March 13, 2007

I wanted to take a few minutes to bring you up to date on my adoption process and ask for continued prayer. Everyone always says that adoption is an emotional roller coaster and now I can honestly say that I agree with that statement 100%!!!! In February, I was able to come off hold in the adoption process. Praise God! While I still do not have all the money, I have a solid plan and feel good about moving forward. I contacted the agency on February 21st and let them know I am ready to move forward. Because I was on hold for 6 months there are several documents that I had previously completed that have to be redone. I am in process of redoing that work to have an up to date dossier. When I am done with that, I can then receive a referral (meaning I will know who my daughter will be) but it will be numerous months (6-8 on average) before I can bring her home. While this is all REALLY exciting I have heard some troubling news this past week. There are always legal and government issues surrounding adoption and there are even more in International Adoption. Well there are three pretty big issues going on in the Guatemala adoption world right now and any of them can greatly impact my adoption process. The first issue is that an American adoption facilitator in Florida was recently arrested for allegedly facilitating the entry of Guatemalan children into the U.S. on fraudulent visas for adoption by U.S. citizens (aka: child trafficking). The U.S. State Department reports that it will examine current practices in Guatemalan adoption as a whole as part of its investigation. The U.S. State Department has stated that all pending adoption cases will be more closely scrutinized by PGN and the U.S. Embassy. Families can expect to wait significantly longer for children to become eligible to enter the U.S. The U.S. State Department has not indicated how long waiting times might extend; however they did state that they are not planning an immediate shutdown of adoptions from Guatemala at this time. The next issue is related to The Hague Treaty. This is a treaty that is put in place and countries agree to go by these rules to help prevent child trafficking and ensure the safety all children, not just those being place for adoption. The U.S. is expected to ratify the treaty in late 2007 (this has been a 10 year process for the U.S.). Guatemala has not taken steps to so far to ratify the treaty and probably won’t by the end of the year (this is however just an educated guess). If the U.S. ratifies the treaty in 2007 and Guatemala does not, all Guatemalan adoptions would cease. However, the U.S. has stated that anyone who has Immigration approval prior to this time will be allowed to complete the process and will be grandfathered in. I have already completed the immigration paperwork and have that approval but just because the U.S. will most likely grandfather me in, does not mean that Guatemala would not shut down adoptions at any time. The third issue is related to something called “Protocols of Good Practice.” My understanding is that this is a piece of legislation that was written by the wife of the president of Guatemala and the vice president. The protocol seems to be both a response to the recent incident involving the American adoption facilitator and a step towards creating an infrastructure that will comply with Hague requirements. I do not know all of what it says but the immediate issue is that if it goes into effect the legislation would be contested as the executive branch is not allowed to write legislation and since this piece of legislation did not come about through the proper channels, it would be contested. If it is challenged, then adoptions would be suspended while the case is settled in court. Based on what we know, we do not believe that the Protocol will be implemented, because a majority in Congress has to sign off on it and a majority is reported to be against it. So needless to say the state of adoption in Guatemala is rather unpredictable and volatile. The agency I work with has put a moratorium on accepting any new applications for Guatemala but is willing to help those of us already in process to continue with the process. Unfortunately, there are even less guarantees of completing an adoption then there usually is due to all the above mentioned which makes it a very scary place to sit as a prospective adoptive parent. At this point, I have decided to continue with the process knowing my risks. I really feel that this is where I am supposed to be (at least for now) however rocky and scary it seems. But it also makes an already emotional time even more emotional. Please keep me and my future daughter in your prayers. I will keep you updated as I know more. Thank you for all your support in my adoption. It means more than you probably know.