my son and knowing he was OURS. Forever ours through God. Amazing. 

We made a book with all the pictures of Sebastian that we had been given from our agency. Many of them had sweet Ophelia, his foster mom, in them. She was in her 70's when she cared for Baz. We will always love this woman and thank her for giving Sebastian all that we couldn't while he was away from us. 

 

She obviously loved him so much. 

 

 

She was so proud of his little teeth. Just like any mom or grandma would be.

She is always in our hearts.  We can't even imagine how hard it was for her heart to say goodbye to him. She had other children in her home she was caring for and we were very happy for that to know she wasn't truly going home with empty hands. 

After all the emotional goodbyes, we were beyond excited to bring him up to our room.

I didn't get many pictures cuz I just couldn't bare to put him down. I took off his clothes and gave him a bath. We changed him and hugged him and played and played. 

It really felt like he remembered us from 4 months ago. He looked at us like "finally you are here! I've been waiting." 

Daddy and Sebastian were so happy to be together. 

That smile is just priceless. 

We had to spend a few more days in Guatemala getting some final paperwork done, but mostly we just had fun with our boy. 

Ophelia was sweet enough to bring the bear we sent for him to the hotel so he could keep it. We had the 3 girls record saying "I love you Baz" on it and I love that we still have this for him. 

My friends had wrote on diapers for us to bring a long too, so I love this picture especially for that. It was so great getting to see these sweet messages from the people we love each time we changed our son. 

We finally accomplished all we needed and we were ready to head home. 

(Obviously Baz had had it with pictures by this point)

It was time to head home with the stacks of paperwork that we had worked so hard on and prayed so hard over so that this beautiful little miracle would be a part of our family. 

I don't have pictures right now of our airport arrival, but it was an experience all in itself. Many of you have heard the story :) but just know it involves a tornado and a husband who really really doesn't like to fly. We had lots of family and friends who braved the storm and welcomed us home with our son. 

We came home to lots of sweet signs. 

Made by friends from all over the US. 

And from Katryna, Sofia, and Mia.

I was a complete freak and wouldn't let anyone take down our Christmas tree until he came home. We had hoped he would be home in time to celebrate with us, but when he wasn't I just couldn't handle taking down the tree. So we hung some Guatemalan ornaments on it and owned it until the day our son walked through the door. 

Well worth it to be able to open his present with our whole family. 

 

We will always remember those first days and hold them in our hearts because we waited and prayed for those moments for too long. 

I'm often overwhelmed with how blessed we are to have a son so amazing as Sebastian. 

He is sweet, funny, creative, clever, active, and amazing. 

 

 

We love you Sebastian. You are proof that God is in control and He knows exactly what He is doing.

Happy Bazzy Day. Please feel free to eat lots and lots of snack to celebrate. ;)

 

Fun with Taylor Swift

We had a great night at the Taylor Swift concert. 

We stopped to pose with a poster on the way in, since we figured this was as close as we were going to get to her.

We had heard that sometimes her parents come out to give out back stage passes. So we took a little walk towards the stage before the concert started.

We didn't see her parents, but still had fun exploring and taking pictures before the concert began.

There were a bazillion people there of course.
 It was fun to spend some time with just us and the little girls. 

Charlotte lasted about half way through the night. Then in grand Charlotte fashion she passed out and we laid her on the chairs for awhile so she could take a little nap.

 Right after she fell asleep we saw Taylor getting lifted off the stage to make her way to a back stage close to where we were sitting. She did this in a concert we saw 2 years ago, so we were prepared in case it happened. I grabbed Mia and we ran to the stage and ended up right next to it.

 

Mia could look straight up and see Taylor and watch the dancers. She was beaming with happy.

It was definitely a great spot. 

She was beyond happy. 

 The stage in the back raised so everyone could see them.

Then Taylor climbed onto this tiny stage and it carried her across the audience and back onto the main stage. Quite impressive and I bet pretty fun for Taylor. Mia thought it was amazing.

We headed back to our seats and woke up Charlotte just in time to hear a couple of her favorite songs and see the confetti canons shoot millions of red and white hearts everywhere. 

 

It was a great night and a good distraction during this never ending wait for our adoption stuff. 

Thanks Taylor for a fun time. 

Love.

Charlotte was chosen to play the part of The Beast while we were at Disney World last week at Enchanted Tales With Belle. 

The best part of this was she got to dance with Belle at the end. She beamed and it was precious. 

Love.

Hoping

There are a lot of people hoping to get news from GLA today. Many have been in the process with their child(ren) for a long time. Some (like us) are hoping we are at the top of the list and will find out who our child is. This is what was posted on GLA's blog Friday...


 We are very excited!  We had 5 passports go into printing and they should be picked up today.  We have 4 dossiers in MOI (Immigration) presently and 2 more going in on Monday!  That means  we will have 11 children going home in the next few months!
IBESR had not signed any adoption approvals all month until yesterday.  I spoke to another orphanage director and she said IBESR gave her several signed dossiers.  Our lawyer is going today to see what they have done for our dossiers.  Hopefully, we will have some more good news before the end of the day.
We also heard that some crèches received their 2013 authorization forms.  We are checking on ours today too.  I am praying that they have studied our documents and that our approval is sitting there waiting for the lawyer to pick them up!  NOTICE, IBESR just called and said our license has been issued and we need to pick it up!  Hurray!  I am so happy!
I cannot tell you how happy I am that adoptions are moving along so quickly right now.  If we could just get the President’s office to sign dispensations (pardons) for those families not meeting the criteria of the 1974 law, I would be ecstatic! I just wonder if the president’s office is waiting for the new adoption law to pass and then they won’t have to sign the dispensations.  I did hear from another agency this week, that they thought the new law had passed the Senate.  If this is true, then we are really close to having a new Haitian adoption law!  Please pray that the law gets passed and in place very soon. 

Lots of good news!!! It's huge for us that IBESR let them know that their license has been issued. This means they can try to submit dossiers and we are REALLY REALLY REALLY hoping that the dossier they try to submit is ours. REALLY. It's hard to not get crazy hopeful.

We are also really hoping that the new adoption law truly does get passed. They don't have restrictions for families with biological children in the new law, so we wouldn't need to get special approval (dispensation) from the president to adopt. This step has taken WAY long for most families. Some over 6 months. So this would be amazing for us as well since it would make the process go somewhat faster.

We would definitely appreciate your prayers today and this week that we finally get some good news. We know God is always in control and we trust that this good news will come soon.

A Pep Talk from Kid President to You

New Adoption Info from GLA

 26 January 2012

This month IBESR named the agencies they will allow to adopt from Haiti and the adoption quotas they would allow for each country.  The United States are allow 240 adoptions per year divided between 19 agencies which means 1 dossier submitted per month.  I suppose if 12 dossiers from the agency are given the first month, then that is all they can do for the whole year!  240 dossier for the USA is not a lot.  The Netherlands is given the quota of 20.  I have not heard yet for the other countries who have license.  They are being told as they go in to pick up their authorization certificates from IBESR.  I posted on my blog http://godslittlestangelsinhaiti.org/lifegoeson the full list of accepted American agencies and the ones GLA has contracts with.  The agencies were told they would be allowed to turn in dossiers starting 4 of February.

IBESR sent out a notice that they would start accepting dossiers but the creches that I have contact with tell me that none of their dossiers have been accepted.  We have tried twice to put in dossiers and both times have been told that they are not accepting dossiers yet. Social Services is just now studying our creche applications that we put together back in September.  After they study them, then they will start issuing our yearly certificates.

I will keep you informed when we hear more from IBESR.



*This was just posted on our orphanages website today. In a way I'm happy to just know that they can't submit anyone until Feb. 4 cuz then I'm not super hopeful every single day that it might be "THE DAY" and I can just go about this week without hope. This new policy would be so sad for kids waiting for families and families waiting for kids. I know of many families waiting to find out who their child is and GLA has SO many kids waiting for a family. :( Hard to understand. 

Our adoption worker is in Haiti this week, so we are hoping to learn more. Please pray we can get some answers and know for sure who our child is soon. Thank you.