Parents fear for adoptive kids in Haiti

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - For the past year, Caroline Clark and her boyfriend have been going through the process of adopting 4-year-old Lourdie from Haiti.

The Grand Rapids couple has formed a bond with the girl through care packages and videos.

"We know who she is," Clark said Monday. "We have pictures and video of her and we want her home.

"We want another child. We want to make our family bigger."

She and boyfriend Steven DePolo used Chinese Children Adoption International to get Lourdie, which is the same agency Clark used to adopt her 8-year-old daughter Qi Qi from China in 2002.

The agency sent word that all the children in the Haitian orphanage survived the earthquake, but they are running out of food and water.

"The kids (are) sleeping outside," Clark said. "The nannies (have) toothpaste under their noses because the stench is so bad. The conditions are horrible."

Now, hundreds of children are waiting as the U.S. and Haitian governments work out a plan to speed up the adoption process.

"We're almost there," Clark told 24 Hour News 8. "So, we're kind of in limbo, not knowing where they're going to place us in that process."

She and DePolo were scheduled to travel to Haiti in February, but those plans were canceled by last Tuesday's earthquake.

Lourdie is almost part of the family -- but not yet.

The President of Haiti agreed Monday to allow children already in the system to be released to the United States. The Department of Homeland Security approved humanitarian parole for Haitian orphans already in the adoption process.

"So, we've been telling families across the United States to begin to get ready to travel, and to gather their paperwork, because it could be any day," said Marc Andreas, the vice president of marketing with Bethany Christian Services, the nation's largest adoption agency.

"We hope it's any day."

Bethany is in contact with the Haitian and U.S. governments. And Andreas knows the process personally. He is the father of six, and two of his adopted children -- Addy and Lovely -- are from Haiti.

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