This has been a very long emotional road for us to finally bring home our (add in all the positive adjectives you can think of) son Jamesley safely from Haiti.
We began our adoption journey when our son Monty was almost 2. We worked hard to save for adoption, raising Monty with no childcare. We budgeted and saved, but the absolutely unimaginable circumstances that constantly surrounded our adoption led us to paying almost 4 times more than we were originally told.
The hurdles have been huge. We had 7 home studies, a typical adoption only has one. We were fingerprinted more than 35 times. The translations. The mailings. The 17 extremely time intensive and invasive grants - that we were denied. All while being in constant worry about the safety of our son Jamesley, in a war-like Haiti. An unsurmountable stress on us all.
Though we have persevered - working both emotionally and financially to remain the best parents and role models for our sons - inflation, a destructive home owners claim and the financial turmoil in Brendan's business - we are struggling financially to pay for this adoption, of the greatest kid you can imagine.
It is with a pleading heart that we ask for your support. We would be grateful for anything you would be willing to offer. Please read more about our story in the updates.
Again, sincerely, we thank you for any assistance.
Brendan & Michelle
This was the original message we posted. It was in the months before we brought Jamesley home.
As this is written, tears stream down my face and shaky fingers try to summarize our adoption process and where we are at.
Since 2012, and yes you read that correctly, since 2012, we have been working on adopting a child. This process has not been for the faint of heart. For 2.5 years, we have been on telecommunication every week (the first 6 months) and now once a month with our son Jamesley who will be 11 this coming July. We have had a long, winding, emotional fight for our son Jamesley. We feel honored to be able at this point to call Jamesley our son. With his ultimate sweetness and vibrance, Jamesley is going to bring so much to all of us! We hope you can feel what an astonishing person this little man. You can see a photo of this purely lovely person from our most recent monthly video call.
Since we began the adoption, the Haitian Central Adoption Authority (IBESR) has had more and more (and more and more) limited capacity to process adoption cases because in the last 12 years there have been a few damaging hurricanes, a major earthquake, flooding, the assassination of the President, civil unrest, gang violence, domestic terrorism and abduction, the COVID-19 pandemic, the spread of other diseases, and historical political manipulation. All these factors have made our adoption 2-3 longer and more expensive than most. But we persist! We hope that this is the last tragedy that we face! Please hope with us! Please take action with us (see at the bottom what you can do)!
More than anything, right now at this very moment in time, please write and please send us and especially Jamesley your positive energy, loving thoughts, prayers, and any other way you might send a bubble of safety to our adoptive son Jamesley to just get him into our loving home from Haiti! We have always remained positive and hopeful regardless of all the other circumstances. This time, this tragedy, we feel scared.
With so much gratitude!
Brendan, Michelle, Monty & Jamesley
Please feel free to share this with anyone connected to Haiti or adoption.
Call(s) To Action!
As many of you may know, the country of Haiti is in turmoil. Very recently gangs have taken siege to the capital of Port-au-Prince and continue to move out from that nexus and Jamesley is not that far away from there. As a result of the violence, the U.S. Embassy has been evacuated, leaving no one to assist in the processing of paperwork of children adopted by U.S. Citizens. There are currently 101 children that have been matched with families who are trying to get home. Chareyl Moyes, a human rights advocate, the Department of State, Utah Representative Moore, the Department of Homeland Security and other big time players have worked tirelessly getting awareness and advocacy to this issue as well as are working to find a way to extract these adoptive Haitian children out. Our son Jamesley is on that list.
Please take some time to help bring Jamesley and all of these 101 children home by signing the petition and writing to your Representatives and Senators today!
The National Council for Adoption (NCFA) has created an advocacy website where you can add your voice to our struggle.
https://adoptioncouncil.org/advocacy/action-center/#/21
You can find your Representatives here: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
You can find your Senators here: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
If you want you can even copy and paste the following message or modify this message in any way you feel is helpful.
"We have a friend that has an adoptive Haitian child of the 101 Adoptive Children on Chareyl’s List. Thus we are pleading that you work your hardest to get their son home to them safely. Please co-sign Utah Representative Moore's Letter!"
Lastly, please keep the people of Haiti and as well as all of the other adoptive families and children that are not as far as us, but are in the process of adopting Haitian children in your thoughts/prayers/etc. They need strength at this time too.
Jamesley has been an absolute joy! We are amazed at how positive of an attitude he maintains and how incredibly hard he works in school and at learning English. The giant smile on his face is priceless! Everyone we meet makes a comment on his beautiful smile!
Jamesley's glasses finally arrived. He has to wear them all the time, which he is getting used to. Since he loves sunglasses, we even got him a pair of prescription sunglasses to maintain his cool guy image.
Jamesley is doing gymnastics, basketball, and swimming. He enjoys going to the amusement park and riding the little rollercoaster and bumper cars most as well as hanging out with his new friends and with his brother!
Jamesley has consistently sharing stories of his life in Haiti and we love listening. The last couple of weeks we clearly have seen Jamesley enter a mourning phase. He has been sharing sad and unimaginably scary stories as well as crying over situations that he has not cried about before or over things that one typically would not cry about. He has finally talked about people he misses in Haiti too. We have asked to contact people at the creche (orphanage) in Haiti, so he can reconnect. He has not been interested until this week.
From all of our reading on adoptions, his emotional changes signal to us that he is comfortable with us to share his true feelings and self, which is great, but hard for him as he is releasing his trauma and pain. There has been so much extra extra extra hugging and holding these last couple of weeks, which is a lot since hugging and holding and talking is such an important of focus in our family.
Please send Jamesley extra good thoughts and/or prayers right now!!!! Thank you for staying on this journey with us!
We were able to bring Jamesley home!!!! With one day notice from the Department of State, we put everything on hold to head to Miami where we would meet a lawyer we hired to escort Jamesley through customs. This was his first time in a car, airplane, and shuttle. What a crazy day for him!
With lots of bad communication, we waited in the Miami airport all day and night to finally see a huge smile and hear a loud "Mama" exit customs just after midnight. Jamesley ran to us and hugged us all. He only had a tiny backpack with an extra shirt and shorts and a 6 page coloring book with 4 pencils. Talk about coming to the US with only the clothes on your back. We then headed to the hotel, slept for 3 hours, and headed back to the airport to head home to Chicago. A dream come true!!!!
April 2024 Update
The exhaustion, excruciating heartbreak, and additional upward financial requirements all continue to climb. More frustrating news from the government. We have just learned that Jamesley will need to go into the beyond dangerous heart of the city of Port-au-Prince to obtain another physical as is required by law for him to immigrate to the US. Families are looking at spending huge chunks of money to hire private security firms to safely get their child there. Not only does this incur another unexpected cost, but most importantly: will put our son in grave danger and will be scary for Jamesley. Putting our fears for Jamesley's safety into words is impossible. We would love to be there with him, but are not allowed. We just want him home to us! The barriers continue to build. Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers and send Jamesley a loving safety bubble until we can have him extracted and home to us.
