A very UN-Happy Anniversary to us.

This morning I woke up thinking that there was something about the date that was very familiar and significant but I had to wake up a little before it hit me: Today it has been one year from when our files exited IBESR! One year! It used to be just a matter of a couple weeks to a couple months at the most from when you exit IBESR to picking up your children. Times have changed and long steps have been added. What was originally thought to be a 6 month or less adoption process is now looking like it may be 3 years or more.

I still believe there is a reason and this is all part of God's plan so I am not "down" or upset today. It's just not really a celebration kind of anniversary either.

One year ago today Stephanie, Jude, and Lovenie had been in IBESR a very long time. A corrupt director had finally (and with much celebration) been removed and a new promising director had replaced him and then had to learn the job and play catch up on the files that the previous director ignored. So we were so anxious to hear the good news that our files may finally be released. I learned that this had finally happened while we were at a hotel in TX. I went to their media room to check my emails and there it was... "Your children have exited IBESR". Before getting this message I imagined in my mind what this would be like to get this huge news and then was surprised that my reaction was so different. I thought I would be jumping up and down with excitement. Instead I just sat there frozen and staring at the screen. I was glad Jim was the only one in the room with me because I then burst in to tears and cried and cried. I'm still not sure what that cry was about... happiness, relief, pain because of the long wait, shock that our kids were finally coming home... no clue but I couldn't hold back a storm of tears. Once that was taken care of I was able to move in to what I had always pictured it to be.... major celebration!! We went back up to the hotel room and jumped up and down on the beds whooping and hollering. We were out of IBESR and our kids were FINALLY coming home. The only thing we were worried about was that we still had more then 2 weeks left of the vacation we were on and we were wondering what we would do if they called us to Haiti before our trip was over and decided we would leave, of course. We were really concerned about getting back home before it was time because after IBESR the wait was very short. Boy, were we ever wrong! Other steps have been added and we could have never imagined the new delay. So here we are one year later and still have no idea when our kids will come home. Not an anniversary to celebrate but one worth pondering on.