Adoptions At Risk

As much as I want to only put good news on our blog, I'm unfortunately not able to do so this time and must share some information with everyone and ask for your help.

If you've been following our blog you know, Dave and I have been pursuing the adoption of a baby girl from Guatemala. Her name is Liliana and she is almost 5 months old now. We started this process in December, 2006, going through considerable hoops, such as an extensive homestudy, DCFS, police and FBI background checks and fingerprints, more paperwork than you can imagine, many documents that required notarization, certification by the Secretary of State's office and authentication at the Guatemalan Consulate General's office in Chicago. I don't want to make this too long, because even if I did, it wouldn't convey in writing how long and how many requirements on our part it took to even qualify as adoptive parents. However, knowing that we started this process in December and didn't get our referral until June 8th gives you an idea of just how much work has gone into this so far.

Because Guatemala has NO INFRASTRUCTURE to take care for orphaned children, the mothers who choose adoption, relinquish their children to an attorney, who places the child in private foster care (in most cases excellent care) or private orphanages (also very well run). The attorney then refers the child to an agency in the U.S. who works with prospective adoptive parents (PAPs), like us, and refers the child to them. This is how Liliana came to us.

From then on, the foster mother or orphanage caring for the child is paid by the PAPs until the adoption is finalized. The adoption process consists of several steps :

1. U.S. Embassy issues DNA authorization - the birthmother and the baby have to meet at the Dr's office for a DNA test. A picture of the two of them is taken at that time (remember, this can be several months after the birthmom relinquished the baby) and the test sample is sent to a lab in the U.S. If the DNA test shows a positive match, the U.S. Embassy issues a Pre-approval (PA). We are currently on day 34 of our wait for PA with an average wait of about 60 days right now.
2. About the same time as the DNA test, the birth mother is interviewed by a Guatemalan Family Court social worker who writes and submits a report concerning whether the birth mother's relinquishment of her baby was voluntary.
3. Once the report is submitted, the case comes out of Family Court and once PA is issued the case goes to the Guatemala Attorney General's Office (PGN) for their approval of the case.
Cases are typically in PGN a minimum of 2 months with some cases being stuck there for 6-12 months. They scrutinize everything, and if they find a problem on any of the paperwork they issue a previo, which simply means the case is kicked out of PGN. The attorney takes care of fixing the problem and the case is resubmitted. Unfortunately, previos seems to the rule and not the exception for everything from a missed signature on a document to the use of black ink instead of blue ink or blue ink instead of blank ink on a document. Some previos are legitimate and some are not, but all must be fixed to be resubmitted. I realized some of this sounds unbelievable, but it is absolutely true. When a case is resubmitted, it starts back at Day 1, which obviously means that the minimum 2 month period starts all over again.
4. Once the case is out of PGN, a new birth certificate with our names as parents has to be issued by the Civil Registry in the place the child was born and the baby's passport is issued.
5. The U.S. Embassy then authorizes a 2nd DNA test on the baby alone (ensuring no baby switching took place), and if the match is positive, a visa appointment is scheduled and PAPs can travel to Guatemala to bring their child to the U.S.

Throughout the process, the birthmom has to sign-off on the adoption 4 times (the final time is after the case is out of PGN). While some birthmoms have changed their mind during this process and have taken their children back, due to the level of poverty and the poor treatment of women and especially single women and Mayan women, birth mothers usually follow through with their adoption plan to provide the opportunity for their child to have a better life.

Now things are getting much worse as there are huge political battles within Guatemala. In a nutshell, Guatemala wants to shut down Intercountry adoptions and UNICEF has stepped in offering several millions of dollars, if Guatemala becomes "Hague compliant." This week it was announced that President Berger stated the Hague will be ratified on January, 1 2008 and at that time any cases currently in process will not continue to be processed. Our case is currently in process and unless we can get into PGN very, very soon and out before the end of the year, we won't make the January 1st cutoff!

Please keep in mind, there is NO WELFARE SYSTEM, NO INFRASTRUCTURE in Guatemala today. Therefore, we have no idea what will happen to any of the other children stuck in this mess. The President didn't say. (More explanation is in the included links below)

We are scheduled to leave one week from today on our visit trip and will spend 5 days with Liliana. The thought of not being able to bring her home is so emotional, but we have to fight for her and do anything and everything we can to make sure that Lili, as well as all the other children, come home.

So here is how you can help. After reading the information on the links listed below, if you would please sign the online petitions and follow the instruction of the Guatemala5000 initiative it would really help. We need to put pressure on the politicians. The Guatemala government is always asking U.S. for money, and the U.S. government should be able to put some pressure on them at least to let in-process cases finish! There is strength in numbers.

Also, as the U.S. and Guatemala get closer and closer to ratifying the Hague, more and more information will be reported by the media. Unfortunately, many of the reports have very little factual information. For example, last week NPR reported a story in which a representative from UNICEF said that there are no requirements to adopt a baby from Guatemala other than having $25K-$40K. As you can tell from our experience to date, this information was absolutely incorrect and he apparently knows nothing about the process involved in adopting a child from Guatemala.

Please help us, as well as all the other families that are trying desparately to bring our children home.


Links to the petitions: Media Coverage of Intercountry Adoprion from Guatemala Petition Guatemalan Adoptions & DOS Acountability Petition

Link to the Joint Council on International Children Services with "how you can help" THIS IS THE IMPORTANT ONE TO DO!!!!!! http://jcics.org/Guatemala5000.htm

Link to "Families without borders" with an explanation of UNICEF's stance (very good, especially the second link to the sponsor letter, where it is very well explained why UNICEF is being so harmful): Families Without BordersDear …