Housekeeping

***Thank you for the comments on my last post. The support from all of you has meant a lot to me. I know we face difficult questions in our future & I’m so thankful for the adoption community for being such a wonderful support system.***

A quick update on the adoption stuff & then I hope to give it a rest for a few days, mainly because I just don’t know what to say. Vietnam’s response to the Embassy report is to leave the negotiation table. Before all this stuff happened, Vietnam & the US were in the process of negotiating a new adoption agreement. The Vietnamese are a proud people & they were insulted by the Embassy report & have decided that they will stop adoptions on 7.1.08, two months before the US was going to stop them. You can read the newest AP article here. I just have no more words to describe how heavy my heart is.

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In happier news, my sister is here! For a whole week! Jenny came in last night on Amtrak & it’s been non-stop fun. So far we’ve taken Ethan to school, watched Gavin at swim lessons, played piano, talked, & oh yeah, I kicked her butt in Backgammon, TWICE! The boys are excited to have Jenny here too. She’s crocheting each of them a scarf & taking them each out for lunch. They are both loving the thought of doing anything by themselves with Jenny. Tova is still undecided about Jenny. She’s taking her time warming up to Jenny. I’m hoping by Wednesday, Tova will stop crying every time I leave the room.

Here’s a picture for your Monday Night.

K~

I almost forgot.  Welcome to my newest Google Reader- JJ  (& you thought it wasn’t important enough to blog about.  Ha!)

Purge (Emotional)

Where to start? As a recaplet, Vietnam adoptions will close 9.1.08 because of corruption. The report outlining the corruption can be found here. An AP article that discusses the problem can be found here. What this means for us is a lot of emotional questions about the integrity of Tova’s adoption.

This section of the report brought me to tears.

In other cases, individuals report finding children in a field or by the side of the road. Often the individual who purportedly found the child (child finder) is a police officer, a village official or a member of their immediate family. These individuals are often related to the orphanage director or the local official who approves adoptions. Embassy investigations have shown that many of these reports are fraudulent.

It upset me because Tova was found by a policeman in a province known for corruption.

I want with all my heart to trust that her documents are true & that the man who found her wasn’t paid, didn’t know she would be there, & was just doing his rounds when he heard her cry. I want with all my heart to believe that they tried their best to locate her birth parents. I want to believe that no promises were made to her birth mother that if she gave up her child she would receive money or a debt would be forgiven. I want to believe that her birth parents, for a very good reason, placed her on that spot so she would have a chance for a better life. I used to believe that, but there was always a little nagging doubt. Now that nagging doubt is like a bunch of alarm bells.

Chances are, we will never know the truth & we can look at it in a lot of ways. We can assume the story on her papers is true because she was issued a Visa & allowed to come to the US. If the Embassy had found irregularities, an investigation would have ensued & months later, her story would have checked out or if it was found to be fraudulent, we would be living in Hanoi for 2 years while we wait for her Visa to be approved through a different process. We could say that God’s plan for her life is to be with us. She’s meant to be our daughter & how she came to be our daughter is all part of His Divine plan.

Or I can obsess over the possibility that we might have been complicit in something as awful as baby-buying. We will never really know.

Vietnam is a different culture. In the US we trust our authorities. Americans are outraged when we hear of bribes & corrupt behaviour. In Vietnam, that’s the way things get done. It’s not right, but it is what it is.

I am having a hard time reconciling my heart & my head. My heart knows without a doubt that Tova is my daughter. She was meant to be my daughter & we were meant to be a family. That has to be true.

My head is full of What If’s & How Can We Know For Sure’s.

I believe we made the best decisions we could with the information available at the time. I wish that felt like enough.

K~

Vietnam Adoptions in the News (Updated)

I knew things were bad, but this is crazy. I clicked onto MSNBC’s homepage late last night to check the news & was greeted with this:

Chitose Suzuki / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Vietnam running a baby racket?

I think most people in the Vietnam Adoption Community won’t be surprised by the story. However, it was a shock to see it on the MSNBC homepage as national news. It’s so sad. There are so many children & families caught in the middle of what seems like a pissing contest between the Vietnamese gov’t & the US gov’t.

There are real concerns with Vietnam adoptions. The governing body, the DIA (Dept of Int’l Adoptions) has no real authority over the provinces. We learned that the hard way last year while waiting for our oft rescheduled G&R ceremony. There is also child trafficking. This is not unique to Vietnam, it happens all over Asia, but with Vietnam’s new & extremely popular Int’l Adoption program, child trafficking has become a real concern for both governments.

The US gov’t hasn’t handled itself with cultural sensitivity or diplomacy when trying to combat the serious issues facing Vietnam Adoptions. Instead of working with the DIA, they have implemented processes that have offended the DIA & done little to foster cooperation between the Dept. of State & the DIA.

One such example is the new DNA requirement. The DoS is now requiring DNA tests on all relinquishment cases, in hopes (I think) of catching baby finders passing off children as their own. I think it’s a great idea to have DNA samples done on the orphans. Lots of international programs have this element. In Vietnam it’s a good idea in theory. The problem is implementation. The DoS is not known for their cultural sensitivity & woe be to the woman who snuck away to have her child & leave him at an orphanage when the DoS comes knocking for their sample. This new process requires cooperation between city & provincial officials, orphanages & agencies & also requires the presence of the DoS. The US apparently did not seek cooperation between the necessary parties, just said, this is what we’re doing, deal with it.

Can you imagine that happening here? Can you imagine the outcry if some foreign official showed up at your door demanding a DNA sample? Do you think our gov’t would stand for that? And why would the DIA & orphanages want to continue to work with the US? It’s so much easier for them to work with France & Spain so now referrals for US agencies have all but dried up.

The US has implemented a good idea to combat the trafficking. The Orphan’s First program has parents apply for their child’s I600 Visa (the visa that allows them into the US), before the parent travels to Vietnam to adopt their child. The idea was for USCIS (Immigration) to take 60 days to investigate adoptions before approving the I600 Visa & allowing families to travel for their G&R. (When we traveled we applied for the I600 after our G&R & then waited for the one person who processes adoptions for all of the US families to go over our papers & determine whether or not further investigation was needed. It took roughly 10 days). This process change is a good one. It allows for more in-depth investigations & will hopefully mean no more NOID’s (denial of the child’s entrance Visa) If only the DoS had added the necessary staff to cover the new demands placed on the already over taxed system, maybe 60 days would be sufficient.

I do not want to minimize child trafficking. It is a serious problem & a crime that has many victims. As an adoptive parent, it is my worst fear that my child was not left by her birth family, but bought for a price by a baby finder or taken as payment for a debt. I am glad the US has taken steps to prevent child trafficking. I just wish their implementation would have been better.

Adoption is not easy & it shouldn’t be. But the emotional toll is bad enough when you don’t have to worry about the program closing; this has been torture for the families that still wait. Our agency has 5 families that are currently waiting for their investigations. They have spent the last 5 months watching the days slip by, missing the babies that they only know from pictures. Each day their children languish in an orphanage is one day too many.

I wish I knew how to help. I wish there was a way the two gov’t’s could come together & truly put the orphans first. I wish child trafficking didn’t happen. I wish families could raise their own children in their own countries. I wish I didn’t have to face the tough questions that will come from my daughter when she is older.

There are legitimate orphans in Vietnam. I’m sure of that. I’m also sure they are the ones who suffer the most in this diplomacy game.

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Update

The US Embassy in Hanoi has released two statements today. One is Summary of Irregularities in Adoptions in Vietnam which states what has gone wrong in Vietnam adoptions & why the statement Warning Concerning Adoptions in Vietnam has been made. The essence of the Warning is if you don’t have a referral by Sept. 1, 2008, you won’t be able to proceed with an adoption from Vietnam. My heart breaks for all the families caught in this mess.

K~

Monday Mish Mash

I had a post up earlier with a great video about the state of Education in the US. Unfortunately the people who own the video didn’t want me to have it on my blog. Ordinarily I’d be too offended to link it but their message is pretty important so here’s the video.

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There’s tons of stuff brewing with our placement agency. Here’s a blog that gives a good background to the current crisis in VN adoptions so you can be all caught up. It’s not a great time to be looking into international adoptions. China’s extremely slow, Vietnam is unstable, Korea is pretty restrictive, Guatemala is closed, Russia & the other Soviet-block countries are really expensive & a little shaky too. My heart aches for the families that long to parent children & especially for the children who languish in an orphanage without a family to love them.

Tonight I’m really upset with the quality of communication our agency has with their current clients. When I was giving recommendations to people, the most asked question was about communication. We had very few complaints with the communication. They always responded promptly to our calls & emails. Sometimes we felt like they weren’t giving us the whole story & of course, we wished they would have. The wait would have been so much easier if they would have said “here’s our plan, these are the steps we’re taking to implement said plan, & please be patient while we do our jobs & we promise to keep you apprised of the situation, warts & all.” That kind of honesty would have been refreshing. We’re all adults. When adopting you have to expect waiting & setbacks. What you don’t expect is half-truths & runaround. Especially when transparency is so important. I think I’d better stop now. For those not adopting with our agency, this probably isn’t making a whole lot of sense. I just needed to get it off my chest. I’m just so disappointed…

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We’re still dealing with the dreaded fever. Ethan was much better today. I kept him home from school anyway & I’m glad he had another day to rest up. There were 6 kids gone in his class today so there’s obviously something running rampant through his classroom. Gavin spent most of the day curled up on the couch with the fever. I think it finally broke right before supper. He was much more talkative & less whiny this evening. Even if he’s fever-free tomorrow, he won’t be going to school on Tuesday. He’s in denial about that though. He kept saying Ethan was the only boy not going to school on Tuesday. Now we have to wait for Tova to get sick & hopefully Jason & I will stay healthy. Jason’s leaving on Thursday for MN for his dad’s heart surgery. He’s having a valve replaced on Friday so Jason will be spending the whole weekend in MN while I’m home with the kids. I’m thinking Popcorn for supper & a Muppet Show Marathon is in order at least once over the weekend. Sure beats sitting at the hospital

11:20pm – Just when I need a reminder to keep things in perspective I read this blurb on WCCO about the Javens’ brothers funeral (from the bus accident last week)

“Hunter would have celebrated his 10th birthday on Monday [2.25.08], and the roughly 1,400 mourners at the funeral sang the Happy Birthday song to his twin sister Sasha. She also accepted a birthday gift on his behalf.”

K~