Central Florida family's headaches continue as they try to unite with adoptive Nigerian daughter

ORLANDO, Fla. - Ian and Lisa Lord have a beautiful pink bedroom all ready for their adopted eight-year-old daughter, Ivy. The girl is currently in a Nigerian orphanage. 

"That's going to be amazing for all of us when she comes to the US and sees her room and knows that she no longer has to be with 30 or 40 children in one space," says Ian, an Orange County Firefighter.

Because U.S. customs officials won't grant Ivy a visa to live in the States, her adoptive parents and new brother Eland, have been taking turns staying with her in Africa. 

"My wife has always wanted to do an adoption from overseas," Ian says, "and we looked into Haiti and Haiti has a lot of stringent rules behind it, when we contacted the adoption agency here in the United States they said Nigeria was actually doing adoptions, and they'd just opened-up their country to allow Americans to adopt from there."

They started the process two years ago and legally adopted the girl, but US officials say the Lords don't have paperwork proving that Ivy's mother legally gave her up for adoption when she left the infant on the street when she was born. 

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"How can you have a child that's abandoned, who has no parents, sign-off on adoption that - you abandoned a child," Ian asks, "I mean they didn't waive their rights from a signature standpoint."

In their latest bid to be together, Ian had been staying with Ivy in Nigeria for two months. Lisa and Eland flew from Orlando through Atlanta to Paris, and then to Nairobi, Kenya, where Ian and Ivy met them. They stayed together there for about a week, when Ian flew back to Orlando. They decided to try flying through Istanbul, Turkey, to Mexico, where Lisa and the kids could stay together and Ian would be a short flight away. 

"And then from Mexico just wait until her visa was processed here in the United States and then hopefully come here," Ian says.

But there was another problem with their visa paperwork. Airport security officials detained Lisa and the two small children in Mexico City for hours, before sending them back through Istanbul to Nairobi, where they were detained at each step along the way. 

Finally, they were cleared to fly back to the States, but Ivy had to go back to her orphanage in Nigeria, alone.

The Lords are continuing to work with Florida’s senators and their local congressman to bring Ivy to the US. Ian says he hopes Ivy will one day understand the sacrifices they went through to bring her home. 

"I just hope she learns how much we fought for her as she gets older and the challenges we went through to get her here."

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