Like birth stories, I love hearing adoption stories. This one is beautiful. Thank you, Jen, for sharing. Happy anniversary and may you and your family share many, many more fond memories. -Elisa

So, yesterday was our 8th wedding anniversary.  

We're not really big party people for these occasions.  With the exception of our 1st anniversary, which we spent in NYC, I don't think I could tell you how we marked the others.  Probably dinner.  We do like to eat.  I may have a card or two around here that I strongarmed Pastor Dan into getting me (back when I had such powers).

I think it's going to be a long time, though, before I forget our 8th anniversary.

Guatemalan adoptions hit the news again this week. CNN headlined a report on the shutdown in Guatemala and highlighted claims of irregularities and baby-stealing/child trafficking.

No, baby brave was not stolen. I know that my agency went to great lengths to ensure that her birth mother was acting of her own volition and complied with all laws.

Of course there are unethical agencies and attorneys and processes that could have been improved and made more transparent to weed them out. But the government chose not to do that and instead shut down the international adoption process to comply, officials said, with the Hague Convention. The Hague was designed to increase transparency of international adoption processes and to ensure that adoption did not act as a cover for child trafficking (a real problem).

The sad fact is that the shutdown of international adoption in Guatemala and allegations about baby stealing did not stop the need for homes for children, for babies. And, worse still for those children, their parents are now turning to abandonment instead of attorneys and adoption. Apparently, in some cases, the government is taking custody of these children.

More abuses are being reported to ADA by lawyers who took birth mothers to the CNA/PGN interviews. The offers of money, housing, health plans, etc. have moved some of the mothers to take back their children, but instead of giving the children back to their mothers, the children are being taken away to who knows where and when the deceived mothers expressed their intention to continue with the adoptions, since they were not getting the children back and the offers made did not materialize, the interviewers told them that it was too late to change their minds.

Siglo Veintiuno reported yesterday what Nineth Guevara, the director of the Section of Childhood and Adolescence of the PG, calls anomalies the mistakes found in several adoption files. Guevara says that the PGN will file criminal charges against 80 notaries. She is the same woman who took by force a baby girl against the will of her mother and grandparents last October. What the PGN is doing is not only reviewing the cases already approved by Barrios, which is totally illegal, but labeling the mistakes in the files that can be amended and that are cause of rejection for amendment (previos), as anomalies, and the notaries who preside those files, as delinquents. Since there are not legal grounds to prosecute the notaries, there is little chance that the PGN will actually file charges. The so called anomalies are actually typos, human errors and PGN requirements without legal grounds, results of an overzealous analysis of the files done by underpaid and jealous lawyers of the PGN, who are trying to justify their work by creating unnecessary obstacles. The least they have in mind is the best interest of the children. An example of that are the adoptions that were legally approved by the Family judges a year ago, and that were tangled in the appeal process filed by the PGN. After succeeding in getting back the files for its approval, after the court of appeals revoked the lower court approval, the PGN has had no other choice but to approve every one of them, stealing a whole year of the lives of those children, who were deprived during all that time of the love of their waiting families.

Associated Press, eager to attack adoptions as usual, is spreading the news that the Attorney General annulled fifteen adoptions for illegalities in the files. The truth is that those adoptions were actually approved by Barrios and there is no law that gives the new authorities the power to modify such approval. That is another display of shameful abuse of power of the PGN and of irresponsible journalism of Associated Press, who also collaborated in the closing of adoptions in Vietnam to US families.

The pregnancy is about to be over.

The last few months, I started to wonder if this day would arrive. But it will, at last. I have the credit card charges and airline and hotel reservations to prove it. On Monday morning, my son and I are off to Guatemala to get his sister. My mother is coming along to entertain him while I sit with my daughter on Tuesday morning in the US Embassy with the huge stack of papers waiting for her visa interview.

While we are waiting the day and a half for the Embassy to approve the visa application (yes, they could deny the visa; but there is no reason for them to do that in the paperwork. Knock wood anyway. Boy, have I gotten superstitious during this experience!), I am hoping we can visit Antigua for few hours and stroll around Zona Viva in Guatemala City, and visit with my son's foster mother at the hotel. Yeah, it's probably too much. We'll be back by the end of the week.

I know from my son's adoption, when I get back I'll be exhausted and a bit disoriented at first. A little sad. I'm already a little weepy at the smallest, sentimental things these days. The pregnancy is over. But joyful at the sight of my little girl at home with us. And, so grateful for the support of this community, friends, and family during this long journey. From what my friends who gave birth have told me, it's like that for them. Same but different.

Ahhh.

My adoption journey muscles have begun to relax. The news I've been longing to write for months now, since I got the email in November telling me our adoption was approved by the Guatemalan government. The  desired conclusion of any international adoption from the US: The visa appointment. With Guatemalan adoptions, it's that email from the US Embassy to come for her visa appointment -- the last & final step before I can take her home.

Home.

And when that email arrived in my inbox, I read it twice. It arrived so quietly. No sound effects and certainly none from me: I was speechless most of yesterday afternoon. Now? Shock. Panic. Oh no. She's coming home. Joy! Panic. Joy. Panic, panic. Joy. Big grin that doesn't go away. So many changes: going from one to two kids. Making sure my son has plenty of mom time. I run through all the attachment issues in my mind....all theoretical because I just don't know her that well; I don't know what she will need yet. Yet. Because she is coming home for good. Our daughter. Adoption finished. Done. Just begun.

As for her name. With all the uncertainty around when the adoption would be done, when the 2nd DNA was going to be done, when the visa appointment would be issued, I have been leaning heavily into that Ashkenazi Jewish superstition about not revealing the baby's name until she is born. I won't even tell people offline. So, I decided not to put her name out into the universe until she is home. Safe.

That's the question I ask myself (and the agency) a lot now. Baby brave is now 11.5 months old. The latest photos show her hair is thicker, ink black and she sports a smile that promises all the delights and devilish deeds of life to come with her. She weighs 18.5 pounds. She's standing; maybe walking. I can't bear to think about this possibility. I cross my fingers that she is a late-ish walker like my son who didn't walk until he was almost 15 months.

What's getting between me and my baby? More "process." She now has her new birth certificate and her passport. Even in Guatemala, the government issues a new birth certificate with in Latin format that includes both of our last names mamalastname fatherlastname. This birth certificate replaces her birth last names. This happens in US domestic adoptions too. No, not necessarily something I agree with. She will always know her heritage and history, though. All of her paperwork has been translated into English for the US Embassy.

So, she has all the Guatemalan paperwork that the US Embassy requires to apply for a second DNA test. This DNA test is done to ensure that the baby that applies for the visa is the same one that started the adoption process. Yes, the sad fact is that some agencies or attorneys are unscrupulous. The US Embassy added this test earlier this year. The attorney submitted the request for the Embassy to authorize the DNA test. and has to wait for that authorization to have the DNA test is perfomed (just a swab). Then, the test is sent to a lab in the US to compare with the first DNA test she took months ago. Next, we, I, have to wait for the results to be sent from the lab in the US to the US Embassy in Guatemala. Thank goodness for Fed Ex, right?

Assuming the DNA results are positive match for the 1st DNA test, I have to then wait for an email from the US Embassy issuing an appointment to apply for her visa. Then, I can jump for joy and make travel arrangements.

How long will all this waiting and testing and approving take? The agency folks tell me the 2nd DNA test, results mailed, Embassy email could take 2 weeks. Or more. Or less. It depends. The Embassy has not provided a timeline and each adoption seems to take a different amount of time -- for no apparent reason. The State Department provides an explanation of the new process, but I couldn't understand the bureaucratic-speak, maybe because I have a lot of emotional investment in it. Can you?

As for the other children in-process of adoption in Guatemala? The new adoption law was amended to allow those cases to be completed in under the current attorney-based law and process.

As soon as I get that email from the Embassy, you'll know. In the meantime, I bought the Ergo, made a list of new diapers and bought a new changing pad for the bureau top. I'm sorting out clothes that a friend so generously gave me. I'm installing baby gates.

Paying for an adoption is usually one of the big things prospective adoptive parents worry about -- whether they are considering domestic or international adoption. I've heard of people holding garage sales, concerts and other events to raise money for their adoption costs. Here and there, banks have  offered "adoption loans" to prospective parents. Hidden in the Real Estate section of the Sunday New York Times, was an interesting article on a new home equity loan line of credit that prospective adoptive parents can tap to pay for adoption costs.

Only those with more than 10 percent equity in their homes can qualify, and applicants must also have credit scores above the subprime level, which is typically in the low-to-mid-600 range. The maximum amount of the credit line varies with applicants’ credit histories and the amount of equity they have in their homes.

The initial interest rate varies according to a number of factors, including the applicant’s credit history. Once the loan is made, the interest rate fluctuates according to the prime interest rate, which is the rate banks offer their best customers.

Whatever interest rate an applicant qualifies for, Chase discounts that rate by a full percentage point for New Additions customers for the first six months.

Earlier this month, for instance, a borrower in Rye, N.Y., with excellent credit and 50 percent equity in a $400,000 home could qualify for a line of credit of up to $160,000 at an interest rate of 7.25 percent. The New Additions discounted introductory rate would be 6.25 percent.

Mary Jane Rogers, a Chase spokeswoman, said the company hopes to add other benefits to the program in the coming months, like discounts on travel and international phone expenses. International adoptions can cost up to $40,000, or $10,000 more than the typical domestic adoption, partly because of greater travel and communication expenses.

From the Chase site, it looks like a product offering with the support or help of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption - which I mention only because the Times article doesn't mention that.

So, it was summer 1999, my husband and I had passed TWO psychological evaluations, met with our adoption agency director without our attorney present, and we were slated to meet her again in a follow-up meeting. My husband was so fed up by the going in circles that he wrote down four possible choices for ending this situation. He first listed our preference, which was for the agency to write a letter to the Chinese authorities and ask that our adoption be completed by another agency. We had ZERO trust in anything the first agency said, and did not want to travel with their guide, since it was their facilitators who demanded we change our contract late in the adoption, not to mention the abusive phone call we received at home from one of their facilitators. The other choices were to let us get a referral and hire a guide, to go with their guide (which we did not want and would have needed assurances that he would not try to get more money or concessions from us in China) and the last choice was to end the adoption and find a financial settlement - which we really did not want to do.

We now moved into the danger zone in our adoption. We had completed every requirement: proved to the state, to the agency, to the immigration services and to the People’s Republic of China that we were qualified to be parents. A social worker had come to our home four times and asked us any question she wanted, and we answered honestly.  Our agency now seemed to be holding our referral – the paperwork showing the child assigned to us by China – and was trying to make us quit the adoption, all because THEY tried to force a contract change.

Thanks for the diary, Chun Yang! I have to say, thanks to stories by you, Brave and other adoptive moms on this site, I have a much more realistic view of the adoption process. Thanks for sharing! Stay tuned all, as this story ends well...Elisa

My story of adoption began in 1984, when my husband and I married. We thought about having kids – I was already over thirty – but we just went along with the flow. The flow meant four jobs in five years for him, then his decision to return to grad school once I was in a secure job. So the years went by, and oops! We forgot to have kids! We moved to North Carolina, bought our first home, and then one day, I got the fever. I really needed to adopt a child. There was a lot of discussion, and in 1998, our paperwork went off to China to wait for a baby. We picked a local agency without a lot of research, as many people used them and we thought they would know the local regulations, and be accountable to us as we were nearby.

At long last, I can say:

Adoption approved!

WOOO HOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Guatemalan government (officially the PGN -- or Attorney General's Office) finally approved our adoption of our daughter-to-be. I got the notice in an email from my adoption agency with a scan of the official approval document issued by the PGN. It's official.

I added her to my health care plan and I breathed a deep sigh of relief -- we made it out of the Guatemalan end of the adoption process before year's end, when the Ortega Law halts international adoptions.

So, you're thinking, I've got her home, right? Nope. More bureaucracy - this time on the US side.....The attorney has to obtain a new birth Guatemalan certificate, get the baby a Guatemalan passport, translate some papers, file papers with the US Embassy to request the second DNA procedure which must be performed to confirm that the baby who comes home is the same one presented for adoption 7 months ago for the mother-baby DNA match. The US Embassy has to approve the paperwork and DNA match, then issue the appointment for me to come to the Embassy in Guatemala City to apply for the visa. I have the proof that she's the same baby: videos and photos from these almost 11 long months that show the same sweet, increasingly mischievous, smile, the soft-looking silky black hair (a little like Elisa's Eli), her light (at least to me) skin and very dark brown eyes. The only difference between January and now is her age. She is now 10 and a half months old.

When will she come home? Probably January. Yup. I gotta wait another month and a half. She'll be one year old. And until then? How will I stand this last home stretch of waiting? Well....I've let myself go into baby-coming-home mode. I have to pull out the cloth diapers and think about new ones to add to my rather modest collection. Thanks to craigslist, a couple of weeks agI scored a new-to-me high chair for $15, a bunch of new and used clothes, a changing pad (ours was beat up by the time my son was done with it), and I'm lusting after an Ergo baby-carrier -- 'cause I'll have to bond and attach with my new daughter, right?

Neely Tucker, Vita Tucker, and Chipo have been living in the States for 7 years now. I asked Neely Tucker 5 questions -- and boy was it hard to whittle it down - about men writing about adoption and family, cultural connections, and raising Chipo.

Though Jeff Gammage recently published a memoir, China Ghosts, about adopting his daughters from China and becoming a father, there aren't many men writing adoption memoirs. Why do you think that is and how do you think yours differs from other adoption memoirs?

Well, I don't really know, though it's a good question. Adam Pertman wrote "Adoption Nation" a few years back after adopting. In general, men write non-fiction less about relationships and families (though there are plenty of exceptions) and more about event/actions, so maybe that's part of it. (The same theme would go with daytime talk shows; mostly hosted by women; after-dark, with politics and sports taking over,most talk shows are mostly hosted by men.) For the record, I wouldn't classify mine as an "adoption memoir," thought that's as good a description as any. It was much more a political affairs book, with an overlay of reporting in a lot of bad places, with an adoption thrown in on top of it.

Did you have any reluctance about putting your daughter's story into print?

Sure. That's why several events are vague (about when and where Chipo was found, certain other family histories left out). I ultimately decided that the money from the book would go to Chipo's education and that the book itself was really a story to be read by her many, many years from now. I decided that she would probably like to have it when she was older herself. She gets a kick out of me telling her story to her as a bedtime story at the moment, and I'd like to think she'd think of the book as the same thing.

What happens when you choose to live and work in another country, and, by fate, you meet a child with whom you and your partner establish a connection? What happens when you attempt to adopt that child in a country where there is no clear adoption program and laws for foreigners? It can blow way out of control - as Madonna found out when she got a court order that allowed her to take her son-to-be out of Malawi during the 18 month adoption process.

Or it can bring geopolitics of a region down to the most personal of all actions: building a family. And, that's the story Neely Tucker tells in Love in the Driest Season.

Love in the Driest Season is the story about how his daughter-to-be, Chipo, came into their family, but it's also the story about Tucker's life in Zimbabwe as a foreign correspondent caught both professionally and personally in the whirlwind of shifting African geopolitics. Tucker and his wife Vita move to Zimbabwe when Tucker is assigned the African post for his newspaper. They volunteer in an orphanage and watch 35 children die in 24 months. Both of them become involved in working at the orphanage and raising money to improve conditions. And then, their work becomes something more.