This will probably be a multi-day process because it's been a long time since I've posted and lots has happened since then. The last I posted, we were just starting the adoption process. I could just jump to where we are now (matched and we've met our children - stick around and there will be pictures in future posts), but I don't want to jump over the hurdles we've faced and evidences of God's work too quickly.
Right after my last post we began a great flurry of activity. There were legal documents to gather, physicals for each family member to obtain, bank statements to print out, forms of identification to copy, fingerprinting to do...the list goes on and on. Each foreign country has its own list of criteria and paperwork. The two things that Haiti required that added extra layers of appointments and paperwork were a letter from a psychiatrist (preferably, but none were willing to meet with us) or psychologist, stating that we were mentally stable to adopt, and my birth certificate had to match my other identifying documents.
Both of these added time to our process, time that we didn't want to be spending on paperwork, but that we now know were perfectly aligned with God's timing for our match. The letter from a psychiatrist/psychologist was very disheartening for a while. Because we have no prior relationship with either (except for the child psychologist who diagnosed our son with autism spectrum disorder), we had a very difficult time finding anyone who would even consider meeting with us. I understand that they want to be cautious, because it is their credentials on the line if they miss something significant, but no one even wanted to discuss meeting with us and doing a letter. We finally did find someone, and that meeting felt disastrous. It may have simply been nerves on my part, but it felt as if this psychologist was tearing us apart, viewing us as cultish, and dare I say it, crazy. I left that meeting feeling very disheartened. It was eye-opening and made me realize my world has gotten a little too closed off because everyone I know wholeheartedly supports adoption, homeschooling and our faith. I need some people in my life who are not totally like-minded so I don't get too complacent. But, that said, I also felt we needed to find someone else to do our letter.
Fortunately, as soon as we shared our concern among church friends, we began to get recommendations for other professionals who are Christian and who support both adoption and homeschooling. In the end, we met with someone who volunteered to meet with us, who had seen us in social settings and with our biological children, who has seen my husband in professional settings and who could give a well-informed opinion of our ability to parent adoptive children...and he even prayed for us before we left his office. God totally blessed us in this step!
The name spelling issue may come as a surprise to anyone reading this who has met me since middle school. That's about the time that I grew tired of the spelling of my name that was on my birth certificate and I began to use the "ie" form of my name. It's hard to believe that 2 little letters could cause such a hold up, but Haiti requires that all documents be identical, or a legal name change form be provided. While I had my driver's license, social security card, passport, all tax returns for many years, all property and legal documents in the "ie" spelling, I had never gone before a judge and paid the court costs to legally change the spelling. When I began changing these documents, I was in college and someone at one of the above offices let me fill out a name change form without problem and I thought it was no big deal...and it hadn't been until we started the adoption process. So, on October 3, I officially became "Stacie" rather than "Stacey"...much to my attorney neighbor's chagrin. He thought I should have taken this opportunity to select a much more interesting (crazy) name. I guess that's what I get for seeking free legal advise ;)
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