Research

In October after traveling to the USA and completing a big trip to Pennsylvanian and New York I started to research on-line and read library books.

At the airport leaving Haiti in mid September we learned of the possibility of a two year old boy being raised by missionaries who might be available for adoption. I'd met him at least once before.

We prayed, corresponded and then learned that he would not be available. My research then revealed that Haiti's adoption policies would be changing. No longer would independent adoptions be allowed.

The procedure would need to occur though an adoption agency. Pre-identified children would be harder to adopt.

We also learned that Haiti would be choosing and approving only certain agencies to handle Haitian adoptions. The list originally due out in November finally became public in mid-January.

Twenty agencies in the USA now handle the adoptions from Haiti.

While still in the USA I read about different crèches, orphanages, agencies. I learned some of the vocabulary. I called a few of the agencies, learning that at least one large agency no longer handled adoptions for Americans living overseas.

We narrowed the list to two. We corresponded with them by E-mails. We waited.

The end of January Haiti announced a quota for applications. Each agency can only submit one dossier a month at this time.

Middle of February we learned that one of the agencies we were corresponding with would not be accepting any new families in 2013 because of the number of their completed, waiting dossiers.

Prayed. Waited. End of February the choice became clear.