Adoption Of Little Girl Takes Nearly 4 Years

Nov 17, 2009 7:25 am US/Eastern
Adoption Of Little Girl Takes Nearly 4 Years
Reporting
Eileen Curran
SUGAR HILL, N.H. (WBZ) ?
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A New Hampshire family has waited a long time to adopt a baby girl; so long in fact, the baby is now nearly four years old and speaks only Spanish.

"The emotional process she's having to go through being plucked from her life as she knows it, might as well have been Mars the difference between there and here," said adoptive father Jason Kern.

When Kern and his wife Lisen began the process of adopting the infant girl they named Ali from Guatemala in 2006, they never thought it would take this long.

"Three years, seven months, three weeks, two days until she got home," said Lisen Kern.

Not long after the Kerns began the adoption process, Guatemala abruptly closed down its adoption program.

There were serious concerns over whether some children were freely given up for adoption.

The Kerns were told because they were already in the pipeline, their case would go through.

"Our case is not one with falsified documents, fake birth certificates, or forged DNA," said Lisen.

Last December, a Guatemalan court signed off on the adoption, but then the U.S. embassy questioned it and refused to give Ali a visa.

The Kerns were caught in a mountain of red tape, until about two months ago.

They contacted an official with the Immigration Office in Washington, D.C. who cleared the way for them to bring Ali home.

Jason made one final trip to Guatemala.

"I was going down there with resolve," he said.

"I wasn't coming back without completion, without Ali."

Waiting for them at the airport were Lisen and the couple's four other children, Caleb, 9, Wyatt, 6, Larkin, 5 and Chloe, 2.

It hasn't been an easy transition.

The language barrier is perhaps the toughest challenge. Both Lisen and Jason speak some Spanish, but not fluently.

"You'll say something and see a blank stare and … you have to say that again," said Jason.

And it hasn't been easy on Ali's siblings as well.

"It threw things off," said Caleb. "Everybody got a little tenser, and we were late for school a lot."

Still, this family that worked so hard and waited so long to be together is determined to make it work.

And they are especially glad the wait is over.

"We're not the family who's waiting anymore," said Jason.
 
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