There is a lot of hot buzz in the adoption community. I have not commented on it because I have been sitting tight to see what, if anything, settles. The office of Ministry of Women, Children and Youth Affairs is the governing agency that handles adoption paperwork in Ethiopia. It issued a
statement a few weeks ago that the number of adoptions that will be processed per day will be dramatically reduced. Once it showed up as an alert on the State Department's website I knew to take it seriously. Since then there have been many unofficial and
official conversations about how this may impact Ethiopian adoptions. It appears that MOWCYA will receive much needed assistance to help process adoptions faster, but most information is speculative at this point. All things considered, it will likely slow down the already long adoption process.
I fully support Ethiopia making these changes in an effort to secure that every adoption in Ethiopia is ethical. MOWCYA is a small agency that has been overwhelmed by the recent surge in adoptions, working hard to make sure that paperwork such as death certificates and abandonment police reports are not falsified. And where there is an increase of families looking to adopt a child, there is undoubtedly an increase in greed and corruption. MOWCYA is putting on the brakes in an effort to correct this. Unfortunately, the result of a slow-down means that children may wait in orphanages for a substantially longer time and families will wait accordingly for their child to come home. Orphanages will be caring for children longer, meaning more of their resources will be tapped. Of course we expect all adoptions to be ethical. And of course we want to minimize the time a child receives institutional care. So this is sticky.
Icky, ooey gooey sticky.
International adoption is complicated and takes a long time. For this reason, our intention was to start the adoption process for a second child shortly after Noemi came home. We completed the initial application, but our process soon came to a screeching halt. If you have read this blog for any length of time then you know that we have had to place all of our energy on helping Noemi transition. We knew that SHE and that WE were not ready for another child as soon as we had originally thought. But as we prepared to jump back into the piles of paperwork for bambino #2 a few months ago, I felt unsettled. The unsettled feeling grew. We decided to wait. And then the MOWCYA announcement came.
Now we are not sure what to do.
If I have learned one thing through our long family building process it is this:
I can expect God to faithfully reveal his plan for our family, but I can't expect him to do it in my timing.
Noemi is getting older. The process is taking longer. How to build one's family is a very personal decision, and every family is different. Our family is now part Ethiopian. We feel connected and committed to that country for obvious reasons. But Ethiopia does not owe our family its children. And we have many things to weigh when making this decision. Noemi has needs to consider. My burned-out ragged ol' self has limitations to consider. Risk is an ever-present force in the land of adoption; it's just choosing which risks to take on given our family's current needs. There is much. much. much to consider.
We have begun looking into all options again. A blank slate. Starting over is a daunting process. Donovan and I chose to adopt through our placing agency because we knew that they had a long history of humanitarian work, they support hard-to-place children and adhere to strict ethical practices. They are well respected by governmental officials in Ethiopia. I spent months researching agencies, reading mission statements and asking hard questions. I was shocked by how many adoption agencies couldn't tell me where each penny went and how they chose to help countries and families prevent adoption from ever becoming necessary. Above all else, I was disheartened by how many agencies stress the speed of the adoption process rather than the truthfulness of it.
A few weary tears were shed over the confusion of this process, but we know we will find the best answer for our family. Things may smooth out with Ethiopian adoptions. Or they may not. But finding the best path for our family is not a logical decision by any means--there are too many variables that can go one way or another. In order to survive building a family through adoption I have to surrender my inner-planner and (try to) trust the inner voice of God's guidance--even when I think his timing sucks.
