Domestic Adoption Reform

We interrupt your waiting for news about Guatemalan adoption reform to draw your attention to domestic adoption reform here in the U.S. The blogosphere has been buzzing this week, and an adoptee rights bill is in the Massachusetts State Senate.

Some of you asked us why we didn't choose to adopt domestically. There were many reasons behind that decision, but in this context I want to discuss a couple of them. We felt uncomfortable that the domestic adoption process in this country 1) allows first mothers to finalize the relinquishment way too early (some states require only a 24 hour waiting period, by which time the drugs haven't worn off, the hormones are nowhere near evening out, and she hasn't really had a chance to try to parent this child; in Guatemala the first mother is required to sign off 3 times over a period of months), and 2) first mothers choose the adoptive parents BEFORE the birth of the child. This second point sounds very cute and fuzzy and sweet, but although I support the first mother's decision to choose the adoptive family I do not think they should be choosing before birth. I have heard the stories of multiple first mothers for whom their love and respect for the adoptive parents pushed them to place rather than to parent. When they wavered, they couldn't bear to disappoint the wonderful people who were hoping so much for their baby--and the child left a home that could have raised it, and the adoptive family was filled with a child that didn't need their home.

What would a better system look like? A good example is Australia's, in which the emphasis is upon parenting before placing, and a lot fewer babies end up needing new homes. Here's an excellent post by paragraphein about how the specifics of a revamped U.S. domestic adoption system could work. I'm all for it.

Since the entrance of Gus into all of our lives, I've become much more activist about the rights of all people involved in adoption, especially the adoptees. Adoptees are so very vulnerable; they aren't consulted about the family they want to be part of, and they often lack advocates until they have been adopted. I'd like to encourage you to help advocate for the well-being of these children and the adults they grow into: another great post by paragraphein gives some suggestions for becoming an advocate with varying degrees of time to give and further details on the problems with the current system, an excellent blog by seriously details her experience fighting for a truly ethical domestic adoption (including a blessedly failed placement), and this site discusses legislation which may be pending in your area.

The adoption process in our own country scared us. How sad. Let's help make our process an example to the world in how it prioritizes the best interests of the children, protects the birth parents, and supports the adoptive parents.

Pictures & Medical Update, Month Four

We got the latest set of pictures and a medical update on Gus today from Bethany. He now weighs 13 libras, and is 61 centimetros long and still healthy, praise the Lord. He got a second round of booster shots. I'll be posting the new pictures at the usual place.

He must really like wearing that baseball onesie.

Spoke Too Soon

It appears that all it takes to make something happen is to blog that nothing has happened. We just got an email from the Guatemalan embassy informing us that we are pre-approved for a travel visa for Gus. That's the necessary next step before we go back into PGN (the Guatemalan attorney general's office) for our second try at acceptance there. Exciting stuff!

March Non-Update

We got our monthly "update" email from our agency today that said, yep, still waiting. We knew that. What we're specifically waiting for right now is for the US Embassy in Guatemala to give their approval to the adoption file now that the DNA test has been completed and was a match. This process used to take about a month, but an adoption facilitator recently acquired a visa for a child under false pretences and took her to the U.S. before she was found out (the child is now with her adoptive family and the facilitator's in a heap of trouble)--as a result the Embassy's been pretty gun-shy lately, and approvals have been taking significantly longer. Can't blame them; we're just waiting.

Once we have the Embassy's approval, we'll go back into the Attorney General's office again (no word on the tilde issue--if we get kicked out for it again, we'll know it wasn't resolved to their satisfaction).

And no updates on the political situation regarding international adoption in Guatemala, except that our agency is now cautiously giving referrals again, with lots of new caveats about which potential adoptive parents must be informed. It's been two weeks since the big announcement, but there's been no new news, only speculation. I'm wondering if it was posturing for the recent visit by our President. But until we have solid information, we remain in waiting limbo. Our process is still moving forward, but it's possible that it could be stopped at any time, and with the current political situation and the Embassy delays it's now very unlikely that Gus will be home by summer. Sigh.

A Word from Our Agency

Yesterday we received an email from our agency, confirming what we had already assumed about the new legislation in Guatemala. 1) The laws in Guatemala regarding international adoption will be changing in order to be consistent with the Hague Convention. 2) Those exact changes and the timeline on which they will be implemented is unknown. (We hear that the Guatemalan Congress is working on new laws, and that the legislation announced from the First Lady's office last week may have been meant to increase pressure on that process.) 3) Our agency has stopped giving referrals until details regarding the changes are known.

It appears that all cases in process are continuing to be processed as usual until the details regarding the changes are published. We hope to hear an update on our specific case soon. Please continue to pray for wisdom to construct the new laws, for the best interests of the children to be paramount in the process, and for creativity as the Congress tries to keep the good parts of their adoption process while closing the loopholes on the bad.

I Want My GusTV!

Wednesday we received an old-school (VHS, not DVD)-style video of Gus in the mail. It's about 5 minutes, and looks as though it was taken in the office of the coordinator in Guatemala, who narrated it. He spent most of the time wiggling. When they turned him over on his tummy to show us how he could lift up his head, he looked around for his foster mother, who was making funny noises (and presumably faces) at him from behind the camera. His foster mother said that he almost always sleeps through the night already, and that he takes two naps a day and spends the rest of his time wiggling. He's awfully cute in motion.

The not-so-good news: the political situation in Guatemala regarding adoption is always volatile, and it's been more rather than less in the past week. I can't explain very clearly what is going on, because no one seems to really know at this point. But yesterday the Guatemalan President presented what seems to be an executive order which would change how international adoptions are conducted--however, he probably doesn't have the authority to enforce his order, and portions of it appear to be illegal under current Guatemalan law. We don't know how the Guatemalan Congress, which is working on changes of its own to bring Guatemala into line with the Hague Convention standards, will take to the President's appropriation of their jobs. The President says that his order is only a stop-gap, but it may be sufficient to get the UNICEF money that has been offered to Guatemala as well as to snarl the system pretty effectively until the Congress finishes its work. That's all we know. No one has any idea when the changes will take place or how they will affect families currently in process.

No panicking, anyone. The uncertainty is all part of international adoption, and we knew that when we decided to start this process. Please join us in praying that wisdom would prevail, and that the people who make decisions would have the best interests of the children as their primary agenda.

An Exciting Day

Today we got a very exciting email from our social worker. It said that not only are we out of Family Court, we were submitted to the Attorney General's office (PGN) on January 17, and have already been kicked out! Kick-outs are part of the routine from the PGN; most families have two or three kick-outs. Ours was because the pre-approval hadn't come from the US Embassy yet (it should soon, since the DNA has been completed), and because the last name on the baby's birth certificate doesn't exactly match the last name on the mother's birth certificate (it's a difference of a tilde). So we're waiting for pre-approval, and the attorneys are working on a resolution of the tilde issue. Yes, we think it's funny too.

What's most exciting is that we've already been in PGN for a month, and had our first kick-out without even knowing it. The Guatemalan political situation is, as always, a little weird and unpredictable, but we may be looking at around 3 months until baby instead of around 6. Of course, no guarantees. But I'm starting to get excited on the inside, and my sister (who has two munchkins) is helping me figure out what non-furniture baby things we need.

We also got a medical update (but no pictures). He's doing great!

And lastly, since the Family Court process has been completed, we're feeling reasonably sure that this baby is our baby. Although we're keeping his full name a secret for a while longer, he doesn't need to be Ronald in public anymore. Now y'all can call him the nickname we've been calling him, privately and hopefully, within 24 hours of his referral: his name is Gus.

Crib installed

The baby's room is now fully furnished. Last weekend we acquired and installed a crib in the baby's room. We got it from a co-worker of Rebekah's whose daughter just outgrew it. We also finished and moved in the toy bin (trying and not succeeding to use up the extra paint left over from painting the dresser--we're used to painting rooms, so we way overestimated how much paint we would need). After all the furniture was moved in, we promptly rearranged every piece, but we think we're happy with the arrangement now.

Note the crib's feet. The crib didn't start with any shoes of its own, but these shoes have been waiting for it for years, a gift from friends when we first started telling people that we were going to adopt.

DNA Is A Match

Just over a week ago DNA was collected from baby and mother. The DNA was sent to the USA for testing to ensure that the woman relinquishing the rights to raise the child was truly the mother of the child. The results just came back with a probability of maternity of 99.99%. That's quite a yes, and it's a really big step in our process.

There's one more step before we can really begin to feel that this child is OUR baby, and that's the completion of the Family Court report. We know that the social worker interviewed the mother last week, and if she was and continues to be sure that she and no one in her family is able right now to raise a child, then the Family Court will approve her request to transfer the rights of raising him to us. The positive DNA test confirms that she has the right to do that. Once that process is complete, we will begin to get very excited--but not too excited, because the paperwork is taking an average of six months in the Attorney General's office right now. We hope to have that report within 1-2 months, and be able to say that this child is not just "maybe" ours, but "almost certainly" ours.

Birthmother Interview and Rocking Chair

It was a busy week in Boston and Guatemala. In Guatemala, the DNA test happened (we now have a couple of pictures of him at the test, which are posted on our picture site as usual). We were also notified that the meeting between the Guatemalan social worker and the mother also happened last week, so even though we didn't get official word that we were "protocolized", we must have been, because the social worker's interview is part of the Family Court process. Our attorney couldn't be acting on our behalf in Family Court if our document giving him power of attorney hadn't been accepted by the court.

In Boston, we celebrated the arrival of our rocking chair, a Christmas gift from Reb's parents which had to be special-ordered. Soon* there'll be a baby instead of a bear in that chair. We also got a toy bin/organizer/thing which we're painting, so his room is coming right along.

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*6-8 months, according to recent historical averages

DNA Test Done

We just received word that the DNA test on mother and baby was done on Monday. That means that the samples were collected and sent off to the lab. We should hear the results in between a week to a month from now.

More Pictures

We got another batch of pictures and another medical update today. He is now 10 pounds and 58 centimeters. And according to the medical report, he had a respiratory infection, poor kid.

DNA Authorization from the Embassy

We've received word that the US Embassy in Guatemala has given approval to have the DNA tests done on birthmother and baby. We're assuming that, although this instruction was given by the US Embassy and not by the Guatemalan government, that it couldn't have been given unless we were officially entered into the Guatemalan system, known as protocolization. Protocolization is important because when the Guatemalan adoption process has been shut down before for various reasons (and we expect that soon the Hague will cause a shutdown while the process is reorganized), protocolization was the cutoff to be allowed to continue with an adoption. Of course, there are no guarantees: international adoption is much like the stock market, in that past performance is not an indication of future results. So we're maintaining our same level of optimistic hopefulness, but were surprised to hear about DNA authorization before protocolization!

Another very important process tends to run alongside of the DNA testing: Family Court. Soon the baby whose referral we have accepted will be referred to Family Court as well, and a social worker will visit his birthfamily. She will ask if the birthmother is really convinced that she is not able to take care of this child and truly wants to relinquish the rights to raise him to another family. She will make sure that the birthmother knows that the relinquishment is legally final once the adoption is complete, and she will ask again if there is any family member who would be able to care for this child so that he could stay with his birthfamily. If the birthmother is convinced that she and her family would be unable to care for the child and that she does want to relinquish the rights to raise him to another family, then approval will be given by the Family Court for the adoption to proceed.

The timeline for Family Court is usually about 3 months, and for DNA results is 1-2. So far we are right on the average schedule.

If you'd like to get more information on the average status/progress of Guatemalan adoptions through our agency, they post an International Adoption Update within the first week of every month on their website. The update is on the left-hand sidebar. Also, a great website with useful information for adoptive families and friends from all countries is RainbowKids. They even have a letter to grandparents posted this month!

UPDATE: Received word today that we have NOT yet been protocolized. The entry into the Guatemalan system and the US Embassy are two independent tracks. Our documents have been in Guatemala for a few weeks, but have been delayed being put into the system because of the holidays (and then catching-up from the holidays).

Baby room update 2

In the end, we decided not to stain the dresser after all. Instead, we painted it, as you can see to the right. It turned out pretty well. The semi-gloss paint makes the knobs really pop.

Also, as you can see, we received and installed the foam tiles to cover the floor. Hopefully fewer tears will be shed when he starts to learn to walk.

Baby room update

Happy New Year, dear reader. We don't have any real news today, except to brag about our sweet new enormous dresser for the baby's room (show of hands: who is now officially sick of hearing people describe things as ginormous? The zeitgeist really spat that one in our faces this year, didn't it? In 2007, let's turn it around and start using egantic.)

There it is, to the right. We took advantage of a mad end-of-year clearance sale at Millstores, a really nice unfinished furniture store in Malden, MA. 40% off for a nice solid dresser. The knobs are sitting on top, but I'm not all that thrilled about the knobs that were included. We may look into some alternatives. I also have to sand down some of the sharp edges and stain and seal it. Not sure how dark a stain we should go for, if any. Any suggestions from the readership? The floor and wall are in the shot.

Other exciting baby room progress: we've ordered 100 square feet of foam tiles to cover the floor with for playing/crawling/falling down purposes. This weekend we're going rocker/glider shopping. I know certain parties are interested in seeing more room updates, so I'll keep posting them. Thanks to the rest of you for indulging us.

Merry Christmas, the child has hair!

Ronald's appearance in the hat throughout his first set of pictures had many of us wondering whether he was bald or sporting a mohawk underneath. We just got the pictures from his latest doctor's checkup, and he definitively does have hair. The doctor says he's doing great, and his (blurred) pictures show that he's pretty wiggly. The rest of the pictures are on our photo-sharing site; if you'd like to see them and don't have the link, email us.

We also got news that our acceptance documents are finished being uber-authenticated and are on their way to Guatemala (where they will likely sit on someone's desk until mid-January). Yay for hair!

Officially Accepted

This morning we sent off the referral acceptance paperwork to Grand Rapids. It included various forms authorizing DNA testing on the birth mother and baby, State Sealed witness statements that we're good folk, a power of attorney document, and of course a check.

Now we go back into our wait state until we hear more...

(Note from Reb: Guatemala in general and the Family Court system in particular takes a 4-6 week vacation around Christmas. We're hoping that our paperwork will make it into the system before everyone breaks for the holiday, but we're not looking for any more news than that until next year.)

Medical report all clear

Today we had a doctor review the medical information that was sent with Ronald's referral. As far as she could tell, everything looks fine. The blood work didn't reveal anything of concern, and his height and weight were normal. All in all, he's a healthy little guy. Now we'll pull together the referral paperwork and send it off as quickly as we can.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Referral!

It's been less than three weeks since the national office received our completed dossier. But on Sunday we opened an email from Pam announcing our referral of a baby boy. Wow!

He was born on November 5. He weighs 6 pounds (American babies are enormous compared to some other countries) and is 19.3 inches long. He's already in foster care and under the supervision of a pediatrician.

A caution: we can't be sure yet that this baby is our Ronald. International adoption is not predictable. We're trying to wait until the DNA test, a few months from now, to give our hearts to this baby. (DNA test ensures that the woman making an adoption plan for the child is indeed his birthmother; she will also reaffirm her decision to make that plan at the time of the test.) Until then, we'll call him "Ronald" but we mean "Ronald?". But he's cute. More pictures are posted on our picture-sharing website--if you don't have the address, email us and we'll send it to you.

Up next: tomorrow we bring his pictures and medical report to the International Adoption program at Children's Hospital for review by their doctor. As long as there are no surprises, we plan to accept the referral. More paperwork, notarization, and state seals. After that our documents will be translated and sent to Guatemala. It takes a while to move into the system, so we probably won't officially enter Family Court, the next big step, for about three months.

An Ethical Adoption

Some of you may have read a recent article in the New York Times which must have been pretty upsetting to everyone who read it. As an adoptive parent-in-waiting, it was particularly upsetting to me in the way it implied that most adoptions of Guatemalan children are unethical.

I was disappointed in the Times; to start with, the reporter didn't do basic fact-checks which put his other conclusions at serious risk. The easiest whoops, which the Times has now corrected online, stated that the current President Berger signed the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoptions in 2002, when it was actually President Portillo. More damaging was the statement that "after years of legal challenges the nation’s Constitutional Court ruled definitively this year that the country must abide by it." That's just not true. The Guatemalan Constitutional Court had previously ruled that President Portillo's accession to the treaty was unconstitutional; their recent ruling says that regardless of the unconstitutionality, the current President cannot be forced to withdraw from the treaty. It's a complicated impasse, but should not have been papered over with that definitive but incorrect statement.

Why does the Hague treaty matter to Guatemalan adoption anyway? The Hague treaty does seem to want to help children. Unfortunately it has the same downside as another piece of well-known legislation that wanted to help children: the No Child Left Behind legislation. Both are unfunded mandates, meaning that significant rules are instituted with no additional funding to institute them. The Hague would require the government to take over all adoptions, but children in Guatemala whose families cannot take care of them do not go into foster care unless they are given into the care of a private attorney for international adoption. They grow up in orphanages and then are on their own at 18. The Hague would also strongly encourage domestic adoption options for all children to be exhausted before the children would be available for international adoption. But in Guatemala, domestic adoption is extremely rare because of cultural traditions, and holding every child for the rare domestic adoption would mean that the vast majority of children would spend more years in an orphanage.

A study released today on children in orphanages and adopted from orphanages in Romania showed that adoption increased the health and IQ of the children, especially when they were adopted before age 2. Anti-international adoption groups are already assailing the study, correctly assuming that it will be used to pressure countries to reopen international adoptions. Some people think that preserving the culture of the children is of paramount importance--this study shows clearly that with that goal they are sacrificing the health of the children. Therefore, implementing the Hague treaty in Guatemala (if the impasse is somehow solved) will very likely have unfortunate deleterious side effects on a large number of children.

The major theme of the Times story was baby-buying, and told a story of an unscrupulous attorney giving money to a birth mother in exchange for her baby so that the child could be adopted internationally. That story should be upsetting. I do not doubt that some attorneys and agencies are corrupt, or that some adoptive parents are desperate, clueless, or careless enough to accept the referral of any child. But responsible adoptive parents should choose their agency carefully. We did serious homework before we chose, and our agency has a long history of ethical international adoption. They continue to work in countries where the international adoptions have been closed, for the sake of the children, and they are non-profit. They run background and reference checks on their attorneys, and those attorneys are responsible to direct supervisors in Guatemala and the U.S. supervisors who frequently travel there.

This whole post means: we are neither desperate nor clueless, and we do care very much that our adoption is conducted in an ethical fashion. It was insulting to us and to many other ethical adoptive parents, agencies, attorneys, and notaries for the Times to publish such an inflammatory article which suggests that an ethical adoption from Guatemala is not possible. However, these articles seem to come out about every six months. Consider them rebutted. We have done our homework, we are behaving responsibly, and our Ronald will NOT have been bought.