The News We've Been Waiting For!!

 By the power vested in me by God and the Republic of Haiti...it is my pleasure and privilege to introduce...

 Chelley 

and

Naika Saski!!!

 That's right...we received word today that Chelley and Naika are LEGALLY and OFFICIALLY our daughters (according to the Haitian government) and therefore have legally taken our last name of SASKI!! :) 

So, Matt and I are now legally and officially the parents of FIVE DAUGHTERS!!   We are celebrating this milestone with joy as it is just a legal confirmation of what we have known in our hearts since we first saw their beautiful, precious faces on Monday, September 10, 2012! 

Now, before you get too excited and think that they are coming home next month, we still have quite a ways to go.  If we were adopting from China, we might be close to going to pick up our girls as the passport and US Visa process only takes about 2 weeks with the well-oiled machine that is the Chinese government.  However, our girls aren't in China, they're in Haiti... and the Haitian government is anything but a well-oiled machine.  Realistically, it could still be 5 months or more before we're actually traveling to bring our girls home.

The news that we received today means that we have exited the "Courts" stage of our process (this is still on the Haitian side, we aren't to the US side of the legal process yet).  Now, we are entering a stage called attestation.  Here is the description from our orphanage of what this step involves...

"At this time, we will ask National Archives for an attestation signature for the Act of Adoption and then we will legalize the Haitian legal documents in both the Department of Justice and Minister of Foreign Affairs (MAE).    Then, we can apply for Chelley and Naïka's passports in the Minister of Interior’s (MOI) office."

This attestation and legalization stage has been taking about 1 month lately.  It's possible for it to take longer, but several families have gotten through this stage recently in just 1 month, so we're hopeful that we could get through this stage by early September.  

After the attestation stage, we will enter MOI.  Here they will apply for passports for Chelley and Naika and once those are approved, the passports will be printed.  In the first half of 2013, this step was only taking a few weeks.  Recently, it's been taking more like 10-12 weeks just to get approved, and then another few weeks for the actual passports to be printed.  So, while we don't like to admit it, it's quite possible that we could spend 3 more months waiting when we get to this stage.  Please pray with us that MOI would pick back up again as there are MANY adoptive parents and children that are SO CLOSE to being reunited forever and this step is causing a great deal of unnecessary waiting and heart ache for all involved!!

Once we finally get through that stage, then all of our paperwork will be submitted to the US Embassy for I600 (Visa) approval.  This stage has a few steps that have been taking 3-6 weeks total.  That means that once we get out of MOI/Passport printing, we can hope to travel and finally bring the girls home within about 6 weeks.

So, if you do the realistic math, it's quite possible that even though Chelley and Naika are now legally our children, we may not be able to go bring them home in 2013.  Obviously, we're still praying fervently that we get to have them home by Christmas, but it's possible that that won't be the case.  Honestly, our heartfelt prayer is that we could still bring them home before Naika's 3rd birthday on December 2nd.  That way we'd be able to celebrate Naika's birthday, Christmas, and Chelley's birthday in January all together as a family!  So, if you would join us in praying that we don't have to miss another one of our girl's birthdays, we'd appreciate it.

For today, we simply rejoice in answered prayer and in being able to see God's hand at work in this process as we move one (very important) step closer towards having our family complete and together.  And now, this mama of 5 is going to sleep! :)