Mike and I returned from our trip to Haiti and began our home study. This would be the first step in the long and grueling process of adopting Makendy.
As I began researching Haitian adoptions I realized that this was not going to be an easy process. We spent weeks contacting adoption agencies all around the United States and received the same response each time. They could not help us.
Following the earthquake on January 12th, 2010 Haiti closed all adoptions. American adoption agencies were not taking on any new cases because they were doing all they could to fight for those families that had already been matched with a child and were now being told that they could not bring them home. I read heart breaking stories of people that were within days of bringing their child home when the most devastating natural disaster in history hit Haiti.
Along with the effects of the earthquake on adoptions in Haiti we also quickly realized that we had another huge hurdle to overcome, we did not fit within Haiti's guidelines to adopt. We were told that these guidelines were very tight and strict. They read that you could not adopt unless you had been married over ten years, you were over 35 years of age and you did not have any biological children. Well, we "passed" the first two, but we had our four children at home that made up our family.
The frustrating thing for me was that these guidelines were written over thirty years ago. However, because of the corruption and lack of stability within the Haitian government, they had never been changed. Most American adoption agencies would not take on families that fell outside of these guidelines. However, I found several blogs from families that HAD been successful at adopting children from Haiti. I knew in my heart that it was going to be a long road with many hurdles to overcome, but I also knew that nothing was impossible with God.
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