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.