Interesting Article

A friend of mine linked to this article on her blog. It gives a pretty good overview of the state of International Adoptions. I thought I would just put the whole article here:

By the way I got a call from our adoption agency today. I wasn’t home so they left a message “Hi, I need to talk to you about something. If you get this message in the next few minutes please call me back, if not I will talk to you on Monday.” They only work a half day of Friday. I called back ASAP, but alas no one was there :(

I just hope it isn’t bad news.. . . What a thing to be hanging over your head for the weekend. . . hummmm "something?"

Any way here is the article:

Philadelphia Enquirer

Rules are changing; programs are closing. International adoption gets more difficult
Posted on Sun, Mar. 1, 2009

By Jeff Gammage
Inquirer Staff Writer

Back in 2006, Paul and Heather Peters began compiling the stack of paperwork required to adopt a baby from China. Now, finally, they're about to become parents - but not to a child from the Middle Kingdom.

Their daughter is coming to them through a different adoption process in a separate country, Taiwan.

The Cheltenham couple changed course as the waiting period in China stretched from one year to two years to indefinite. But it's not just China, long the world's largest adopter, that has been beset by uncertainty.

In the last three years, the once-stable universe of international adoption has turned upside down, as the countries that routinely sent thousands of children to U.S. homes have limited the pool of potential parents, reduced the number of children who may be available, or closed their programs entirely.

"The big ones have all fallen apart," said Heather Peters, director of human resources for Yoh Services L.L.C. in Philadelphia. "Vietnam's gone. Guatemala's gone. China might as well be gone."

That's pushing couples to consider less-established programs in smaller countries - a significant change in the way thousands of Americans have built their families during the last two decades.

In 2004, Americans adopted a record 22,884 children from overseas. Since then, the figure has been falling, last year to 17,438. That's a 24 percent drop. One big factor: major alterations in programs operated by the "big three," China, Russia, and Guatemala, which routinely account for two-thirds of all foreign adoptions. Another: delay and complication caused by implementation of the Hague Adoption Convention, a new set of international regulations.

Countries that sign on to the treaty, becoming "Hague-compliant," agree to greater transparency aimed at ending corruption and child-trafficking. In the United States, only adoption agencies that are "Hague-accredited" can operate in Hague countries, now numbering more than 70.

"This is the consequence of people paying attention" - and that's a good thing, said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in New York. But nations must embrace Hague "best-practice" rules as a means of moving children into families.

"The answer in the long term cannot be, 'Some things don't work, so these kids stay in orphanages,' " he said.

In Guatemala, long troubled by allegations of fraud, processing of new adoptions has stopped. Officials there plan to revamp adoption procedures to comply with Hague provisions, but it's unclear when that might occur.

Russia closed and then reopened its program - with a new, strict emphasis on the health of potential parents, and fewer children being adopted. In recent times, Russia routinely sent upward of 4,000 children a year to the United States, but last year that figure fell to 1,861.

In January, Russian leaders called for adoptions to the United States to be curtailed or halted, upset by the acquittal of a Washington-area father whose adopted son died of heatstroke after being left in a car.

South Korea, once a world adoption leader, also has reduced its numbers over time, and plans to end its program by 2015.

That altered landscape has driven some U.S. adoption agencies out of business, forced others to add new services, and led many to try to develop new programs in emerging countries.

Three weeks ago, Chinese Children Adoption International, a Colorado agency that for 14 years has handled strictly China adoptions, announced it was starting a program in Haiti, partnering with a Christian charity in Port-au-Prince.

"The days of having one or two big, strong programs are over," said Janet Mintzer, chief executive officer of Pearl S. Buck International in Perkasie, which works in China, Korea, and the Philippines.

Last year, Mintzer traveled to Nepal, a country the size of Arkansas, pinched between China and India, to secure an adoption license. She journeyed to Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Mexico to explore possibilities there.

PSBI received Hague accreditation, key to securing its future in a competitive field. More than a dozen agencies were turned down, including Adoptions From the Heart in Wynnewood, which had to close some overseas programs as a result.
Adoptions From the Heart plans to appeal and, in the meantime, focus on domestic adoption. The agency also started an "embryo adoption" service, in which the unused embryos of women who have undergone in-vitro fertilization are implanted in others who hope to become pregnant.

"There's hardly any foreign [adoptions] to do, even if we could do them," executive director Maxine Chalker said. "We're hoping Vietnam will open. We're hoping China will pick up. . . . There are a lot of families that are now not going to be able to get children."

Looking beyond U.S.

Why would someone choose to adopt from overseas? One reason is the dearth of healthy babies available for adoption in the United States.

Greater access to birth control and abortion, coupled with a lessening of the stigma once associated with single motherhood, has resulted in the placement of far fewer children. Traditional adoptions number about 13,000 annually, down from 89,000 in the mid-1970s.

A second big reason: certainty.

A couple who seeks to adopt domestically doesn't know if the wait for a child will last five weeks or five years. Some come away brokenhearted when a birth mother changes her mind at the last minute, or a birth father asserts his parental rights after everything seemed settled.

Overseas adoption requires extensive paperwork, significant expense, and untold investment of time, but prospective parents know that they will be matched with a child. And, until recently, they knew the timetable.
"You hang your hat on that, and you hang your heart on that," said Paul Peters, a Philadelphia lawyer.

Now that reliability has eroded.

Efficient system

Between 1989 and 2008, China sent 71,403 children to the United States, almost all of them girls who were living in state-run orphanages. That was more than from any other country.

Prospective parents flocked to what was the world's most efficient system, attracted to a centralized program with relatively liberal requirements.

Most of all, people were drawn to China because they knew why children were available: China's one-child policy, which results in the abandonment of baby girls.
But even as it grew in popularity, China's program began to slow. In 2006, the number of children adopted from China dropped after four straight years of growth. People speculated that the delay was deliberate, that in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics, China didn't want to be seen as unable to care for its own.

New regulations banned adoptions by single people, by those older than 50, by anyone taking medicine for depression.

Meanwhile, experts say, demographic shifts in China have reduced the number of children who can be adopted. Rising prosperity has allowed more parents to pay the fine for having a second child. Domestic adoption has grown. And evolving attitudes about girls might be leading some parents to keep their daughters.

In 2005, 7,906 Chinese children came to these shores. Last year, the number was half that.

Waiting and waiting

If you have spent several years preparing to adopt a girl from China, it's hard to turn away and embrace the idea of, say, adopting a boy from Kazakhstan.
For years, Heather and Paul Peters, both 32, devoted themselves to learning about China, reading books, attending cultural events, and talking to adoptive families. Heather even took night classes in Mandarin. But the waiting period kept lengthening.

"I thought the wait was going to get worse and worse," Paul Peters said.
He was right. By tracking the pace of China adoptions, they realized that the wait would last two years or more. They applied to Taiwan, which last year sent 267 children here.

In October, nine months after being placed on the waiting list, they were matched with a baby girl named Hsin-Hua Lin, born in the city of Chiayi, in southwest Taiwan.

A court ruling on the adoption is expected this month or next, and the Peterses could travel to Taiwan about a month later. They plan to name their daughter Olivia Hsin-Hua Lin Peters.

"You almost have this feeling of 'I'll believe she's mine when I'm actually holding her,' " Heather Peters said. "I wish I'd known about the Taiwan program first, because I would have skipped China."

Link: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20090301_Rules_are_changing__programs_are_closing_.html?viewAll=y

Book Report

I am currently on my 25th book for 2009. I am currently reading “Dealing with Dragons,”(The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Book 1). This book was a recommendation from my sister. And since I am about half way to my 50 book goal I thought I would share some highlights. The books have been quite varied: Non-fiction (7), Young Adult Fiction (5), Sci-Fi (4), YA Sci-Fi (3), Fiction (4), Graphic Novel (1) & Classics (1)

Best Books:
Of the 25 books, I rated these three books as 5-star

The Count of Monte Cristo
The Goose Girl
Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption

Least recommendable:
These books I rated 2-star

The Wednesday Letters
Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child
The Eyre Affair
A Thousand Splendid Suns
City of Bones

These last 5 months have been great. I have never been so “in to” reading, and gradate school where they make you read 300+ pages a week of pure academic pomposity doesn’t count. It has been a joy and I look forward to another 25 great adventures to sink my teeth into.

Dossier Update

Our Dossier is in the process of being translated. It is not at the embassy just yet. All translations have to be done by an embassy certified translator, so I thought it was done at the embassy. Nope.

So our dossier is being translated in Atlanta, Georgia as I type. It has been with the translator for a week and once she is done it goes off to the embassy to be processed. I hope it will be sent to the DC embassy by June 1. As far as time lines we have several data points.

1. Our agency said about 3 weeks at the DC embassy
2. A follow blogger’s dossier was at the DC embassy 8 weeks
3. A yahoo group user said their dossier was at the NY embassy for 30 days.

So, there you have it. I still hope our dossier will be Kazakhstan sometime in July.

My friend had this on her blog. . . .loved it!

Ode to Chuckles U. Larson

Man. . . I just need a smoke

A smoking gun to toss with my smoking fingers stiff with
type-
type-
type-

Man. . .I just need a break

A break in the monotony that is the plate glass of
bits
and
bites

Woman. . . what you need is a smoke

A smokey eye to hide the bags and twitching left by cans of
Diet
Mountain
Dew

Woman. . . what you need is a break

A break-dancing fool to entertain your mind that has
gone
to
goo.

When the cat’s away. . .

The wife will watch High School Musical 3.

My husband is out of town. He left yesterday after lunch and will be home late tonight. So that left me and Spence to fend for ourselves. We had fish sticks for dinner and Spencer got to stay up late (8:00 PM!). I got to read my book club book, The Tipping Point (which I am loving, by the way.) I hope to finish the book today.

The best part of the evening was. . . watching High School Musical 3. This movie was totally cute. I loved all the music and dancing. The movie is rated “G” and a little cheesy, but I like cheese. I have wanted to see this movie since I saw the preview for it at “Mama Mia” last summer. But. . . no one I know wanted to see it with me. Usually if I want to see a movie that Dave doesn’t he says, “That a good one for you to see with your sister.” If only my tween niece were here! She would watch it with me.

So, I trotted myself down to the Red Box yesterday and picked it up. Ahhh total guilty pleasure. . . a fun, cute movie with nothing to make you cringe or quickly avert your gaze.

One final hurdle to surmount

The phone rang at 1:00 PM, the caller ID said it was our adoption agency. . . I quickly picked up the phone anticipating the good news, “Your Dossier had been authenticated and is now on its way to the embassy!” But that isn’t what I heard, our sweet dossier coordinator said, “There’s a problem.”

Apparently our state no longer authenticates certified marriage certificates; it only authenticates certified marriage licenses. This new change in protocol was not posted anywhere or announced. So the dossier would not be going out today :(

So, the solution to the problem was to get our certified marriage license, and then take it to the state capital to have it authenticated, and then take it to the agency so it can be Fed-exed tomorrow.

Four and half hours & 200+ miles later the authenticated certified marriage license was in the hands of our agency. The dossier will be fed-exed to Washington D.C. tomorrow. Our dossier specialist is ball parking our invitation to travel at 5-6 months, as a best case.

Friday news round-up

Adoption

Things are looking great. The dossier is complete and ready to be state certified (in 3 states). My hope is one week from today I can report that our dossier is on its way to the embassy in Washington D.C. for translation. It should be at the embassy about 3 weeks (give or take). Once processed at the embassy it goes to Kazakhstan. If we are very lucky it will in country by the end of June.

Once it is in country we wait to be matched with a baby house (orphanage). There really isn’t any time line for that. Just wait, and then wait. . and then when you are done with that. . . wait some more.

The soonest we could travel to bring our daughter home would be end of 2009, a more likely scenario spring 2010. . . and the least likely (but still possible) would be summer 2010.

Classes

My summer classes have kicked off this week; I have about 100 bright-eyed and eager students. This will be my last semester teaching this many students, starting in the fall my teaching load is cut to 50 students.

For the summer I still have two more 8-week classes that I am picking up on June 1. The 8-week classes can be challenging, but so good for students who just need to get in and get it done. June and July will be super-busy months for me.

Reading

I am on target for my 50 books this year. I need to read 7 more books in the next 7 weeks. (That will make 25 books by the end of June.) The last 4 books I read came for your suggestions; The Glass Castle, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Uglies and The Eyre Affair. I wouldn’t have found these books on my own, so thank you so much for your suggestions.

I am now reading the last two books in the “Uglies” trilogy. I put a reserve on them a couple of weeks ago when I finished “Uglies,” and they just came in. Thanks Kate for recommending this YA series.

Mother’s Day

Dave’s parents are coming up for Mother’s day. Dave is grilling steak and I am looking forward to spending the day with family.

An important step

I hope I am not jinxing this by posting about it before it happens. . . But, our last piece of the dossier is sitting at our mortgage company right now, just waiting for me to pick it up and Fed-ex it to our adoption agency. This little stinker took almost a month to procure. I was about to handcuff myself to the office door and refuse to leave until someone. . . did something. . . and I had the paper in my hand. Luckily it did not come to that. But let me assure you . . . I am only half joking about the handcuffs.

Today marks an important step, our dossier is officially submitted for review. It will probably take another week or two to get it all certified and authenticated, but like I said in my last post. . . that isn’t my job. It is so good to know a professional will take care of it all, and I can obsess about other things, like paint color and baby bedding.

Here’s to spending Christmas is Kazakhstan. . .that’s my little day-dream. (Hey, it could happen :) )

Nepal Adoptions. . .

As you know last September we started the process for an international adoption in Nepal. We made some friends in that community and I have been following blogs and news from the region. In January (for a host of reasons) we switched countries and now are in the process of adopting a daughter from Kazakhstan.

Even though we are no long pursuing an adoption in Nepal, I keep tabs on the parents who are waiting to bring their children home from Nepal. And today there was some sad and startling news. I read about this in the blogs and Dave also sent me the article below.

From The Wall Street Journal:
"Nepal's prime minister and former guerrilla leader resigned Monday, throwing the government into disarray and dealing a blow to the country's tenuous peace." (Click here for the whole article.)

This is hard news for a lot of families. This major change in the government will most likely mean delays and/or potential problems in international adoptions. I am really feeling the weight of it; my thoughts are with those families whose children are waiting for them in Nepal.

What a relief

I just want to cry. . . with relief. I heard back from our adoption agency today. Our dossier is finally ready for review. The misspelling on the FBI letter is okay, they don’t need the letter they only need the fingerprint card. That is such a huge sigh of relief. We have every scrap of paper notarized and ready for review.

We will Fed-ex it on Monday to the agency, once we find out if the issuance date on our marriage certificate needs to be within the 90 day window too. They will then review it for accuracy and potential problems (like making sure all the notary stamps have at least 12 months on them.) I also found out that the doctor’s licenses also have to have at least 12 months before they expire. Both our primary doctor and Spence’s pediatrician license expires the end of Jan. 2010. So we need to “keep an eye on it” and get updated copies as we get closer to traveling

I am just a huge ball of nerves. I also found out today that the dossier submission fee will most likely be doubled. We find out next week what the new official fee is. Oh well, what can we do? (In for a penny, in for a pound.) The dossier fee is set by Kazakhstan and there really isn’t anything we can do about it.

Here is the best news ever. . . . I mean E-V-E-R. Once we submit the dossier for review by our agency, they will do all the state certification on the all the documents. This means once it is safely in their hands, I am done. No more running around, no more visits to the state capital, no more extra-extra fed-ex fees to ship it twice. . . . no more. It is such a relief to know they will take of it all. Today on the phone our dossier specialist said this is a service they offer all their families (at no charge). I just feel, as if now. . . now I can finally fall apart and sob about all the frustrations and just let it all go. Once they have it, they will do everything that needs to be done and then it goes off to the embassy. All I have to do it wait. What a relief!

There is still a chance we could travel by the end of the year. I am keeping my fingers crossed. Although, the daughter that is suppose to come to our family will come when the time is right, no matter what time that may be.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh. . . so close. . . so close.

By the way. . . still waiting for the mortgage letter, but since it will be notarized out of state we can still press on with the other documents.