Another

For someone who loves to write, I feel like I have done a lot of copying lately! Here is yet another.

One question many people ask when someone like us is in the middle of an international adoption is: "Instead of adopting, couldn't you send all that money to the birth parents so the child can stay in their first family and culture?"

Those who adopt probably ask this question of themselves twice as much as they hear it from others. Here is one adoptive mom's thoughtful response.

Why International Adoption and Not Aid Instead?

We are so thankful for a "virtual" adoption community that can express in words what we often find difficult to say.

Rebecca :)

Questions all of us have asked...

Here are a few questions posed by an adopting family to the director of our adoption agency. They are questions many of you have probably asked yourself but maybe not had the courage to ask us. I have reposted the questions and the agency director's response below. For your reference, "Layla House" refers to the agency's transition center for children in the process of adoption and "AAI" refers to Adoption Advocates International, our agency.

"This is AAI and other agencies may and probably do do
things differently.

1. Does money change hands in Ethiopia when children are relinquished?

AAI does not take relinquishments from parents. Parents must relinquish to an orphange, and technically Layla House is not an orphanage but a transition home to care for kids in the adoption process. So, by the time AAI gets kids they have already been relinquished. AAI would not accept children from any orphanage that knowingly gives anything to bio parents. This is against the law and not in accordance with Hague regulations, and wrong. It is not likely that this is happening, word would spread very quickly and the orphanage would be shut down.

2. The article (and the one in the NYT last week) seemed to imply that there are in fact NOT millions of orphaned children in Ethiopia. I have been told that there are. Because we do not live there, how can we know what is true?

I don't think that is any way to know for sure how many orphans there are. AIDS has had a huge impact, especially in particular areas, such as the truck routes though Ethiopia. Diseases such as TB and malaria cause children to be orphaned. Single parents can seldom raise a child which leads to abandonment or relinquishment. There are far more children in need that can be served by the current adoption system. This is why AAI has programs such as the orphan student programs in Nazaret, Sheshamone and Dire Dawa, and Dessie, to help orphan kids who can live with extended family and stay in school. AAI provides sponsorships for nearly 500 such children. We currently have 95 sponsors for the program and could certainly use more, $20 a month.

3. The articles implied that families often place children in orphanages so that they might be educated or for a boarding school/ childcare type of scenario. Can someone speak to this?

This is true some places, such as Mexico. I have not seen this in Ethiopia. I think there are so many older orphan children in need in Ethioipa that it is not likely that orphanages would be caring for kids who have family..That is just my guess.


4. Both articles outright said that infants are not who really need adopting. Again, can someone speak to this?

Any child who does not have a family needs one. Whatever age. Babies in need who are adopted do not become older children in need of families. So, babies whose parents have died or who find themselves unable to raise them do need adoptive families. In addition there are many many older kids boys over 7 and girls over 8 or 10, who are hard to place, because there are not enough adoptive families for them. Adopting an older child is not a good choice for many families but for folks who have had parenting experience, it can be a very rewarding and enriching experience. These placements do take a lot of AAI staff time. It would be "easier" to just place babies, but we have always seen our job to be doing as much as we can to help with the greatest need."

AAI Blog

Are you curious about the agency we are working with to adopt our child? Do you want to know more about humanitarian work in Ethiopia? Our agency has just put together a blog to keep you (and us) updated on their work.

You can visit them at http://www.aainews.blogspot.com/!
You are also welcome to visit their agency site at http://www.adoptionadvocates.org/.

Happy Hunting!

Rebecca

Timeline

One of the questions we get asked frequently is, "How long will it take?" Here is a guide with approximate times...

1. Get official homestudy document from social worker. - Maybe 3 weeks from now.
2. I-600A to United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS): Just a form, kind of like doing your taxes. Lists basic info about us and gives them forewarning that we want to adopt. We have to wait on our homestudy before we do this. - Fingerprinting will probably be 4 weeks from when paperwork is sent...
3. Fingerprinting: The USCIS calls us to tell us we can have an appointment for fingerprinting. I think this is for visas or something. - comes back maybe 2 weeks from fingerprinting appointment?
4. Dossier to Agency: Everything goes together to be bound by our agency and shipped off to Ethiopia. This is TECHNICALLY when the process BEGINS. - One month to 6 weeks after our homestudy document is finalized.
5. Dossier to Ethiopia - about one month after it goes to the agency.
6. Referral of a child with information and a picture! - Likely 4 months from the date Dossier goes to Ethiopia.
7. Wait for court. - Likely 3 months after referral is accepted
8. Wait to pass court. (Some people end up having multiple court dates. Passing is NOT guaranteed on the first round). - This is when you start praying. Could go very fast, could take 6 months or more!
9. TRAVEL! - Approx. 6 weeks after we pass court in Ethiopia.

Activity and Overview of Process

The last week has been filled with lots of activity as we have each gone to the doctor for a physical, obtained proof that we have no outstanding warrants or arrests in Oklahoma City, and had our passport photos taken times 4 (8 photos each!). We are so excited to be on this journey! I, for one, can't wait to be a mom.

Our next step in this process is a completed home study, which is done by a social worker here and later approved by our agency. We only have 3 or 4 more items to complete our home study application, and this part of the process should be under way. We expect to have our home study complete in late February, early March.

After the home study, we send a form to get pre-approval for an orphan visa. I hear this takes about 10 weeks...Then we put all of our newly gathered information (orphan approval and home study approval) with all of our other information in a giant file about us referred to as the dossier. Our dossier is currently about 80% complete, but the most important element (the home study) is, of course, still missing. The dossier will be the set of documents sent to Ethiopia!!!

Before I go, there are probably a few questions worth answering on this forum that we have not done a great job of addressing otherwise. Here are a few "FAQs":

How old will your baby be?
We told them we would take a child under age 2 but expect to get an infant between 4 and 10 months old.

Will it be a boy or a girl?
We figured we wouldn't get to choose this if we were birthing a child, so we "chose not to choose" and told the adoption we would take either. They typically have more boys than girls in care, so this means we are likely to get a boy. However, Ryan's mom Judy had a dream that we brought home a baby girl, so there is hope for either!

Will it be healthy?
We have asked for a healthy baby. Of course, what we consider routine and simple medical treatment here is not readily available there. We expect our baby to have no diagnosed chronic or debilitating disease (including HIV). However, it is not abnormal for children to come home with treatable respiratory illnesses, upset tummies, sometimes even parasites. All of these are treatable in the U.S.

How much does that cost?
Can anyone really estimate when they find out they are pregnant how much the bill will be? Much like any other process, there are always changes and unexpecteds with adoption. If you knew your child was going to spend his first two days in a hospital and it was going to cost more than expected, would you have chosen not to have the child? After your C-section, did anyone ask, "Did that cost a lot?" In the same way, uncertainty and individual variation makes this question impossible to answer. However, one thing we do know, it will definately be worth whatever it costs.

Can you not have children?
Good question. We don't know. We felt we would pursue adoption first. We think birth children are also in our future, but who knows except God?

Rebecca ;)

The dream that would never come true...

I am convinced it started within me when I was about 6. Maybe 7 or 8 or 10, but in my memory, 6. Our neighbors in New Mexico adopted a beautiful black little girl named LaSheka. Her new adoptive family was white, and she was the only girl amongst 2 or 3 rambunctious high-school boys. As I remember, she had a heart condition that required careful monitoring of her health. At whatever age I was at the time, I often overheard talk about LaSheka. In fact, many of my snapshots from childhood still include her, playing with us in the yard, or around the table at a birthday party.

I remember when the family brought LaSheka home, there were so many new things to learn and adjustments to make. Her mom had to learn how to care for her and her curly black hair, much different than our own. As my big little ears learned more about the family, I determined I, too, would someday have a LaSheka. I was taken by the love this family had for one little girl. I was astounded by their willingness to knowingly adopt a child with health problems, and I was amazed at the idea that people who were different colors could still be siblings.

Fast-forwarding twenty or so years, childhood dreams seem very, well...childish. I didn't ever expect to have the means or know-how to adopt a child, let alone a child from far away with different skin and hair than mine. I believe God, in his infinite wisdom, knew this dream was dormant inside of me. When I married Ryan, we began to discuss Africa. We talked extensively about going there on a mission trip. Each time we looked for ways to go, though, none seemed right or reasonable. As I got to know people in our church who had adopted internationally, I sought to understand the process better and would often ask directed questions, hoping to find out how feasible it was. Gayle, specifically, was always willing to share new pictures of their children as they learned more about each one while preparing to go to China. Often she would mention organizations where I might find out more about international adoption. With each suggestion I would say, "If we went, it would be to Africa."

Slowly I became more convinced that this was a calling, planted when I was very young, and slowly growing into a hurt for the children of Africa and a longing to travel there to see the conditions for myself. Our first move toward the reality of adoption came when we saw a picture of a beautiful child from Uganda on Thomas and Courtney's refrigerator. We found out they supported the child through Compassion International and soon found one of our own, Simeon, who lives in Rwanda. For a while, letters to Simeon and the knowledge that we were helping his family care for him assuaged my longing, but it was Ryan who took over from there.

Being more hands on, Ryan didn't feel we were doing enough through Compassion. He wanted us to have our own children, those we were responsible for caring for daily instead of sending a monthly check and a birthday or Christmas gift. We discussed adoption together with our eyes on the continent of Africa. With the floodgates opened for my old dream to be fulfilled, I began to badger Ryan. We both wanted adopted and birth children, and both felt it they should be close in age (if we had any control at all). It was Ryan, however, after many months of discussion who said, "I think we should adopt first."

Why Africa? Look at the statistics, those dying of starvation, preventable disease, and malnutrition. Look at the beautiful children who care for other children in the streets because their average age of death isn't ninety-something like it is in the United States. Look at the beauty of the country and the impact of adoption on the lives of so many who might be able to one day return to care for their homeland.

Why Ethiopia? There is a well-developed system for adoption in this country. We meet qualifications for adoptive parents such as length of time married and minimum age.

Why a child of a different race? I know race matters, but our society has become much more accepting of multi-racial families, both natural and adopted. I see no reason to limit our family to children who look like us. Indeed, I feel we are called to accept those of other races, not only in word but in deed. For us, that deed is to welcome a child of a different color into our family.

Why now? Ryan and I have become convinced through prayer that God has a child designated for us. We feel called to seek that child and feel called to look in Ethiopia. God has told both of us in numerous ways that if we don't take the first step, we are not acting in faith that it is his plan, not ours that matters. If we had chosen not to mail the application envelope, complete with brief medical history and family photo, I believe we would have been acting in direct opposition to God's call to obedience.

We don't know what God has prepared for our family. We are only sure that as of Sunday, November 2nd, 2008, we have chosen to get out of the way and let God do as he wishes.

Rebecca

The Mailbox

Looking back, I am sorry that we didn't take a picture as we apprehensively dropped the standard #10 envelope containing our application for adoption in the mailbox. The simple and singular act represented for Rebecca and I the culmination of several years of talking and praying as we considered the prospect of international adoption. Since there is no snapshot by which to remember this monumental first step, it will be immortalized here, as the first entry in our family blog.

Many of you will be reading this several weeks after it was initially posted, and I hope that it will serve as a brief (or not so brief) history of how and why we made the decision to adopt.

Three years ago, while Rebecca and I were part of a group Bible study, we began to feel drawn to the continent of Africa. We began to develop a deep empathy for the continent and its people and we felt that someday we would be in service to its people. At the time we both thought (and feared) that we would be called into the mission field and that we would be relegated to an out-posted tribal village far from the familiarity of our homes and our families.

During the past three years, we have often revisited the time when we felt so undeniably drawn to Africa and its people; however, we have never quite been able to reconcile what this meant for our lives. Neither of us see ourselves as missionaries (at least not in the traditional sense of the title), and we have both often remarked how at home we feel in the skin of our lives. We enjoy our jobs, our friends, our church; in fact, there is little that we really feel inclined to change too drastically.

Periodically, we have discussed having children. We have discussed when and how many and how close together in age they should be, all things that I assume most couples discuss when the topic of children arises. In addition to those "typical" discussion points, we also discussed how wonderful it would be to have an ethnically diverse family. Initially, these discussions were fleeting and our comments passing; however, as we began to discuss our "ideal" family at greater length, it became apparent that we both greatly desired to have both children who were white as well as children of color. I was almost immediately reminded of our very serious discussions two years earlier of Africa , the needs of its people, and our desire to be invested in both. In the six months to a year to follow, we first jointly and then separately began to realize that our calling to Africa was not one that required us to leave American soil and live in an unfamiliar place, but rather that it required us to only visit that unfamiliar place and that it required us to raise one of its sons or daughters. Specifically, we were drawn to the country of Ethiopia in eastern Africa.

At this juncture, I should be clear, that this was in no way an epiphany or even and "ah-ha moment," but rather a slow revelation forged through research and soul searching. We have each asked, both separately and of each other what it will mean for an African child to be raised in a white family. We have asked what others will think as we become "conspicuous." We have wondered how paramount the roll of race is in modern society. And we have asked if what we are doing is even right at all. During the past several months we have managed to find at least partial answers to some of those questions and we have become more comfortable with wondering what the answers are to the others. We do not pretend to fully understand what we have committed ourselves to, but we are trusting that God understands the process and that we will ultimately be given the desires of our heart.

As with a pregnancy (or at least I infer as with a pregnancy) we are excited and terrified. While we know many people who have adopted, many internationally, this process is still new and unfamiliar and certainly unconventional. We expect that there will be lots of questions and we a are looking forward to answering them. We hope that you will join in our excitement as we begin this journey into what feels like a veritable unknown. Faith led us to take the initial steps in this process and it led us to a blue metal mailbox. It is our belief that it will lead us far beyond that mailbox and that the journey will be filled with surprises.

Ryan