Saying goodbye

The last night is always tough. Natalie (my friend who is adopting Gabby) and I are having to prepare to leave our babies. I try to get in every last morsel of kissing and holding and cuddling with Kervens. Because I know I have to put him back in his toddler room full time. He has not spent much time in there over the past four days, and I know it is always a tough adjustment to go back into orphan life.

And to be honest, the toddler rooms are the hardest for anyone to handle. It is just a survival of the fittest kind of setting. Lots of biting, kicking, hitting, grabbing, pushing (my son being the culprit a lot of times).

This stinks to leave him behind. That is an understatement.

Our Embassy appointment was quite eventful. Nonetheless, we accomplished our task of squeezing that in on this trip. And we are very grateful for Pierre and Angie's willingness to make that happen.

To start things off, we realized (as we were pulling out into the street to head to the embassy) that we forgot to get a passport size photo of Kervens. With all the craziness of the week, that simply got overlooked by all of us. So, Jackson, our driver who speaks no English, pulls back into the orphanage so we can figure out what to do.

Jackson starts calling Pierre and Frankeys but cannot get ahold of anyone. Most likely everyone was catching up on sleep due to the ever so eventful all night prayer vigil. (Which, by the way, we think it stopped around 4-5 in the morning.) So, finally we get Pierre on the phone, and he tells Jackson to take us to some place to get Kervens' photo taken. So, all of the sudden, Kervens is now going with us! This part was really fun! Totally unexpected to be able to take him with us. The nannies went in a flurry to get him all gussied up and ready to go.

So, it is 6:30 on the morning, mind you. We are traveling through downtown Port-au-Prince, and Jackson stops the car. He gets out, takes Kervens from me, and walks off. We are left in the car, with nothing to do but wait...and people-watch all the street vendors around us.

After 15 minutes, Jackson comes back and hands Kervens to me, along with 6 passport photos. Go Jackson!

Then, we head to the Embassy. We are told to wait in a line outside along with 30 other Haitians. I am telling you, it is really weird to be the only white person you see...anywhere. I now understand a bit more of how minorities can feel in the U.S. It is...well, a weird feeling.

After about a 45 minute wait in the hot sun, we get called in. Kervens was amazing during this whole thing. I think he was so mesmerized by all the cars and trucks passing by that he just sat still in my arms.

As we go in, we went through a couple of security check points, then we met with an officer that asked us some questions. We signed a paper and walked out. It was really simple.

However, the birthparents have to come in to the embassy on November 10th for the last of the birthparent interviews. This will be the last time Kervens' birthfather will be needed throughout the adoption process. So, we will definitely need to pray through that one!

Saying goodbye will be hard. But this is the pain we have to endure for now. Kervens is worth it.

Posted by Carlee, using my iPad