The blog that I have chosen to highlight for my first HCR post is that of a Potential Adoptive Parent.
The nursery is being painted..furniture is being bought...paperwork is being completed...the fate of seeing "their" baby's face is in the hands of another person...and if you don't watch your back, she'll call her Case Manager on you!
Holy Crap, Really?
This couple is going to be adopting from Ethiopia. Currently, they are 15 in line for a girl and 5 for a boy.
She offers up several reasons for why things might slow down for them though (I'm not quoting all of them here but you can read the post for yourself):
It is the "rainy season" in Ethiopia. This happens every fall for about two months. This season means that courts are closed, so families that have not been to court will have to wait until October when court reopens to go or be given a court date. This always causes a backlog, so the next few months will slow down. Add to that, the Ethiopian MOWA department is processing fewer cases than years before, so families are not typically passing court when they go- a specific letter has been delayed for most families so the families have to come home from the first trip and wait until they get court clearances to then be given an embassy date... this means the whole process of the two trips takes longer. So the babies that are already at Hannah's Hope will be there longer than "normal" so it means less children are coming in... does that make sense?
Holy Crap, Really? I mean, this woman is actually lamenting the fact that there will be less kids coming into the orphanage??? And damn those court backlogs too...Don't they know that nothing should keep a person from getting child? Not even the Ethiopian rainy season!!
Several orphanages closed in Ethiopia, including one that AGCI contracts with. Hannah's Hope, the transition home that our baby will come from, partners with several government orphanages including one that just shut down. These orphanage closures were for many reasons, including the Ethiopian government wanting to find an alternative solution to the orphan problem aside from international adoption.
Holy Crap, Really? Let's gloss over the fact that the Ethiopian nation probably wants to be sure that the kids they are giving away weren't actually stolen from their families, shall we? Shame on their government for wanting to get away from child trafficking, right?
Some families have been referred children that were at one of these now closed orphanages, and their cases will require more time and work- so these children won't come home on a "normal" time frame. (Please pray for these families and children!!!)
Holy Crap, Really? I mean, REALLY? I'm supposed to pray that orphanages open back up so children "come home on a 'normal' time frame"? What the hell does that even mean?
And then there is this:
We knew we had a desire to adopt, but we didn't know from where. The domestic options were much more affordable, but they tend to be much more unpredictable and sometimes a longer process. Additionally, we do not know how long we will live in North Carolina, so we didn't feel that a domestic adoption would suit our situation.
So with the decision made to go international, the options seemed to be too numerous to count. However, we quickly realized that our options were actually very small. Each country has certain criteria you must meet if you want to adopt. We realized that our age, our length of marriage, and our income limited us to only two countries: Bulgaria and Ethiopia. After conversations with our friends who have adopted from Ethiopia as well as our agency, we decided that Ethiopia was the right choice for us.
Holy Crap, Really? They aren't adopting domestically even though it's cheaper because it's a longer process...WE WANT A BABY NOW! Their options were limited though because they didn't fit certain criteria...they are young, haven't been married long enough and they don't make enough money. Excuse me if I don't have ANY sympathy for this couple.
And yes folks, they WILL be celebrating Gotcha Day..you can bet on it.
Milestones. As an adoptive parent, milestones are treated differently. You may miss significant milestones, like the first smile/craw/laugh/walk/birthday. But with adoption, you get to not only celebrate birthdays, but can also celebrate "gotcha days" when a baby finally becomes an official part of the family. With pregnancy, you get to watch the milestones from the beginning, even with the development in the womb during ultrasounds.
Oh geez, did this bring back memories for me. My eldest came to me from India and the monsoon season impacted us too. The difference is that we all ready had our placement and were trying to have our case heard in teh courts. The difference is that we were also getting reports regularly from the orphanage on how ill he was and I was desperately afraid that we could not bring him home before he would die from something he contracted at the orphanage.
ReplyDeleteSadly so many seem to not be able to see the corruption that is happening in Ethiopia.
ReplyDeleteThere are real reasons MOWA reduced the case review per day by 90% at the beginning of the year.
There are real reasons why close to two dozen transition houses (fake orphanages) were closed in July and one of the directors arrested is still in jail.
There are real reasons why the US Embassy is scrutinizing the cases.
Now MOWA has just protested/stopped adoptions they just approved.
How can people have their head in the sand?
The adoption industry does not have the best track record in non-Hague countries...how many countries need to be closed because of corruption before they figure out child laudering is never a good idea. When will they LEARN how to do it right and ONLY WHEN THERE IS NO OTHER GOOD OPTION POSSIBLE?
I could not stomach too much of what was written there... just sick.
ReplyDeleteThere is something about the Ethiopia P/APs that is most stunningly horrifying. I am convinced it has to do with second-tier racism, meaning, the trope of the Asian adopted girl, quiet, docile, intelligent has been replaced by the docile African "prince" or "princess" now that it is harder to adopt from China or South Korea. It is appalling, especially when mixed with the kind of neo-colonialist nonsense that they feel compelled to spew out and call "knowledge" about the birth country of the child they are stealing.
ReplyDeleteI LOL when I read this: "Their options were limited though because they didn't fit certain criteria...they are young, haven't been married long enough and they don't make enough money." Um... hello agencies and government! Those are some of the same reasons pregnant women are pressured into surrendering their babies. How many women have been told that they are unfit to parent because they are too young, unmarried, or poor/financially unstable. How ironic!
ReplyDeleteI was checking out their blog and here is the line that really gets me...
ReplyDelete"And honestly, right now all we can think about is a little brown-skinned baby in our home!"
Umm. This is seriously concerning. They sounds completely patronizing of the fact that their child will be african.
"We knew we had a desire to adopt, but we didn't know from where. The domestic options were much more affordable, but they tend to be much more unpredictable and sometimes a longer process. Additionally, we do not know how long we will live in North Carolina, so we didn't feel that a domestic adoption would suit our situation."
ReplyDeleteQUICK! SNATCH A BABY, STAT!
How does an (I'm taking at face value) uncertain living situation make any adoption a good idea? Gah.