Here Comes Peter Cotton Tail...

Ethiopian Adoptions...now.

If you don't follow my other blog, momslaw.blogspot.com then you are probably unaware of the scope of our most recent adoption. By this I mean several things, time frame, country change, government hoopla, yada yada yada. In early 2008, we applied to adopt from Ethiopia. Within a day we received a call from our agency letting us know about a new pilot program. Burkina Faso. Would we be interested? First of all, where the heck is Burkina Faso? I seriously had never heard of it. Thought I was smart. Had a grip on my world geography. Apparently not. Burkina Faso is a small West African country on the southern end of the Sahara in an area of the continent called the Sahale Hot and dry. Not much on the internet about this country. From what I gathered it is around the size of Colorado. Captial city Oaugadougu. We ended up jumping into the program, though in hindsight I was apprehensive about the country from the beginning. We were told that the adoption would take approximately 4 to 12 months. Things never progressed. Criteria changed. After 18 months and absolutely no movement of any kind, we pulled out of the program. So, here we go. Ethiopia.

I believe you know the story from there but, to recap, we received our referral in February of 2010. Received our court date shortly after. First court date was April 6. We just knew we would pass. But, we didn't. Orphanage issue. Little man was suddenly in limbo. No one knew what would happen. We were offered another referral, which we declined. He was our little man, and we were bound and determined to stick it out. The summer went by with lots of tears, fears, and disappointments. Finally, we passed court on August 6 and ultimately flew to Addis two months later.

So skip to today..... As a family we are so blessed. God's plan saw our family through. Though it was a tough, tough journey we were in the end sooooo blessed with our son. He fits perfectly. We love him dearly.

But, Ethiopian adoptions are seeing change. Good changes I believe for the children. Heartbreaking for those potential adoptive families stuck in the process. In the past year the Ethiopian government implemented the two trip rule. They have begun investigating allegations of corruption and child traffiking, and at least one agency working in the country has lost its license. This could be the beginning of the end for adoption from this country. It brings back memories of Vietnam and Guatamala. Can you believe that many families in Ethiopia were told that if they put their children in the orphanage and relinquished their parental rights that their children would be educated in America, that they would send money home and they would eventually come home to them? It is happening. It has happened. There are many horrible stories. MOWA (Ministry of Women's Affairs) has now cut their processing and letter writing to 5 per day. In the past they processed up to 40 per day. Since it is absolutely necessary for your file to contain a MOWA letter before you will pass court, the slow down has caused some anguish from parents waiting to bring their children home. The embassy is doing more thorough investigation as well. This is all in an attempt to stop the corruption. This is needed. This is a good step. But, just the 6 months we waited to pass court was grueling, now it will be much, much longer. On top of the 12-18 months of waiting for a referral, the potential adoptive parents are now in it for another year+ before they will pass court and then at least a couple months or more to receive an embassy date. Bottom line, Ethiopian adoptions are going to take a long time.

I can see that Ethiopia is serious about the welfare of their children. They are implementing changes in hopes of saving the adoption program. As American's we have to remember that we are not entitled to an Ethiopian baby. We aren't. We may, as my family has been, be privileged to have the people of Ethiopia entrust the welfare of one of their children to us, to love and cherish.

My suggestion is this....do your research. Don't pick an agency because it has the shortest wait time. That should be a red flag, not criteria for picking an agency. Talk to people who have adopted through the agencies you are considering. Look to see what that agency has done from Ethiopia. Are they ethical? It is important!

Photo: Our little man is in the striped shirt. He was about 9 months at the time of this picture.

Happy