Michael and Madison

As a family we debated on what we should do about our kids names.  Should we keep their names the same...should we give them American names?   Claude is a name you hear (not often, but it's not that unusual).  However, Mithe-Love is a different story.  She has a name that when you look at it, you can't figure out how to pronounce it.  I had always said that I would name my children something people can pronounce...believe me, I've had my name mispronounced a 1000 times.  We decided to give them new American first names and their Haitian names would stay as their middle names...it's the best of both worlds. Well, let me tell you that it was much easier naming our first 3 children.  Why?  Because we didn't have other children putting in their "two cents worth".  MANY names were tossed around... MANY names were tossed out!  Then it happened...we agreed on a name... Michael Claude Jensky Finch.  We had narrowed Mithe-Love's name down to 3 possibilities.  However, when I went to the US Embassy to file our I600 in Haiti, I found out that I needed to put their new names on one of the forms.  I couldn't text Dwight for his opinion since my phone was in the car (you can't take phones into the Embassy), so it was up to me to decide.  Her name is Madison Mithe-Love Finch :)

Another step closer...

Claude with his backpack ready to go!

Haley and I arrived in Haiti on Saturday afternoon having no major problems getting to the guest house.  As many of you know, getting through the airport, finding our luggage and then finding our driver was my biggest fear of the whole trip.  Thankfully we had no problems!!  We made it up to the guest house about 2:30 and headed straight to the Creche.  Claude was at the bottom of the stairs (on the playground) when we arrived and he looked at us and just smiled!  He stayed with us for just a few minutes and then took my hand and was leading back inside the creche.  I thought he was going to find Mithe-Love for us, but he ran through the main room, through the tv room and headed up the stairs.  About that time, Wilnes (an amazing little boy, who is so very sweet and who speaks English) grabbed my hand and said "Mithe-Love is in there".  I turned and followed Wilnes and he was correct, Mithe-Love was in her room.  A few minutes later, Claude returned , with a backpack full of clothes ready to head to our room for the week!  Amazing to think that he knew we were coming to visit & he grabbed his bag and was ready to go!

On our way to the see the Judge

We were able to complete another two steps of our adoption process while we were in Haiti.  First, on Monday, we headed to the Court House to appear before the Judge.  Our appointment was scheduled for 10am.  Well, we left for the court at 8:45am, stopped by the NLL office and arrived at the court at 11:15.  Of course we were late getting there, but no one seemed to mind, so I guess that was ok.    We got inside and there were no seats in the "waiting room" so we stood in the hallway for about an hour or so. It was miserably HOT!  We had one small battery operated fan to cool all of us.  Eventually we did get a seat.  It still wasn't any cooler, but at least we got to sit down.  We were finally called into the waiting room where we would see the Judge. What a relief to find out there was a fan in this room (not cool, but the so much better than nothing).  Anyway after a total of 2 hours waiting, a gentleman came out an asked for my passport (along with two other ladies waiting to see the judge).  He took our passports, went into the room where the judge.  He returned about 10 minutes later saying we were "Fini"- finished!  We did not even see the Judge, but he signed off on our dossier and we really were finished!!

Then on Tuesday, I went to the US Embassy to file our I600 form.  Haley decided to stay at the Guest House and not go with me...remembering the LONG, HOT day we had the day before.   I took the kids down to the Creche so Haley could have some time to herself (she was still sleeping when I left).   Of course as soon as she woke up, she went down and to the creche to get the kids.  She had some one on one time with them while I was gone...priceless!  :)  Since you never know what kind of traffic you may hit in Port-au-Prince, so we left at 6:15am for our 8:00 appointment.  They only let people in at 8am and again at 10 am, so if you miss the doors open at 8 you have to wait until 10am to even get inside.    We arrived at 7am because there was no traffic this morning...we waited in the car until 8am when Smith came to meet me.  We headed inside (YEAH...it has air conditioning).  After waiting for an hour or so, the lady called me up and went over my forms.  When it was all correct, she had me sit back down and wait for my "interview".  We waited, and waited and waited (I should be really good at waiting by now, but I'm not). Finally, after a total of 4 hours, a different lady called me back up.  She asked questions about the kids, how we met them, what they like to do and how we have bonded.  She asked a few question about my kids at home and our jobs, then she had me sign the forms and she gave me the date of July 18th (the birth parent interview).  This is the day when Claude & Mithe-Love and their birth parents have to travel to the US Embassy to answer questions regarding the adoption. Please keep the kids and their birth parents in your prayers on this day!  I can't imagine how hard this will be for them.

Well, the rest of the week was bonding, playing and having a great time with all the children at the creche. If all goes well, the next visit to Haiti will to bring the kids home.  When will that be?  Not sure.  We pray that they will be home by Christmas!  We know that Dr. Bernard & Smith are working very hard to get all of the kids at the Creche home to their forever families...but it is Haiti...so we will continue to wait and will keep you all updated!!        

So happy to see each other again!

Not too sure about a playdoh bracelet

   

Hanging out together

Quiet time- coloring

Back from Church

I love my kitty

 

          One last cracker before we leave        

King Claude (VBS props)

SISTERS!!

 

We're going to visit again...

As you know we received our email on Monday (Memorial Day) saying we are OUT of IBESR.  We emailed the US Embassy to schedule our appointment to file our I600, which they said could take 7 days for a response.  Well, we sent the email on Monday night & we received the email with our appointment on Thursday.  Our appointment is on Tuesday, June 19th at 8am.  We are also appearing in Higher Court while there (not sure which day, but hope to hear on Monday for sure).  Now that everything has a day & time, it's time to book our flight...and we did just that!!!

Haley (our 14 year old daughter) & I will be traveling down together this trip.  This will be my third visit to Haiti and Haley's second visit.  She wanted to go back this summer, so I excited she is able to go with me.   Brittany (our 15 year old daughter) wants to go again soon too, so I think she will be going with us when we bring the kids home.

We leave on Friday, June 15th and arrive in Port-au-Prince at noon on Saturday, June 16th.  We will get to hold our little ones for 5 days :)  We will be traveling home on Thursday, June 21st.  The next trip down after this one will hopefully be to bring-em-home!!!

OUT OF IBESR!!!

TODAY IT HAPPENED...we received an email this morning saying we are OUT of IBESR!!!  When I saw the memo line of the email that said "out of ibesr"...I yelled for everyone in the house. Luckily, everyone was home- we opened and read these amazing words: 

Dear Finch Family,
Your dossier came out of IBESR today.  Now, either of you may come for the Higher court process.  Let us know when you decide to do so.
Best regards,
Smith

WOW!!!  It has been 8 months and 20 days (not that we are counting or anything), what a Memorial Day!  So the next step is to appear in Higher Court and to file our I600 in Haiti.  I have emailed the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince to schedule our filing date.  As soon as I hear from them (which says it could take up to 7 days for a response), then we will contact Smith, who will schedule our court appearance & then book our flights back to Haiti. 

It will still be several months down the road before the kids get to come home, but this is a GIANT leap forward!!!  I'll keep you posted as soon as we hear from the Embassy with a date!!!

Update...not much has changed

It's been a long time since I've updated you on our adoption journey...well, that's because we haven't had much progress.  Hopefully soon we will be able to tell you more, but for now this is what we know.  The new IBESR director took over last October- she wasn't able to sign off on dossiers until she had been in office two months.  To say the least that created a huge backlog of dossiers.  Well, as of May 7th, the IBESR office closed their doors and are not accepting any new dossiers until July 31st. Their goal is to clear out the dossiers that are waiting to be approved before they re-open.  On one hand that is good for us since we are one of those dossiers in the backlog.  And on the other hand, in a crazy way, it is also good for the other families too that are currently not able to enter into IBESR because once they start accepting new dossiers, the path will be clear for them to move quickly through.

We continue to receive our monthly updates on the kids.  Below are their most recent update (end of April):  

 The email said they were both happy and doing well!

Claude is 44 inches tall and weighs 41 pounds.

Mithe-Love is 36 inches tall and weighs 30 pounds.











 I LOVE receiving our monthly updates, but I'm so ready for them to come home now!!!  Hopefully we will have news that we are out of IBESR soon, so we can move on to the next step.  I've had so many friends mention to me, just out of the blue,  in the last two weeks that they have dreamed about our kids...I just feel that good news has to be coming soon!

Made by Brittany...a big sister waiting to bring them home!

Together for the first time

What an amazing trip to Haiti...Dwight & Nicholas met the kids for the first time!  We arrived in Haiti at 9:30am (yes, we had to get up at 3:45am for our early morning flight).  We made it through the customs without any problem and as we were looking for our luggage a man approached and asked if we were traveling to New Life Link.  He helped us find our luggage, escorted us out and found our driver.  We ask our driver for ID (which he did have), so we got in the car.  We drove just outside the airport and our driver pulled over, got out and another driver (who did not have ID) got into the car!!??  I was a little worried, but then he called and let me talk to Dr. Bernard...now I feel better knowing we are with a NLL driver, so off to the Guest House we go!

We arrived around 11am at the Guest House.  We took our luggage to our room & went straight down the the Creche' to see our kids.  Nick could NOT wait to get there, he was SO excited!!!!  We went to the playground and didn't see them...we asked one of the boys where was Claude and he pointed to the top of the stairs behind us. One of the Nannies had them ready and was bringing them to us. 

Here are pictures from that first meeting:

Dwight & Mithe-Love together

Dwight & Claude Jensky

Claude & Nick together for 1st time

Nick & his little sister Mithe-Love

The rest of the day was just hanging out together... bonding...getting to know them, letting them get to know us. Remember, this was the first time they meet daddy & big brother and they hadn't seem me since August.  The afternoon was very smooth and we all had a great time. We found lots of things to do during the week...the boys went swimming (the girls sat on the side and watched because the water was FREEZING), we played basketball, we colored, we played with balloons and we painted hand prints (something I can keep from when they were little), we played with cars and the baby doll.  We had a lot of time on our hands to find things to do.  During the week we were also able to go shopping and sight seeing with the kids.  We ate lunch at the Baptist Mission...well, we ate...Mithe-Love ony licked the ketchup off her french fries and Claude took a couple of bites of his french fries (and licked his ketchup off the rest).  We also celebrated Claude's 5th birthday!!!  How exciting to be able to be there for his birthday!!

Nick made some new friends while there as well.  There were 7 other adoptive families visiting the same time we were there, so there were lots of kids in the Guest House.  I don't think I mentioned this before, but when we visit the Guest House the children are able to stay with us 24/7.  The Creche' is in the building behind the Guest House (only separated by the basketball court, eating area and swimming pool).  In the picture the Creche is the pink/coral colored building and the Guest House is the coral/white (taller building).  So, since there were 7 other families visiting, there were lots of kids with us.  Nick played a lot of basketball with Josh, Junior and Wilnes.  It was so great to watch them all together!  Not to mention, Dwight & I made lots of new friends this week too...all of the other adoptive parents are so supportive.  They are already planning a "Haiti Reunion" for all of the children who are home this summer.  Our kids may not be home yet (PRAYING THAT THEY ARE HOME THEN), but just the thought that we can get all of the kids together is so exciting!  Here is a sneak peek at our week with the kids :)

We were able to move another step forward in the adoption process while we were there as well.  We went to "lower court" which only took a couple of minutes.  We each signed our name twice on a blank piece of paper and that was it!  We had been told that we may be able to meet our children's birth parents at court, but unfortunately that was not the case.  We had come up with a few questions we would have liked to ask them, so that as Claude & Mithe-Love grow we could have information to share with them.  We were told that the birth parents lived quite a distance away and it would have been too hard for them to make it to the court, but that maybe toward the end of the adoption process we may be able to meet them.  Praying that will happen..we would love to have that opportunity!

THEN IT HAPPENED.....WE HAD TO SAY GOODBYE!!!  That was the worst part of the trip!  It's so hard to leave them behind, we pray that we will be able to bring them home soon.  We are still in IBESR, so we have no idea how much longer it will be.  Once we "get out" of IBESR and go to "upper court" it is still about 6 months or so until they will be able to come home. However, we don't know when we will get the email saying we are "out", so we wait and pray it will be soon!  In the meantime, we do know that the children are safe and loved at the Creche'.  Many families travel down and love on our children while we aren't there...for that we say Thank you to them!

These are a few more pictures of the sights around Haiti, in and near the capitol, Port-au-Prince: