April Update

We got our April update from GLA today along with some cute new Easter pics! Trey Amos is doing awesome and our file is almost ready to go into IBESR. That's great news, because we accepted the proposal about a month and a half ago and most files take 2-4 months just to get into IBESR.

Here is the update:

Hi!
As many of you know, Melanie, our adoption update coordinator, is ill and is recuperating in the USA until June. While Melanie is gone, Molly and I will be sending out the updates. For those of you that get an update from me, that means updates will be short and sweet for the month of April!

Please keep us in your prayers as we try to fill in for Melanie and keep you updated on how your child is doing!

Weight: 12 lbs 8 oz
Adoption Status: pre-IBESR, we are waiting for one more paper and then his dossier will be submitted to IBESR. We should be getting this any day.

You just visited with Amos on Saturday. I am sure that just seeing him move and cry made your son more real to you than just seeing his photos could ever do! Amos is making baby sounds and cooing and is very aware of things around him. He really likes Jacob, another baby in the NICU, and they make funny faces at each other as they sit in their Bumbo Seats across from each other.

Amos likes "patty cake" and will laugh outloud whenever someone does this with him. He likes to be on his tummy and will push against our hands when we hold them against his feet. he will probably start to scoot on the floor soon.

We will be sending updates at the end of each month starting this month. This will give us more time to gather information on the children each month.

Blessings,

Dixie

Web Cam Visit with Trey Amos

Well, today we got to see our little sweetheart on web cam! What a happy and active little guy! He is just about four months old now, and is doing all of the things a little four month old should be doing! We got to see lots of smiles and giggles--he loves being tickled by the volunteers. Unfortunately we couldn't figure out how to record the entire session, but we did get some awesome still pictures. They are not the clearest, but that is just the nature of web cam.

"Here I am world!":

"On my tummy":

"Mmmm... a sucker!":

"Sitting with my bottle":

"Oh now they want to put me back on my tummy":

"Now I'm mad!!!":

"But I know how to get what I want! I just wanted to sit up again!":

It was SO great to see him in real life and to hear his little giggles! He is pretty popular with the staff and volunteers apparently and we are SO glad to know he is loved and he is in good hands for the time being. WHAT a little CUTIE! We really are the luckiest people in the world to have such a wonderful little boy waiting for us!

Books, Books, Books

We can't buy too many clothes for Trey Amos because we don't know how big he'll be when he gets here... and we don't know if he's going to need a crib or a toddler bed... and it doesn't seem too practical to be stocking up on baby stuff right now... so the items we can buy that will always be a good fit are books!

Of course we've been collecting all kinds of books--baby board books and Dr. Seuss books and books that were favorites when we were kids--but we've also been looking out for some special books for him.

Todd Parr has some pretty cute books with nice bright colors and inclusive attitudes. Here are a couple pages from "It's Okay to Be Different." The book talks about all the ways we can be different, and one way of being different is being adopted.

"We Belong Together" is a book specifically about adoptive families.

"A Mother For Choco" is a super cute story about a little guy who can't find a mother that looks like him, and in the end becomes a part of a very special family where looking alike isn't part of the criteria.

We got the book "Tell Me Again About the Night I was Born" from Gabrielle, which is a book about a little girl who enjoys hearing the story of her birth and adoption over and over again. This book is great because it includes the birth parents as part of the child's "extended family."

And finally, it's nice to keep an eye open for books that represent children of different colors, rather than just caucasian characters.

Anyways, that's just a little of what's out there for kids' books. It's been fun shopping for Trey so far, and just another thing to keep us occupied during the wait!

Web Cam Fundraiser

So next week Saturday we will be having our first web cam visit with Trey Amos! We are so excited to be able to see him and talk to him! Big thanks to all the volunteers at GLA who are making this possible.

Why Does it Have to Take So Long?

We get this question a LOT. Especially after we say that it could take another year to 18 months, and even up to 24 months before Trey Amos can come home. WHY?????

Well, the short answer is that...it's Haiti. Haiti is a developing country and the government offices just simply aren't run efficiently. Sometimes we think we have it bad here in Canada.

The longer answer is that there are many steps to the Haitian adoption process:

• The first step is that our dossier has to be combined with Trey Amos' dossier. The children's dossiers are made up of a social history report of the child, a psychological report, a medical report, lab results, the birth certificate, and the death certificates of the biological parents or the relinquishment papers. Archive papers must be attached to prove that the signatures on the birth / death certificates correspond with the officials that signed them.
• Then the child's dossier has to go to legalization and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. When it comes back it must be prepared to go into IBESR by a lawyer. IBESR = the National Office of Social Welfare.
• Then the dossier (now Trey's and our combined dossier) needs to be approved by three different offices within IBESR. There can be 500 dossiers at any one time in IBESR.
• After IBESR, the dossier goes to Parquet, where it is reviewed and signed.
• Then the dossier comes back to the lawyer and is prepared to go through Courts. Again, the signatures on the adoption papers need to be proved to come from the said official. Then the signatures must be legalized at the Minister of Justice Office. And then the signatures must be legalized at the Minister of Foreign Affairs Office.
• Then the child's passport is applied for through the Minister of Immigration.
• From there it goes to MOI, the Minister of Interior for review and approval.
• Once approved the dossier goes back to the Minister of Immigration, the Orphanage submits further paperwork, and the passport is granted.
• The child then needs a visa medical exam in order to get the visa.
• At the same time, on our end of things, we must apply for Trey's Immigration to Canada.
• Once the passport and visa and immigration stuff is all done, we can go pick him up!

So that's the process in very vague and general terms. The dossiers sit on someone's desk and a dossier might get pulled from the middle of the pile, approved and signed. Another dossier might sit on a desk for months and months before it ever gets looked at. There's no rhyme or reason, and there's no first come, first serve! We really need some huge prayers that our dossier is one of the lucky ones that gets moved along quickly! And of course we need to pray that the whole system starts speeding up for all the waiting children in Haiti. Hurry home Trey Amos!

GLA Fundraiser

The volunteers at GLA are putting on a pretty cool fundraiser. They are asking that adoptive parents donate $150.00USD and in return, they get 10 minutes of web-cam time with their child once a month for three months, starting at the end of April. So, of course we signed up so we can see little Trey Amos and talk to him face to face! And we just went out and bought a web-cam. So I will keep you posted once that happens.

I just learned that I can't send Trey's package directly to the orphanage because the customs fees they slap on the packages are so high that the orphanage can't afford them. GLA has a Florida address where all packages are supposed to go, but then they wait there until there is a small container's worth, and THEN they are shipped. I don't even know if they are shipped by air or sea. So anyways, that can take several months. However, a friend of a friend is actually going to GLA to volunteer in July, so hopefully we can send the package with her. That way at least we know it WILL get to him! (and maybe we can squeeze a few more items in!)

We should get our first monthly update at the end of this month. Unfortunately the lady who does the updates is extremely ill and other people are having to fill in for her. I'm not sure if she had to go back the U.S. for treatment, but she is very sick. The GLA website says the updates will be very short and sweet for April and May because she will not be able to help with the updates at all.

Toni also emailed us and is hoping to get back to GLA to visit Trey one more time before they leave Haiti in June.

Trey's Baby Album

Ok, this post is mostly for the benefit of the Grandparents! We have started putting together Trey Amos' Baby Book. Brady, as some of you may or may not know, is an AMAZING scrapbooker, and well, I am ok at putting the stickies on the backs of the pictures. This little project will keep us busy each time we get a new update on Trey, at any rate. Here's a glimpse of some of the pages...

Haiti

I've had a few people ask me where Haiti is, so hopefully these maps will help. Haiti is home to 9.8 million people. It is also the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere due to decades of violence, instability, and dictatorship. The capital city is Port-au-Prince, and GLA is located in the Kenscoff Mountains nearby. The languages spoken in Haiti are French and Creole. Canada has been participating in UN peacekeeping missions in Haiti since the early 1990s.

Irresistable!

Sigh, I just couldn't resist adding a few more of these adorable pics!

A Package for Trey Amos

We've been putting together a little package for Trey Amos over the past few days. The most important thing for us to do right now is to try and promote the attachment process between him and us. It is going very well on OUR end...we are extremely attached to him already, carrying his photos around with us, talking about him, thinking about him, etc, etc, etc.

However, Trey doesn't even know we exist! Babies start the attachment process already when they are in utero. Then, as soon as they are born, the necessary process for attachment between baby and biological family usually happens quite naturally (although this is not always the case).

In adoptive families this process is a little bit different, especially in adoptive families where the children are not adopted right after birth.

So, in order to begin promoting attachment for Trey we are sending him a few things. One thing is a little stuffed doggie "Buddy" from Build-a-Bear. (Yes, we named the dog, but only because the girl at Build-a-Bear forced us to!!) We recorded our voices so that when Buddy's hand is squeezed, Trey can hear our voices talking to him. We also slept with both Buddy and with a little blankie so that they can absorb our smells for Trey. (This was a suggestion we had heard from numerous different adoption experts).

We also put together a photo album for Trey with close-up pictures of our faces on each page so that volunteers and staff at GLA can show them to him, and start talking to him about Mommy and Daddy.

Finally, we are sending down a few books...not that these have much to do with the attachment to us, but we chose some nice rhythmical Dr. Seuss stories that the volunteers and staff can read to him. Hopefully later we can send down more recordings of our voices reading some books to him.

What a Great Surprise!!

Wow, today Brady opened his email and there was a message from Toni Fernhout. Toni is the former principal of Edmonton Christian School, where Brady works. Anyway, she has been volunteering in different countries around the world over the past few years and is presently in Haiti. A Mom of one of Brady's basketball girls had emailed Toni and told her about Trey Amos at GLA.

So, Toni went to GLA and took all kinds of pictures of Trey and sent them to us! How cool is that? He is looking SO wonderful and healthy. We weren't expecting more pictures until his first monthly update from GLA, so these pictures were such a precious gift! Thanks Toni!!

Anyways, here are a few pics of the handsome little guy: