March 31, 2014 --

My surgical team left for Port-au-Prince today.
This is the first time since January 2010 that I have been absent from the group.
It's my own choice - I thought I'd be helping my family adjust to a new addition,
or at least traveling to bring him home.

I'm struggling with a lot of sadness right now . . .
that this adoption process is taking so ridiculously long;
that USCIS isn't responding to our I600 (citizenship application);
that it's been so long since I've been in Haiti and held my child and soaked him in.

My soul is weary,
again.

It's tiring, reading posts from other adoptive families on FB . . .
everyone's timeline and progression through the system is different,
which is unbelievably frustrating.

Up until now, Haiti has been a non-Hague Convention participating country,
which changes tomorrow.
With the country's radification to the Hague,
newly processed families will hopefully experience less confusion,
less corruption, greater consistency in process and processing,
and perhaps, if all goes as planned, shorter waits from application to homecoming.

In the meantime,
families like us (under the "old laws"),
continue to read about other families' paperwork traveling from A to B to G to D to C to E, etc.,
while ours took an A to C to B to D to G, etc. path,
and still, other files take the G to E to A to C or whatever path.

Essentially, the lack of consistency is stupid.

Today, I read of another family receiving provisional I600 approval before their child's Haitian passport had even been applied for -- WHAT??
It depends if you apply in the United States versus Haiti,
if an agency represents you or you employ an independent attorney,
blah, blah, blah . . .

Okay, so what if you apply in Haiti,
and submit all necessary documents the second week of December,
have all the "i's" dotted and the "t's" crossed,
celebrate ANOTHER holiday season without your child,
watch them turn ANOTHER year older,
pray like mad and go nuts watching the calendar pages turn over and over?

You know what international adoption from Haiti is like?

This mama is tired of holding on for dear life.
I'm tired of the brief upswings only to plunge so far down.
I'm ready to get off.

Today, I purchased my son's bunny for his Easter basket.

There is still a Christmas present from my mom-in-law in his closet waiting for him.

"Home by the end of summer" became
"by October, for sure," then
"Christmas 2013,"
and now . . . we are looking down the barrel towards another school year ending.

Worn.