Coming home

November 27 is my family’s most celebrated day – it’s the day we brought out daughter home to Canada.

The weeks leading up to our November 2013 trip, our 13^th trip to Haiti, were some of the most stressful in my life. Four months earlier, we went to Haiti to be with our daughter on her 2^nd birthday. It was a bitter-sweet week for us. We got to spend time with our little girl at a Port-au-Prince hotel but really, she was supposed to be home with us, celebrating her birthday with our family and friends. Our adoption journey had once again hit a stand-still. Every time we talked to our lawyer in Port-au-Prince, she would tell us “Next Friday”. Next Friday was the day we were supposed to make further progress but next Friday never came. On that 2^nd birthday trip, we had to return our daughter to the orphanage twice. After we dropped her off the first time, we went to the airport just to see a major storm rolling in. All flights were cancelled for the next two days so we asked our driver to take us straight back to the orphanage. We could sense our daughter’s confusion when we picked her up to take her back to our hotel. When we had to bring her back to the orphanage for a second time two days later, I felt such despair that I told my husband I would not be able to go back to Haiti until we would finally bring our daughter home. How can I explain to my 2-year old why I keep abandoning her over and over again?

A few weeks later, we drove to Ohio to visit the orphanage director who was visiting from Haiti. During that trip, we asked her if we could switch lawyers and go back to a lawyer that was very helpful when we had problems with our daughter’s legal guardian 1 ½ years earlier– another snag that almost derailed our adoption. This lawyer, who had proven to be effective in the past, had a lot of power, which frightened me. Yet we needed him more than ever. So later that summer we engaged him to finalize our adoption. After paying a 50% up-front fee he went to work – or so we hoped. We had little contact with him over the next two months until one day in October, when he contacted us and demanded the second and final installment of his fee. I made the mistake of telling him via e-mail that according to our agreement, we would pay the second installment once the adoption was finalized and we had our daughter’s passport. Within minutes, I received an e-mail back telling me that I was not calling the shots and that he would drop our file in a second if we didn’t pay. My husband literally ran to the next Western Union to transfer the funds.

Discouraged and frightened, I almost did not contact our lawyer when we returned to Haiti a few weeks later – a trip I thought I wouldn’t go on. On November 18, we left for our 13^th trip to Haiti. The second day there, we decided that we had to see our lawyer for an update and reached out to him. The next day, he showed up at our hotel unannounced with a very stylish assistant in tow. He placed all the documents that were initially prepared for us in front of us, demonstrating how they were full of mistakes. He then pulled out all the corrected documents and told us that he would get our daughter’s passport the following day. And by Saturday, we could take our daughter home. I still remember that moment vividly. My husband jumping out of his chair and running to the nearest washroom, and me being in total shock with our daughter in my arms, thinking about how I would tell my work that I’m going on parental leave.

The next days were full of activity. Our lawyer did everything he said he would do and showed up with our daughter’s Haitian passport a couple of days later. In the meantime, we contacted the Canadian Embassy in Port-au-Prince to see if we could meet with them that Friday to get our daughter’s one-way entry visa to Canada. We also needed to get Haitian Social Services’ (IBESR) final approval the following Monday. In a country where every little step can take months, it’s an understatement that we tried to accomplish a lot in a matter of days. Being optimistic that we could pull it off, we got tickets for me and my daughter on the next direct flight to Montreal for the following Tuesday – the only weekly direct flight to Canada from Haiti. Our daughter did not have a Canadian Passport yet and could therefore not go on any of the connecting flights via the United States.

Within a day, we had our appointment with the Canadian Embassy. Knowing that one day we would need them, I had reached out to them a few months earlier to establish a relationship. This was helpful when we needed a last-minute appointment. I still remember how we anxiously waited in a room after the embassy employee took all our paperwork. When she came back after what felt like hours, not only did she present us with a one-way entry visa to Canada for our daughter but also a letter stating that she was now officially a Canadian citizen.  I have rarely been more grateful and proud to live in Canada.

My husband ended up leaving on his scheduled flight the next day in order to get our house back into order. He started a small renovation project in our second-floor bathroom, which turned into something much bigger. When we left on our trip to Haiti, the upstairs of our house was a construction site. He now had the task to put everything back together in a matter of a few days when our daughter and I would come home.

The following Monday, the orphanage director hosted a final farewell party for our daughter. We had cake and the kids sang “Bon Voyage, Sophia” to the tune of Happy Birthday.

It was a beautiful celebration and at the end, the orphanage director suggested that we should go downstairs to the room our daughter shared with approximately 20 other kids to take a picture with her in her bed. When I tried to put her down, she clung to me so tightly that I was not able to put her in her bed. She was determined that she was not going back there.

The next day I woke up very early to the familiar sound of Haitian roosters. I knew that it was a crucial day and I needed to be strong and alert. This was the first time that I travelled the streets of Port-au-Prince by myself. Although I used our regular driver, I always felt nervous as soon as we left the hotel grounds. That morning, my last memory as we drove away from the hotel was us waiving good-bye to our daughter’s best friend from the orphanage and her Canadian mom, who went to Haiti on a one-way ticket determined not to leave without her daughter. None of us knew when we would see each other again.

Once at the airport, I was able to get our boarding passes without any problem. However, at the next “check-point” a person of authority took our entire exit file that our orphanage director had put together. Not knowing if this was part of the process, it felt rather unsettling. Only when we finally boarded our plane, did I feel some relief. Clearly, once in Montreal, no one would turn us away due to our paperwork, or the lack thereof, especially since we had a letter stating that our daughter is a Canadian citizen.

By the time we landed in Montreal and made it through immigration, it was almost 11 p.m. Our daughter was still awake, as we walked through the doors into the waiting area of the airport. My husband and his family had been waiting there for a few hours … and it finally hit me: “WE DID IT”.