We're In IBESR!

While we were on Thanksgiving vacation with Dodd's parents, I received an email from our caseworker, Kate, letting us know that we are officially in IBESR! We entered on 11/26 and have a case number. For those following timelines, it took about 5 weeks for our dossier to be legalized in Haiti before it went back to IBESR. It feels great to be official and made for a thankful Thanksgiving!

Dodd and I sure thought 2013 was going to be the year that we met our next child. With 2.5 years on the wait list in Ethiopia, never did we think we might be waiting another 2-3 years from now.

Then when we signed up for Haiti this summer, we thought a referral would come quickly, and all of the waiting would come on the back end after referral. I didn't fully appreciate all the sub-steps required to get to this point after the Haiti dossier left our hands…translation, authentication US, authentication Haitian consulate, transit time to Haiti, receive at IBESR, contact attorney, legalization in Haiti.

I also did not fully understand what was happening with IBESR. IBESR is Haiti's department of social services. In adoption, it's role is like MOWA's in Ethiopia. There was very little activity in IBESR, especially over the summer, as laws and processes were being rewritten. This created a backlog. There are at least 500 family dossiers waiting for IBESR approval, and at least as many children waiting whose cases need to be re-approved under the new process. In the old process, families and children were pre-matched by an agency or creche, then IBESR would approve the match once they approved the dossier. This allowed referrals to made soon after a dossier was complete in the US. The new process does not allow for pre-matching. IBESR does the matching now after the child's and the family's dossiers have been approved by them. To my knowledge, there are no new process families like ours (not pre-matched) who have been approved by IBESR.

So we know a referral will probably not come this year. But when I think about the actual words we prayed, we asked that 2013 would be the year we saw the face of our next child.

And that means it's very likely our prayer has been answered.

That's because the face of our next child can probably be found in the beautiful collection of faces below. These are the children at Rivers of Hope who have not been matched with families. Dodd and I look at these faces so many times a day. Our Internet history will show the truth about how many trips we take to this website. It's nothing short of surreal to look on these faces and know that one is going to be ours! But Which One?

Seeing these faces has also given us the chance to pray for all of these kids and we are also sponsoring two of them until they are matched with a family. These faces and the waiting are drawing us closer to Haiti. And it helps make the one we wait for more real. It's also making me miss her/him a lot as the Christmas tree and stockings went up this week.

And just in case, I am still praying for a phone call before the end of year. Why would I make myself crazy, I know. It's ok to pray for miracles, right? Whether or not a call comes, there will be a stocking hanging on our mantel this year waiting for one of these.

If you're interested you can read a little about each of the children here. If you feel compelled, there is a need for sponsorship to care for these kids until they are matched with a family. And if you think you know which one, let us know!