No, we haven’t had any further news from El Salvador regarding our application to adopt there.  Not since they asked for additional information back in February.

Maybe we scared them away with our lack of a nanny?

Pro’ly not.  Seeing as how El Salvador only processed 8 international adoptions to the U.S. in the past 12 months.  More likely we’re just caught up in the stunning lack of coordinated-movement that is the El Salvador adoption process.

Sigh.

So, no, I’m not leaving anyone out of what’s going on here.  There’s just not anything going on here – NEW adoption-wise, anyway.

But our first one has proven to keep providing us with plenty to process.  More on that soon…

I’ve written before about how involved we’ve gotten with our church’s Hispanic ministry.  I’ve mentioned my now-very-close friend Reina a number of times, and that she escaped February’s house fire out a second story window while 6 1/2 months pregnant.  Well, for months before the fire I was driving Reina to her pre-natal appointments and helping with paperwork and with understanding the insurance system here in our state.  ‘Cause it’s daunting even when you’re used to living here.  Completely overwhelming when you speak another language, haven’t been here long, weren’t planning on a pregnancy, and reside squarely in the working-to-survive class.

Then add a house fire and the loss of every dollar and every identifying document you own, two and a half months before your due date.

“Vulnerable” doesn’t begin to describe it.  For nearly a month after the fire, she was so stressed out that the only thing she could keep down was bananas and a little bit of water.

But, because of our already-blossoming friendship, I got to be one of the people she and Carlos trusted in the process of preparing to bring their first daughter into the world.

A little gal who’s half Salvadoran.

They’re poor.  They don’t have nearly my masters-degree-level of education.  They’ve had a couple landlords take advantage of how desperate they were to find housing in time for the baby’s birth.  And life is going to present some really tricky twists for their family in the future, too.

But they’re family.

It wasn’t lost on me that if we weren’t stuck in waiting-mode in El Salvador I would never have been as available to be present with them as much as I was. Nor would I even have known them if we weren’t already adoptive parents of Latino kids, waiting to adopt more Latino kids.

But we are, and we are.  And I met my newest little friend Diana at the hospital just a fews hours after she was born and introduced the twins to her just a few days later.

Adoption, happily, was never placed on the table for this family.  They gathered the support they needed, they remained together, and they’re working out the details.

But – because of how we became friends in the first place - I thought of the many families of kids adopted from Central America who didn’t remain together.  My own brother’s and sons’ first families included.  And then of birth families anywhere – even here in the States.

Families – birth mothers, at least – who were convinced (usually by others, in addition to their own self-doubts) that they couldn’t possibly provide what was best for their kids.

And maybe some of them really couldn’t.  Maybe some of the kids truly would have died, would have suffered tremendous set-backs in life, or would have been unwanted.

But I wonder how many of those birth families were just families like this one that I know:  not prepared at first for a pregnancy, economically stretched already, and/or belonging to a racial or ethnic group that suffers discrimination and can’t see a way around that disadvantage.  But without the friendships Reina and Carlos had already formed with people who then wanted to help.

A support network of folks who just happen to have “connections” they need.

As I spend all this time my friend, I can see myself through her eyes.  That doors open easily to me.  That I think nothing of walking into an office with an application for assistance and expecting that if I follow the process, my request will be granted.  That I know where to find information online, can read all of that information in English, and understand it.  I have a map in my phone, a van with seating for 7, an extensive education, a credit card I can swipe at any time and buy whatever I think I need, U.S. citizenship… and fair skin and blue eyes.

It’s been easy for me to help her get through a process that felt impossible for her to navigate on her own.  It just takes a lot of time.  That’s been the hard part for my North American brain to accept: that there is no short-cut or more efficient way to be present for a friend whenever she needs it (within reason).  And that the reward is the relationship (well, that and the awesome Spanish tutoring she quietly provides every time she corrects my grammar).

So this spring, physically I was driving folks around while they applied for housing or went to an appointment, helping with English, collecting and delivering donations to the victims of the fire back in February, throwing a baby shower, and pretty much pitching in wherever my gringa-ness and social network could be helpful.  But at another level, I realized I just got to be a part of what is, in my opinion, the better solution than adoption: helping families connect with resources, so they don’t have to separate to begin with.

There’s no way I could spend this much time with another person, too.  Especially not as a home schooling mom.  But I don’t think I have to.  I think Reina’s my one person, at least for this season.  [And when it comes to helping a "Gringa" raise Hispanic sons, I'm hers.]  And for this season, even as we re-update our adoption paperwork for a third time, I’m thankful that these friends of mine aren’t one of the adoption statistics like my kids, their other family, and we are.

We obviously believe adoption is the best thing for some kids, or we wouldn’t do it.  And, yes, we’d like to have more kids right here in our own family.  But while reflecting on all of that, I find joy in working in this situation so that adoption never needs to come up in the first place.

And this afternoon’s break just happens to coincide with our completing the last step of our 2nd annual Home Study Update.  That’s right, we’re now rounding out our 3rd year of this adoption process with El Salvador.  Still no decision one way or another from our most-top-of-mind Central American country, but that doesn’t mean we get to let our paperwork lapse here in the States.

I wrote last year about the process and paperwork involved in completing a Home Study Update here in Maryland.  This year, though, we had the added pleasure of needing to re-do our home Sanitation and Fire Safety Inspection in addition to the rest of the updates.

I requested ours 7 weeks ago tomorrow.  Today was the first available date.

So this morning, promptly at 9 a.m., a very nice man named Merle – who bore an uncanny resemblance to Ron Howard, so I have the theme tune whistle from The Andy Griffith Show stuck in my head, thanks Merle – scrutinized our house from top to bottom.  Just in case we’d decided to let it go to pot in the last two years.

We hadn’t.

Though I will admit that the boys’ bathroom does smell a little like a New York subway station, thanks to some aiming issues we’re still working out.

We passed.

And $600 from now, we’ll have our report all freshly dated.  Again.  Just in case THIS 12-month season is the one in which we’re matched with someone(s) in El Salvador who need(s) an increasingly-Spanish-speaking-and-Latin-American-culture-immersed U.S. family.

The boys still pray just about every day for their “brothers and sisters in El Salvador.”  (The “limit-two” clause in our immigration approval doesn’t phase ‘em from asking for more.)

“Lord, please let this be the year.  Amen.”

What is an “apostille?”

An apostille is an official State seal (a sticker on a piece of paper or a stamp) that authenticates a prior seal of approval at the county level for that state.

For prospective adoptive parents preparing an adoption dossier for another country, we go through a set of steps that adequately authenticates every document we include.  The process is:

1) Have a document prepared.

2) Have that document notarized by a licensed notary public.

3) Go to the county courthouse of the county in which that notary is licensed and get a county stamp that verifies that that notary is legitimate.

4) Go to the state’s Department of State that oversees the county in which the notary is licensed, and get a state “apostille” that verifies that the county seal on top of the notary seal is legitimate.

The end result?  Every document has 3 layers of approval literally laid over top of one another.  The notary seal on the document.  Then the county seal is stamped onto a piece of paper that is stapled on top of the notary’s seal.  Then the state’s apostille is stapled on top of the county seal.

Need visuals?  Here’s our latest round:

Notarization:

County Seal (stapled to lay over the notary seal):

State Apostille (full-page, stapled on top of the county-seal which is stapled over the notarized original page):

Full Authentication – 3 Seals:

And what does all this mean?  Basically, it’s a very official way of saying that the person who put together the original document IS who he/she claims to be.  That’s it. 

For our adoption, we had to authenticate everything we submitted.  And for every document that was prepared by a licensed profession of some sort, we had to authenticate photocopies of the licenses of all the professionals involved: social worker (who wrote the Home Study Report), pediatrician (for our kids’ medical reports), physician (for Fred’s and my medical reports), and psychologist (since we were required to take mental health screening exams and IQ exams as part of the El Salvador process).

Our original dossier, therefore, was quite thick with all these authentications stapled onto all the original documents.  Our most recent Home Study Adddendum (required for further explanation of our child care plans) was a two-page “report” that ended up being four pages, once the county seal and apostille were applied to the notarized second page.

When adoptive parents talk about “the paper chase” they are referring to the process of collecting all the dossier documents and then acquiring all the authentications ON all those documents, as required by the country from which they hope to adopt.

So that’s done and off to El Salvador!  Now back to waiting.

We got a call from our agency last week that OPA (remember them?  WE almost didn’t) is requesting clarification on Fred’s and my child care plans for the additional children.  That is, they want to know specifically what Fred’s work hours are [suddenly, "full time," as stated in our Home Study Report is too vague... after the report has read that way for over a year and a half] and when he is available to spend time with his children. 

And, also, noting that the number of children with whom I would be “home full-time” would be doubling, was I planning on hiring a nanny?  (Haha, I WISH!  Pero, no.)  Or using daycare?  (<<No saben ustedes que significa “home full time with the children?”  En verdad?>>)  Ahem, also “no.”

I plan on taking care of the next two in much the same fashion as I did the first two.  And if that means sending the older boys to our local public school so that their education doesn’t take an unacceptable hit as I work with the next two in their transition here, then that’s what we’ll do.  I’m hoping to keep them all here together, though, so the siblings can bond even as the newer ones adjust to me and to Fred — and to life in these Estados Unidos.  (Also because the twins are thriving with the home schooling connections we have!)  But we’ll see.  At any rate, sí, por supuesto tenemos un plan.  We’ve had more than 2 1/2 years to come up with it, already! 

And now you, mi querido público, know it, too. 

Very specific questions.  Pretty sure they’re already implicitly covered in the report we sent one year and eight months ago. 

And we have 30 days to respond. 

I’m sure I could look on the bright side and say “What thoughtful questions, ensuring that we have considered just how these new kids will be adequately watched!”  I hope that’s the motivation.  [Though I would like to assert that physical proximity does not necessarily good-parenting make.  Ask us something more indicative of actual loving, supporting, preserving culture and identity!!!  No wait, don't... 'cause we'd have to get that apostilled, too...]

And on the other hand, the fact that the question is coming from OPA 8+ months after we had already supposedly completed the OPA screening process doesn’t engender a great deal of confidence that the process is actually moving forward.  Seems more like we’ve somehow looped back around to where we were a year ago.  ???

But of course we’ll do whatever they ask.  And if it somehow creates more confidence in us as a family, well, ok.  And so our social worker is writing up an addendum to our Home Study that explicitly states these previously un-requested details, getting it notarized and county sealed for us (¡Muchas Gracias, Paula and Stephanie!), and the boys and I will head over to Annapolis to get it apostilled and then send it along to our agency to be forwarded to El Salvador.  Not a big deal, really.  And we’re used to it by now. 

But, man, we hope this means we’re being seriously considered and not just being nit-picked because El Salvador’s adoption authority doesn’t know what to do with us.  Or porque es divertido jugar con los gringos.

We shall see.  Of course, I can’t say when we shall see.   Weeks from now?   Months?

We appreciate prayers, for those of you who pray.  Not so much for us, ’cause as frustrating as it is to go nowhere in a process, we have a house, a family, great friends [some of whom are more fittingly described as "unos buenos amigos" - can't tell you what a blessing that is!], and all our physical needs are met. 

But assuming there are kids there in El Salvador who will be assigned to us because they need to be — well, they’re waiting, too.  But without all those things we already have.  Y merecen tenerlos.

And usually, this other blog is pretty facts-only, and I find it helpful.

Their most recent post, however, really bothers me.  (And I’m not going to name them because that’s not the point, and also because their clients’ names are in the post, and while it’s out there on the Internet, my purpose isn’t specifically to criticize them.  But to point to what I think is a problem “out here” in adoption land in general.)

The post begins with the usual facts-only update, but then it goes into a Q&A format.

About “how many birthmoms have been found,” what they’re doing to find more women in El Salvador willing to place their children for adoption, that they have a marketing strategy to reach more women and acquire children (and by “children,” it seems they really just mean “babies”) ”in a massive way” [their words].

Really?  We want to go out there and hunt down women in poverty – LOTS of them at that, since we want “massive” amounts of babies – and persuade them to give over their children to foreign couples who want babies?  With a marketing strategy?

Meanwhile, thousands of kids (and by “kids” I mean “kids”… past the baby and toddler stage) wait in government-backed institutions, with inadequate conditions, for somebody to come get them.  Their families, if possible, but barring that, new families.

But they’re older, and the effects of their “orphan” status might show up-front (rather than cropping up when they’re teens or young adults wrestling with the fact that they were “found” via marketing strategy, and just what does that mean to them?).

And working through the government orphan-qualification stream is painfully slow and very uncertain.  Also, the children El Salvador prefers to match with foreign families are either older or have medical special needs that would be hard for a Salvadoran family to care for, while we have all sorts of resources here in the U.S. and in Europe.

Not babies, except in rare cases.  Because, as it turns out, Salvadoran families feel the same way as everyone else.  When they adopt (which is less common than here in the U.S.), they like adopting babies.  They are less enthusiastic about a 12 year old, or even a 5 year old.  There are a lot of bureaucratic gliches in the child-welfare system, to be fair to this agency and all the other NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) trying to meet a very real need in El Salvador.  And a lot of babies do get abandoned and subsequently placed in the orphanage system.  Without any identification, they just get stuck there, and that truly is a shameful state of things.

So I’m absolutely not against wanting a baby.  But in my mind, if adoption is your “thing,” there’s a difference between trying to assist in the placement of already-abandoned babies before they spend years with no primary caregiver to whom they can attach and going out and recruiting women to supply babies for waiting couples.

Why solicit more separations when there are already so many?

And what of the other already-waiting kids?

What if assisting poor families so they can stay together was considered a greater success than separating them?

It comes back to one of the fundamental questions in adoption.  Is the purpose of adoption to find families for children who:

• otherwise would not have them, or
• whose first families have already decided they cannot care for them and have relinquished their rights, or
• whose first families have had their parental rights terminated due to abuse or neglect?  

Or is it to find babies for couples who want to become parents or have another baby, but can’t (or just like to have lots of babies)?

I don’t think this agency has malicious intentions, and maybe upon reflection they will go back and re-think this post.  I hope so.  Because what this post reveals is that they have at least momentarily forgotten the purpose upon which they say they are founded: to be a non-profit, child-welfare-seeking entity that assists children and families who need help as well as matching already-abandoned children with new families.

Their answer to the “how many birthmoms have you found” question reveals this slip.  They say they have helped several recently.  But then all but one decided not to place their babies for adoption.  So they’re going to look for more.  My thoughts on this?

• Well, then all those ladies aren’t “birthmoms” are they?  We have a word for what they are: MOMS.  Moms who needed some help, and look!  You gave them what they needed, and now they are in a better place and feel equipped to parent their children!  Way to go! 
• That latter part – that families were assisted in staying together – is something about which to rejoice!  Only when you really wanted to have those kids is it disappointing.
• It’s clearly hard to balance the conflict of interest between the genuine desire (as far as I can tell from the rest of their site) to help women and children as a “ministry” and the nagging reality that there are these other couples here in the U.S. who have already paid several thousand dollars for your adoption services.  They want to finish the process and have a little person to parent.  And most of them are probably very nice people, so you want to see them get that little child baby they so long for.

I reflected on the adoptive-parents side of this coin a few months ago – how sometimes we “AP’s” start to think of adoption as supply and demand.  We can start to think that if we “can provide a great home” we are somehow entitled to get to have children.

Clearly from the agency’s perspective it’s just as easy to slip away from humanitarian assistance and into a business proposition.  Complete with strategic marketing.

When the “product” is human lives being permanently altered.

PART II:

One of the biggest objections to international adoption that we run into is the allegation (sometimes proven) of corruption in “the adoption system.”  That children have been and are being “exported” like goods.  There are documented cases of bribery of birth moms, kidnapping, and at  the very least, an advantage of the privileged over the poor, vulnerable and under-represented… the convincing of (usually single) mothers that someone else is more capable (even “worthy”) of parenting their children.

It’s not unique to international adoption.  Many of the same issues arise in debates over domestic (particularly infant) adoption as well.  I was reading a very raw an honest post by a first-mom last night that reflects the pain of her loss – and a very definite stance against adoption altogether.

Those objectors are people with stories, so we can’t just dismiss their thoughts and feelings.

As Christians, how do we face the question of whether our children could have been placed with us through unethical means?

I wish I could find a font to emphasize just how seriously we take that question.

Nearly five years ago, Fred and I sent a dossier of paperwork to Guatemala that qualified us to adopt  two children, three years of age and under.  [Why three years and under?  Because his sister's daughter, our niece, was four, and we didn't want to displace her as the first-born grandchild in our family.  My siblings didn't have any other children, but my youngest brother - now our boys' "Tío Steven" - was six at the time, and we definitely wanted him to be older than any children we adopted.  He's also Guatemalan-American - and he's the reason we went "back" to Guatemala for our own adoption: so he and our children would have each other to grow up with and lean on as they process their identities and adoption-related thoughts.] 

A while later, we received a referral of twin two-year-old boys.

There was another referral in between, an infant whose referral we had to surrender in order to adopt our sons.  Words cannot express how seriously we took that choice.  Because it was a choice we were making.

It was also a stake in the ground.  A  place to which we can look back and say, “We knew what we were doing, and this is what we decided.”

The little guy, the infant, was easily picked up by another couple (we made sure of that, confirming it several times later on in our own process – that he had a family coming for him, too).  What we chose?  Was two boys who have another mom besides me who took care of them and then reached a point at which she decided she wanted them to come here with us.

We know why she said she made that choice.  But we haven’t yet met her and talked to her ourselves.

Now is it possible that she approached our attorney during a time at which she was in a vulnerable place, that months or years later she might have made  a different decision?

Absolutely.  Yes, it is.

Her sad face in the one picture we have of her with each of our sons says that their adoption was not a decision made lightly or without sorrow on her part.

There is no way to deny that the privilege we have of living life with our boys was at the cost, to her, of the right to live life with hers.  Because they were hers, first,  after all.  And they still are hers, too, in their hearts - just ask them.

At the same time, is it possible that she reached that place – where parenting two very-mobile boys on her own with very little support seemed like the lesser choice for them that she claimed  to believe it was – and that our file was there waiting, just then?

There is no way to know for sure, right now, which was the case.  We did our best to select an ethical agency and an attorney whose reputation was good.  Is it possible, though, that something slipped by us, and that the boys who are now a part of our family could have remained with their first?

It is.

How do we live with not knowing?  What will we do with that, now that we’re more aware of the issues than we were back then?

Fairly simple, though not always easy on the heart: we will seek the truth.

We belong to a faith and to a Savior who says that even if we have sinned, we can be set free.  That the truth is what it is, and that facing it or not does not change it.  But that if we are willing to risk our reputations – or whatever else it is we think we have – for the sake of transparency, he will take care of the details.

It is humbling but also freeing at the same time.

To the best of our knowledge, we were matched with children who needed a family.  If we’re wrong?  We will face that, too.  We will be honest with our children, we will help them find their first families when they’re ready and if they want to, and we will not avoid knowing about the issues surrounding relinquishment-adoption.

Because it was a choice that we made.

And now we’re chosing to adopt again.  We feel called to it, as many other people of faith say they do.  But we also realize we’re making a choice.

And one of the reasons we chose El Salvador is that there is a painstakingly slow examination of parent files and children’s backgrounds.  (That’s an understatement!)  There is no guarantee that we will ever be chosen as the “best fit” for a child or sibling group – though we hope we are.  But there are children who have lived for years in what was supposed to be “temporary” institutional placements.  Having met a few of them, I know firsthand that they want loving families to belong to.  So the need is there, and we are willing to meet it.  For the rest?  We lean on the faith we have that God cares about these kids and will prompt the hearts of those in control of adoptions there to orchestrate a match between us and them if it’s right.

Is there still the possibility that corruption could creep in and taint this second adoption?

Sure.  Wherever there are people there is the chance that they have been compromised.

But after using our best judgment, we are proceeding because we know there is still a need for families for kids who are waiting today.  We’re happy to give our resources to organizations that are trying to eliminate that need in the future.  But today there are children without families.

And to our consciences, to not make ourselves available to meet that need would be wrong.  Is God still sovereign?  Yes.  If the need can be met without our adopting a single additional child, is that ok with us?  Yes, though I’m not saying it would be easy to accept that we were not chosen.

Certainly we hope to adopt more children, but we also know the issues, and we are committed to being as honest and ethical as we know how to be.

But if something presents itself in our family, indicating that we have been effected by a corrupt system?

We’ll do our best to meet that with transparency.

I don’t honestly know how people do it without faith that God sees and can right any wrongs.  He is our Confidence through all the uncertainty.  The fact that we look at our children as little people who are placed in our care for a finite period of time – for whose care we answer to the God who made them – affects how we are with them every day.

At one level, knowing the issue and facing the evidence of real corruption in adoptions-past and probably those present is enough to halt everything for us.  But then, on the other hand, halting everything is to pull back from those kids who live in hope that they will one day belong to their own mom and dad, kids who readily attach to any friendly visiting adult to their orphan home.

So we keep our file in the pile.  Not ignorant of the negative posibilities, but in faith that the God who works through his people and cares about his children can use us constructively in the lives of those who might become our children as well.

We will look back on 2010 as the year (hopefully “the” year and not just “a” year!) that our case made no significant progress whatsoever in El Salvador.  Our file has remained at the Oficina para las Adopciones (Office for Adoptions) in San Salvador for the entirety of 2010 (on the heels of the last third of 2009).  Sure, it’s been verified as “complete” – but we knew that before we ever sent it. 

Frozen solid.

But at the same time, it’s been the backdrop for a whole bunch of other movement. 

Because we’re thinking “adoption,” we’ve become significantly more aware of the issues, of the perspectives of the others in the triad, of ways to intervene – other than adoption – to support families and cultures who haven’t been as blessed as we have with wealth and socio-political stability.  I began 2010 with no idea how many birth/first mom bloggers and adult adoptee bloggers there are out there.  And so many other adoptive parents are traveling the same path we are, as we seek to be more fully aware, loving and respectful of our kids’ stories.

Then, too, we’ve watched friends bring home their children and settle into the new life of family-by-adoption, just like we did nearly four years ago.  Many of them are coming up to speed on all the ramifications much more quickly than parents did even a few years ago.  It’s encouraging to see, and I know we will have plenty of support when and if our turn comes.

And if nothing else, the length of our wait has gotten us to the top of our agency’s waiting-family list in El Salvador.  One family ahead of us has a referral match of an older child and is waiting for Family Court to finalize; and another came home with their little one this Fall.  We’re still in a queue of over 140 international families, last I heard.  Some have long since left the program and finalized adoptions from other countries, but there doesn’t seem to be a system in place to weed out those “dead files.”  And there are at least some Salvadoran families adopting from the orphanage system, too, which is very good news for the kids getting to stay in their native country (assuming these are safe and loving Salvadoran families).  Even by not-moving, we’ve still sort of moved…bubbled to the surface with our agency and in-country attorney, anyway.

So, no, being stuck hasn’t been all bad.  We’ve certainly grown this year, and the extra time as the “onlies” has been very good for the twins.  But that doesn’t mean I’m not ready for a thaw.  A match tomorrow would be wonderful!  The kids I met last February were all-too-ready to have moms of their own to take an interest in them.  But even a “we don’t want to send our kids to live with you, silly gringos” from the Salvadoran powers-that-be would end the holding pattern.

Content to have lived The Frozen Year.  But equally ready for something new from 2011. 

Fidelina del Rosario Anaya de Barillas was already listed as a Coordinator at OPA on their website (it tends to track a little behind on who’s actually in which position there).  But our Salvadoran attorney tells us she has replaced Milton Alexander Portillo.

From what I heard about Milton, he was a fair man and dedicated to getting the work of approving (or denying) files done in an orderly and timely fashion.  So without having met him, I am sorry to see someone who had a good reputation go.

However, at the same time, the new Director has a background in Family Law and seems very qualified from that perspective.  Google her name and you can see some of the cases with which she’s been involved.

We were told, back in July, that our file had already passed OPA.  So I don’t know that the change in Director will affect us at all.  But maybe it will?  At any rate, around the time we received our OPA “ok,” the Procuraduria issued a statement indicating that she wants to move the adoption process more efficiently than it has been in the past.  This does not, of course, guarantee any prospective adoptive parent an approval.  But even a timely denial would be better than what’s been happening so far.  The article in which Sonia Cortez de Madriz was quoted indicates that there is at least one file still in-process that was submitted in 2003!

Fred and I were married that year and had no idea we’d be adopting anyone at that point.  Wow.  Makes our July 2009 submission look like nothing.

So that’s the latest as I know it.

Still waiting, here in our home, to hear we’ve been officially approved by the Procurador’s (Attorney General’s) Office to be matched to an adoptable child/sibling pair waiting in El Salvador.

And then who those kids are.