Haiti orphans finally land in Miami

Peter Meuzelaar's heart is beating 90 miles a minute. He is so completely drained after a two-week-long battle to get his three adopted children out of earthquake-ravished Haiti, that he doesn't dare believe.

Can it be true?

\"It's true, Pete,\" another adoptive parent's voice squawks through the phone. \"I am sitting on the plane in Haiti with your three kids and my two

girls. They're shutting the door in 10 minutes. We're coming home.\"

Meuzelaar drops the phone. He's out of his seat, running through the office.

\"My kids — my kids are coming home,\" he tells his boss, the guy in the next cubicle, anyone who will listen.

The whole office in Park City, Utah, is clapping. Meuzelaar can't stop grinning.

Sixty-six Haitian orphans, including Meuzelaar's three children, arrived in Miami at 7:10 p.m. Friday, Jan. 29. Their adoptive parents, most of whom live in Utah and Idaho, spent the evening scrambling to grab last-minute flights to meet them. For many Utah parents, the plane's landing was a joyful ending to a years-long journey to adopt.

\"It's just unreal,\" said Meuzelaar, 39, of Heber City, who has been trying to adopt Jordan, D'Joe and Abigaelle for 2 1/2 years now. \"It's just been so long. It's been one delay after another. I can't believe they're finally here on American soil.\"

11 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 28

When she went to bed Thursday night in Haiti, Lori Rosenlof, who coordinated the children's return, had no hope.

The Haitian prime minister had run off to Canada. \"Her orphans,\" as Rosenlof lovingly calls the children she's been trying to evacuate since the Jan. 12 earthquake, needed his signature to leave the country.

The plane she and other parents had painstakingly raised $10,000 to charter, had just 90 minutes on the ground according to Haitian airport regulations. It would no doubt depart without its precious cargo.

Nonetheless, Rosenlof said, \"I went to bed with my phone.\"

And then: good news.

Ninety minutes came and went. The Sun Country 737 was still in Port-au-Prince. The six-person crew, following the lead of pilot Jake Yockers, would not leave Haiti without the children, they said. Period.

\"We're all in it for the kids,\" said First Officer Mike Pappenfus. \"It was the right thing to do.\"

Rosenlof declared her undying love for the plane's pilot when she discovered the development. Another jubilant parent warned, \"If he walks off that plane, he's going to have a 300 pound man running right at him cause I'm going to give him love.\"

Hopeful,