Stories of your adoption experiences

Our beautiful boy came home to us in September 2006. I speak Spanish and spent time with the attorney and facilitator, and read all the original documents. I know my adoption was as ethical as any in the U.S. My son is very loved and we are maintaining a relationship with his foster family and birth country. Someday we hope to find his birthmother, too. --Anonymous , Santa Rosa, CA (submitted on Jan. 16, 2008)

This is my daughter Amanda on the day we met in Guatemala City. After 10 long months I will be bringing her home in January or early February, 2008. --Jennifer Sims, Vallejo, CA (submitted on Jan. 16, 2008)

We completed the adoption of our wonderful son just 5 months ago. In some ways, it feels like he's been here forever, and was hand-picked for our family. The process took a total of 16 months from signing the contract with our agency to bringing him home. Although there were some aspects of the adoption that I wished moved faster, overall, we had a very pleasant experience. Our agency was very clear with us, and made no claims they couldn't back up or asked us for more than what our contract stated. I pray that my family won't be judged for the choice we made. Our son is an absolute joy, and it breaks my heart that other families may not be able to experience the same joy we feel. --Andrea Hardy, Tucson, AZ (submitted on Jan. 16, 2008)

In May 2005 we adopted our son, Nicolas, from Guatemala when he was 10 months old. We first tried to adopt from El Salvador where my husband’s father is an adoption attorney, but the laws had changed there a few years ago making international adoptions nearly impossible. I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala for 2 years in the 1980’s and have a very soft spot in my heart for the country, the culture and its people. It made sense to us to pursue an adoption from Guatemala as we created our bilingual, bicultural family, rooted in our love for Central America and our belief in adoption. The adoption process took 12 months from start to finish. During the process we visited Nicolas three times. The last visit I remained in Guatemala for five weeks, taking care of my son, telecommuting to my job at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and “pushing” our lawyer to finalize our paperwork. Throughout the process I always had the dream that I would know our son’s birth family. Every piece of paper I got I scanned for clues about the birth mother and her whereabouts. I keep a journal of the clues, hoping to use them one day to find his birth family. Each trip to Guatemala I would pump the Director of my son’s “hogar” (baby home) with questions about the birth mom—“What’s she like?” “How does she feel about placing her son for adoption?” “What has she told you about her personal circumstances?” “Would she want to receive photos?” “Would she ever want to meet us?” Each time I was given very open and positive responses. One year after adopting our son, our family returned to Guatemala to attend my 20th anniversary Peace Corps Reunion. I sent word to Nicolas’ birth mom through the Director of the hogar that we would love to meet her if she was willing to meet us. The answer came back a resounding YES! On July 6, 2006 our two families met, connected forever through the deep love we have for Nicolas, and now for each other. It was so special to see Nicolas with his biological family together, to know he is loved and thought of every day. Carmen was honest with us about her need to make an adoption plan to ensure that each of her children had a fighting chance at survival. She felt adoption was her best option for her family and was secure in her decision. Carmen never ever thought she would see Nicolas again. She was so relieved to be able touch and kiss him and to know that she has not lost him forever. We spent two days together. It gave all of us a great sense of peace and tranquility. I could not have scripted a better scenario for my son. Since that visit, we speak with Carmen and Nicolas’ bio siblings monthly and send photo updates of our families. We treasure the relationship we have with "Mama Carmen" and Nicolas' Guatemalan brothers. We consider ourselves to be one big family. Adoption has united us, not divided us. From the lemons we have made the sweetest lemonade possible for our families. --Kim Nolte, atlanta, GA (submitted on Jan. 16, 2008)

I can't remember a time that I didn't know that I wanted to build my family through adoption. The combination of my lack of interest in being pregnant/giving birth, my personal ideology regarding overpopulation, and my desire to be a mother made adopting the obvious, and only reasonable choice. My husband wanted bio kids, and we entertained the idea for a period of time, but in the end, I just couldn't do it. We chose Guatemala for a number of reasons. We liked the idea of the children being raised in foster care instead of large orphanages. We were excited to learn Spanish (as opposed to say Amharic or Mandarin Chinese) and to incorporate Latino culture into our lives. We knew we would be able to travel to Guatemala easily not only during the adoption process, but after our son came home. And not least of all, we knew that it was practically unheard of for the Guatemalan elite to adopt indigenous Mayan children. In a country with little or no social services, and over 50% of the indigenous population living in poverty, there were many children who whose birth parents were looking for an option to make sure the children would survive and thrive. During the course of our adoption I learned of abuses in the adoption system in Guatemala. The system is in desperate need of reform. It is nary an adoptive parent who would say that this is not so. That said, there are children in Guatemala (and all over the world) who need a roof over their heads and food to eat. Is adoption the best answer? No. The best answer is to eradicate poverty, educate women, give them access to family planning, and to make sure that women have the resources they need to raise their children. And then if a woman decides to make an adoption plan for her child it is a choice, not an imperative. It is my hope that Colom might even take some steps in this direction for Guatemala. Our son came home in May of this year- he was 7 months old. We visited him and traveled in Guatemala 4 times during the process, including a 3 weeks stay in an apartment in Antigua for our pick up trip. His foster family was amazing and lovely. I wouldn't trade our visits for anything, but having spent time with him made the wait excruciating. Holding the knowledge that adoption in Guatemala was about to change or stop completely, and that our son-to-be might get caught in the middle and end up with no home at all, was beyond horrifying. We will tell him all of this, to the very last detail, as part of his story. We will search for his birth mother to find out more of her story, and hopefully, if she is willing, to have her and her family in Guatemala be part of her son's life. We are proud to be an international family, and we will raise our son to be both a proud American and a proud Guatemalan. --Anonymous , Portland, OR (submitted on Jan. 16, 2008)

We started our adoption journey in March of 2006 with our homestudy,the local agency that we were working with did have any babies available so they referred us to another agency in Oklahoma in July of 2006. Our new agency in OK had a referral of a 2 month old boy for us. We proceeded with this referral and everything seemed to be going smoothly until the birthmother disappeared for 5 months.This was a problem because our attorney was unable to bring the birthmother in for the DNA test. In the 5 months that the attorney was trying to locate the birthmother,we discussed looking into taking a second referral because we feared that the first referral would turn into an abandonment case which is a longer process than a relinquishment adoption. We talked with our agency about taking a second referral but keeping the original referral in the works. In January of 2007 we accepted a second referral of a 3 month old boy.The road for the second referral was more on track with the timeline we given by the agency as compared to the first referral. Knowing all the political ups and downs in the Guatemalan Government we expected our adoption journey to be a rollercoaster ride and it has been. But we have no regrets! In early December 2007 we picked up our second son, who was 13 months old, we had the best Christmas present that we could have imagined. Our older son who will be 20 months 1/31 is in the final stage of his process. we hope that we will have him home before his second birthday in May. This process has been long and turbulant at times but there are two many orphans in the world to fight for. --Marjorie Kipp, WI (submitted on Jan. 16, 2008)

After the birth of our daughter in 2003, our family still didn't feel complete. We explored various paths to find our son and ended up settling on adoption from Guatemala in April 2006. We spent six months gathering paperwork, clearances and references. In October 2006, we saw the first photo of our 5 month old son and immediately accepted his referral. We visited in January 2007 and finally became a family of five last August. Honesty and integrity of all parties is of the utmost importance in adoption. We believe we did our best locating people that truly were looking out for the best interests of our son Bobby. --Cindy Lord, Westminster, MD (submitted on Jan. 16, 2008)

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