thievery and song

In my experience, adoption and thievery go hand in hand. After surviving the bankruptcies of Imagine and St. Anne Adoption in 2009, I knew I had to write a book about this unbelievable fight to find my daughter in the world. As I've been saying since then, life is still writing the story, and I'm not typing it until it until I know the ending and it's a happy one.

Well, I'm still fighting for my happy ending, but a few days ago someone in Nigeria hijacked my e-mail account, used it to spam everyone I have ever known, then DELETED ALL MY FOLDERS which held, among many other things, the entire history of this adoption. Not knowing whether they stole the folders, or just deleted them, or both, it has beel hell for the past few days trying to protect myself against identity theft. But that doesn't even matter compared to the history I lost. The entire story of my adoption as told by six years' worth of e-mail. The book I felt I was destined to write, which I was going to piece together with all those messages. Gone. And what was in it for them to wipe out anything besides the evidence of their crime in the "sent" folder? Nothing. But what were those folders worth to me? Priceless. In all these years I have been fighting for what is good and right and true in the world, I have met more evil than I ever imagined, and it just doesn't seem to stop. So much selfishness, thoughtlessness and greed.

Needless to say, I need a song. Lately I've been wearing out my playlist of inspirational songs (if one could wear out a digital file, that is). So yesterday morning I went shopping on itunes and I stumbled on buried treasure.  His name is Tyrone Wells and he is a singer/songwriter from the Seattle area. How in the world did I not know about him before today, and how in the world doesn't everybody know about him??? In any case, I found this song, Give it Time, right when I needed it. I hope you will treat yourself to his many other songs/videos on youtube. I recommend Freedom, Sea Breeze, and Running Around in my Dreams, Happy as the Sun and And the Birds Sing....for starters. Thank heaven for people like this, who spread light and love, and make the world a better place. May goodness always win.

watching and waiting

Switzerland's Helviet agency has posted that the 2nd child referred to them under Vietnam's new "regular" program is home.

Denmark's Danadopt agency reports that it has received an official referral from Hoa Binh for a family in round 1, although it seems that they had an unofficial match for a while (or at least this is what I can get out of the Danish-English translation).

In Canada, there seem to be two families with my agency who are travelling soon to meet their children. There is another TDH family who just brought home their twin baby girls. I was happy to read that their immigration paperwork was expedited so they can get the medical care they need in Canada right away.

Since November is Adoption Month, I spent some time last night looking for youtube videos on adoption that I could share with you. Given my waiting status, I couldn't watch the happy forever family videos; just the ones speaking to the absurdity of what is going on all over the world to keep all the other orphans from families who just want to love them. 

This is Dear Panama. That was actually the first country I signed up for almost six years ago. I quickly switched to Ecuador after finding the Panama yahoo adoption group, where I was told that the program was not working, and that there hadn't been a referral for years (small details that the agency had failed to mention while my big fat cheques were in the mail). Little did I know that it didn't matter which country I picked, because Imagine/St. Anne was going to steal my family and my money so they could buy horses, diamonds, a Lexus and a trip to Disneyworld. Nonetheless, it is still a sight to see all these children looking through the barred windows and doors of institutions while many families would fly to the moon and back for the chance to love them.

This is an interview with Craig Juntunen, adoptive father of three kids from Haiti, visionary and founder of www.bothendsburning.org, which produced the documentary Stuck, on the broken international adoption system, which I would really like to watch but can't find anywhere.

And since we all need another song to keep us going, here's Unstoppable by Rascal Flatts. The video is the 2010 Olympic version, which is a bit different from the original lyrics, but both will inspire. I've had some really dark days in the past year or so, when I felt like I couldn't keep fighting for this adoption. This song is one of the things that got me through. Keep on believing, don't give in, and press Repeat as many times as you need!



Unstoppable

So, so you made a lot of mistakes
Walked down the road a little sideways
Cracked a brick when you hit the wall
Yeah, you've had a pocketful of regrets
Pulled you down faster than a sunset
Hey, it happens to us all
When the cold, hard rain just won't quit
And you can't see your way out of it

You find your faith that's been lost and shaken
You take back what's been taken
Get on your knees and dig down deep
You can do what you think is impossible
Keep on believing, don't give in
It'll come and make you whole again
It always will, it always does
Love is unstoppable

Love, it can weather any storm
Bring you back to being born, again
Oh, it's the helping hand
When you need it most
The lightouse shining on the coast
That never goes dim
When your heart is full of doubt
And you think that there's no way out

You find your faith that's been lost and shaken
You take back what's been taken
Get on your knees and dig down deep
You can do what you think is impossible
Keep on believing, don't give in
It'll come and make you whole again
It always will, it always does
Love is unstoppable

It's unstoppable

Like a river keeps on rollin'
Like a north wind blowin'
Don't it feel good knowin'
Yeah--

You find your faith that's been lost and shaken
You take back what's been taken
Get on your knees and dig down deep
You can do what you think is impossible
Keep on believing, don't give in
It'll come and make you whole again
It always will, it always does
Love is unstoppable

Love is unstoppable
So, so you made a lot of mistakes
Walked down the road a little sideways
But love, love is unstoppable



from Denmark

The Danish agency Danadopt posted this on November 2 (they posted in Danish of course, so this is the google translation with a little help from me):

Our first two families to receive a [normal] referral under Vietnams' new system recently brought their children home from the Hoa Sen orphanage in Binh Thuan. They had a fine stay in Phan Tiet province. The process was the same as before the new law, and the families resided in Vietnam for almost 3 weeks.
 
We have been informed that more Vietnamese children are being adopted within their own country.  The longer release period under the new law, during which the children must be advertised in the media for 6 months, makes childless Vietnamese families more aware of children who need a family, and they therefore seek to adopt.

There is still no news on when the DA will hold the next matching meeting, after which new cases may  be sent to the provinces, depending on how many children are free for international adoption.

70 months & counting

Yes, as of today I've been waiting to adopt for se-ven-ty months.  On this remarkable occasion, I'd like to take the opportunity to thank a few of those who helped me reach this milestone:  Kevin Pickles, Sue and Rick Hayhow, Andrew Morrow, the executives at UNICEF, and the authors of the Hague convention.  May karma bring you all what you deserve.

Speaking of UNICEF, I had someone come trick-or-treating last night with a big orange UNICEF bag.  Part of me wanted to refuse him a treat and give him a lecture about how 1000s of orphans didn't get to go trick-or-treating with their forever families this year because they are being held hostage in their birth countries while their evil captor steamrolls over their hopes for a future....but he was only about eight and I couldn't not give him the smarties.

Well UNICEF must be hard at work in Vietnam because after the first few regular referrals trickled out for those families who had waited forever at the front of the line, the program just stopped.  I haven't been able to find any information since my last post, but I did find a website from Ireland that could give a clue about what's going on everywhere else.  These were both posted at the end of September on the
Arc Adoption website:

• Ireland is the first country to fully cooperate with Vietnam in the framework of the Hague Convention. Currently, Justice Ministry of Vietnam has received the requests of many countries that are members of the Hague Convention. Vietnam is considering a comprehensive roadmap to expand on child adoption cooperation with other member countries of the Hague Convention. Therefore, the document signed by two central adoption agencies of Vietnam and Ireland will open a new chapter in the field of international cooperation on adoption – the stage of multilateral cooperation on protection of children and cooperation in the field of international adoption.
• As many people are aware, Monday September 24th 2012 marked the signing of a new Administrative Agreement between Vietnam and Ireland. ... The signing on Monday followed a family get-together at Farmleigh hosted by Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald on Sunday afternoon, at which the Vietnamese delegation met many children adopted from Vietnam, and their families. At the event, the Vietnamese Minister of Justice, Mr. Ha Hung Cuong, noted that he hoped the new agreement would allow the submission of applications so that "in early 2013 Vietnamese children could be considered" for adoption by Irish prospective adoptive parents.

I don't get it.  How can Ireland be the first Hague country to fully cooperate when agencies in Canada, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Denmark received licences and referrals before them?  Are countries allowed to operate in Vietnam without their central authority having signed an administrative agreement?  Is Canada (i.e., Ontario, since Canada's central adoption authority is the provinces, which are neither singular nor central!?) also going to sign an agreement?  Does it have to? And how would this change things?  I assume that there is more "child protection" once a country signs an agreement?

Also, if Ireland -- which apparently has had 200 families stuck in Vietnam adoption limbo for a few years now, and is the first country to fully cooperate-- has to wait until early 2013 for its legacy families to be considered, what could that mean for the other countries?

Please let me know if you understand any of this.  I have been studying the world of international adoption for, well, 70 months, and all I know for sure is that it's a hot broken mess that has little to do with child protection.

Until next time, here's another song that's helping me get through the mess:  Josh Kelley's Naleigh Moon.  Josh and his wife, actress Katherine Heigl, adopted Naleigh a few years ago from Korea.  My favourite part?  "Halfway around my little world you had no idea that you were my girl."  Sniff.  Good night.