Update on our adoption....

It's been a little while since I posted an update on our adoption so I thought I would do so now.  We are starting dossier packet #1 next week for submission to the Russian agency.  This packet submission will allow them to conduct a search for an orphan baby girl, who most of you know we will rename Katie Allison Chen.  We're waiting til' next week to start the dossier for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, I leave for Cleveland Clinic in the morning and have a small outpatient surgery scheduled for Wednesday, but it will be with an overnight stay this time just because Aaron can't go with me.  Your prayers about that and our adoption would be most appreciated.  As always, we will keep you updated as we go through the process, but it appears that we are in the clear as far as Russia and the U.S. reaching an agreement concerning the protection of children.  Remember, there was a little time when we were very worried that adoptions might be put on hold indefinitely because of what the Tennessee mother (if you can truly call her a mother).  Compliance with the post-adoption reports is also a biggie for most international adoptions.  You have to currently agree to three years of reports on the child's progress, school reports (if they have started school), doctor visit notes, photos, etc.  Once some families get their child or children, they just blow this part off and it puts future adoptions at risk.  I have some thoughts about what the Tennessee mother did.  I read that she had spoken to the agency and the social worker about his behavior, but that no one responded or took any action.  I find that really hard to believe, but if that is the truth then it is a blessing that they took away that agency's license to conduct adoptions and shut them down!  I'm sorry, but wanting to be a mother so bad, this whole situation made me angry.  The woman in TN could not have tried her local county social services and if they would not help, then there are hospitals where you can leave a child......no questions asked and that child will then be adopted to a family who qualifies.  This program is called the Safe Haven Program.  When I worked in radio and journalism for ten years, I met the reporter named Jodi Foster who started this program at Clear Channel TV.  It is an amazing program.

Secondly, I read in our required readings and in our own adoption reading that the bonding process and attachment takes a lot longer in some cases than six months, ESPECIALLY if the child is older than age three when they are adopted out from an orphanage.  Think about it.....they have never had a meaningful, loving, attentive emotional connection with their caregivers in most cases.  Before the Guatemala adoption program was closed so they could become a Hague compliant country (which when you have  a disorganized government, it takes time to comply with everything in this treaty that is designed to protect children and punishments are set forth for parents who abuse their adoptive children.   But I thought Guatemala did an awesome job with their infants who were awaiting adoption.  Instead of being immediately put into an orphanage, if there was space the infants were put into a foster family until they were adopted so they received some nurturing versus those who are in overcrowded orphanages.  All of the situation makes me sad and I know when we go over to Russia we're going to want to bring them ALL back home with us.  And, I think I have said this before, but the hardest part is having to leave our Katie Allison behind while we come back to the U.S.  and file paperwork for our court hearing, wherein she will legally become our child.  There is also a quirky 10-day waiting period imposed on new adoptive parents where they can't take their child out of the orphanage until that wait is up.  We would be allowed to visit her everyday or every other day, depending on our driver's availability.  Just please keep this in your prayers as well as Aaron's graduate school.  We are praying our trips fall (especially the second one, which is LONGER) during Aaron's breaks so that he won't have to worry about graduate school homework and having Internet access to submit it.  We take Wi-Fi for granted here in the U.S......heck, even McDonald's has it, but it is not readily available in Russia and the places where it is available, it is very expensive (I think we were told about this by a family who just went and came back to the U.S. with their child.  So, it looks like if the second trip falls right in the middle of one of Aaron's classes, we would ask one of the grandmothers-to-be to come with us.  Aaron would have to be present for the court hearing, but we could send him back early and whichever other family member came could travel back with Katie with me.  Traveling back and waiting out the waiting period alone would be scary...so this alleviates that.  Well, I will update more when we have more to tell.  God Bless.