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My daughter is guatemalan and I am white. I have been reading this newsletter as well as other Latino/Latina blogs and was waiting for this to come up.

Unfortunatly, god, fate, the higher being that allows one to concieve did not bless me with that ability. However, my husband and I wanted to be parents, wanted to have a family and adoption was the path for us. After many many months of research and soul searching we chose to adopt from guatemala.

We did not adopt from guatemala to “save” a child and the organizations and professionals we have come in contact throughout the process of becoming a family specifically state that adoption has nothing to do with saving a child – it is about BECOMING A PARENT.

You can disapprove of transracial and transnational adoption – but you should not believe everything you read in the press and assume that “baby stealing/selling” is what is at issue with the process in guatemala.

While there are transparency issues within the adoption process in guatemala. Our daughters first mother signed off on her parental rights 4 seperate times over the course of 9 months. She sat to have photos taken of her with our (meaning mine and her’s) daughter when they each had blood drawn for a DNA sample, she took various day’s off work to travel miles to guatemala city. A US social worker visited my husband and I wrote up a lengthy document about us, we were required to take several classes to prepare us for parenthood, specifically on becoming a transracial family and the importance of providing connections to our childs cultural heritage, and a social worker in guatemala reviewed these documents, interviewed our daughter’s first mom, our daughter’s foster mom and our lawyer. This material was then presented to a judge in what they call Family Court. Who approves the adoption, then all of this material is reviewed by Procuraduria General de la Nacion and must be approved by this GOVERNMENT organization before it is then passed on to the US embassy for approval. To say the government isn’t involved is false.

In the US domestic adoption requires the birth mom to sign off on their parental rights once. Often, adoptive families pay for rent, medical insurance and other costs – is this baby selling?

I do not doubt there are gringo’s adopting non white children who shouldn’t, believe me I”ve met some of them, but there are also many of us out there who are doing fantastic as transracial families and raising strong culturally connected children.

Most guatemalan adoption groups are not is saying guatemala shouldn’t change – which it has as of the other day when the gt congress voted in the Ortega law, rather many of those families currently in process of adopting from guatemala are only asking that their cases be grandfathered in so that they can bring their childern – whom they have bonded with – home.

The media seeks sensational stories and the happy loving stories don’t normally make it to the top. Don’t follow their led. Speak to adoption professionals, families who have gone through the process.

If the guatemalan government has such a problem with children being adopted by americans – then why don’t they create a domestic adoption program, why don’t they support and educate a populace about birth control…until they do this there will be orphans in guatemala – and who do you think provides financial and material support to the orphanages in third world countries? the countries own government? Think again.

thanks for listening and all that,
All I ask is please, no bashing my family – I love my latina girl and will do everything in my power to provide her with a connection to that culture.

peace.
amy r

I didn’t think your original article bashed my family just concerned that someone may respond negatively once I posted.

I’ve been thinking about how to respond to your question for several days. When I first read it I was at home with my daughter, who was sick – it was a beautiful fall day and she wanted to sit in the hammock (from Guatemala) and take a nap. As the weight of her body sunk into mine I had waves of emotions from panic to anger and all that. But the one that threw me was “am I a racist because I adopted a child from Guatemala”. Though I know you did not state that, your comment that there is something inherently racist in the process of IA brought me there.

I wish I had a simple pat answer to why we chose to adopt from Guatemala. The more I thought about it the more I felt that I needed to answer at length –mostly for myself, because our daughter will ask these types of questions one day.

I am going to give the somewhat long version and I realize at the outset it may not seem pertinent – but believe me it is. It is easy to say “just adopt” or “why not US domestic adoption” but there are many considerations as prospective parents one must consider.

After the years of tying naturally and then failed infertility treatments with adoption always part of the discussion, we began to research the adoption options—domestic public or domestic private adoption, foster care/state adoption, and international adoption. Each one presents unique issues that a prospective parent has to consider and be confident they are prepared to handle the situations that may occur during or after the adoption.

We ruled out domestic adoption because of our uncertainty in coping with open adoption, the very real potential that at the last minute it could all fall apart – the state that we live in the birth mother can change her mind during the court proceedings to finalize the adoption, this would be 3 months after the child had been at home with us (I am not saying the bio mom shouldn’t have this choice, just that we weren’t prepared to deal with it), coupled with the unknown timeframe of placement –our agency only completed 5 domestic adoptions last year; and the fact that we would have to sign up with several agencies to really make it happen – and many will only sign you up if it is exclusive to their agency.

These are facts within domestic adoption and there is nothing wrong with any of them, but they are real and as a couple we knew these were issues/realities we were not prepared to cope with. However, we new we wanted to adopt an infant rather than a toddler.

Once domestic was ruled out we looked at international adoption. Because IA is a transaction in another country we felt we needed to select a program that had a track record – to investigate and find the best and most ethical agencies and in-country partners and have the ability to speak with 100’s of adoptive parents regarding their experience. This brought Guatemala, Russia and China to the top of the pack.

Now, when we first started to talk about adoption as the means to becoming a family we understood that if we wanted the process to move as quick as possible we needed to be open to either gender, various racial or ethnic make up’s, and minor health problems that as a middle class couple living in the US could easily be addressed and/or cared for though our child’s life.

Guatemala rose to the top because drugs and alcohol abuse is rare for Guatemalan women, the children are cared for (mostly) in foster care rather than orphanages, they have monthly doctors visits, and in general are healthier than children available for adoption from Russia or China. As a prospective parent we would have the ability to visit our child during the process and if we really wanted to we could foster in-country, thereby experiencing our child’s culture on an extended basis. Also, Guatemala is very close to the US so the idea of visiting regularly as our child grew was a reality whereas China and Russia were extensive transcontinental trips – additionally, the Asian and Russian culture groups really weren’t in our hometown.

Russia and China the children (if you are looking to adopt an infant) are almost all abandonment cases. Russia presents additional potential health problems – which we read up on and rule this country out and for some reason China really never stood out for us. Maybe if we had lived on the west coast or in an area with a larger Chinese or Asian population this would have become an option.

The other reason we were drawn to the Guatemalan program was the level of information available about the birth mom – including a photo of her – that we wanted for our child.

And, on top of all that we recognize the Latino population in the US is ever increasing; that our community offered a strong Latino community (mostly Mexican); that my parents hometown also offered a strong Latino community; that weather or not we had adopted or had biological children they would have learned Spanish; we have a diverse group of friends; we would be willing to move to a more appropriate city/town if it became apparent our child needed a “better” latino/hispanic community; that in the end we felt we could handle being a transracial family. And, on a lighter note my husband is an avid music fan – particularly of Latin/Spanish/South American music –, a major futbol fan, and isn’t an American so our family is already transnational.

I am certain there are some who will read this and feel that the way I describe this is very matter of fact and practical rather than, I don’t know – touchy feely or are expecting the “we went to XX with our church group and formed a connection” or “we were aid workers in college” – but when you are dealing with matters of the heart – and becoming a family through adoption could me more so – sometimes this kind of distance is needed to protect yourself and insure decisions are being made that will be long standing and not because ones’ heartstrings are being pulled.

And, of course there are those who will not understand why we felt it was easier to become a transracial family than to deal with open adoption. All I can say is some things are very difficult to describe in words.

Now this is not to say there are people who have adopted from Guatemala who shouldn’t have. This isn’t to say there are people who have adopted full stop who shouldn’t have. And, lets not forget there are people who have children (biological) who really shouldn’t be near children at all.

And, importantly this is not to say there are not transparency issues within the Guatemalan adoption process but I do not think the solution is to create a centralized orphanage system focused on locating relatives or Guatemalan’s who will adopt before making a child available for IA, especially prior to a full on campaign within Guatemala to make adoption socially acceptable in Guatemala and affordable and the social welfare to support young mothers, single mothers and poor mothers.

I am the first to correct people who say to us (pointing or indicating our daughter) “she is so lucky to have you” – I want to barf at this statement. These people couldn’t be farther from reality. It is we, my husband and I, who are lucky. And, let’s just put this one out on the table – it was a selfish act – we wanted to be parents – we did this for us – to have a family. We didn’t even know who our child would be and expected to have a son not a daughter.

I also am not a fan of the comment – “there are so many needy children in the US, why not adopt them” – just because we were unable to have biological children doesn’t mean we are equipped to deal with a child who is currently in the US foster care system. And, adoption isn’t about saving a child, it is about being a parent/family (have I said that enough…J

We owe the gift of being parents, of having a family to our daughter’s first mom – without her our family would not exsist. Our daughter would not be who she was without this woman and without her foster mother who cared for her for the first 9 months of her live – who scolded me when we were visiting and ran out of formula and didn’t buy the right brand!

I expect this doesn’t really “answer” some of the issues you have brought up. I know my daughter will have times of distress identity concerns/issues but we feel that we will be a strong enough and supportive enough family/parents to help her.

As a side note my grandmother was adopted. She was left on the steps of a church in NYC at the turn of the century. She was placed in an orphanage where she lived till she was 3. She was part of a massive placement of children from NYC to the west – call the Orphan Train Riders – this was organized by a Catholic nun and priest who got all the orphans on trains and stopped at all the towns across the US to find them homes. Many were adopted, others were placed into indentured servitude, siblings were separated – good and bad happened. She was never told she had been adopted. She found out when she went to get her baptismal certificate at 21 while living in NYC. She never told her father she found out, he died, the great depression kick in and life moved on. When she was in her 70’s she finally got her birth certificate. She had been raised a strict Catholic – but her birth parents names were Ruben and Cohen – so I am Jewish, as is my mother, but really we aren’t as it wasn’t really part of my grandmother or my mothers upbringing. However, the world is a strange place and my father’s mother and aunt both ended up marrying American men of Jewish heritage and the traditions were always a part of my upbringing. Not really sure what my point is (I am not the best writer and have wandered off the track here).

Thanks for listening and looking forward to continuing to read this blog and comments from others. Especially ones that will help me be a better mami to a beautiful chapina.

amy

What a remarkably insensitive, one-sided, and downright hateful posting. It is obvious that you have little first-hand knowledge of the subject. It is curious that given the lengthy “comment policy” and its implied goal not to tolerate bigotry and stereotyping, you feel at ease caricaturing the experience of adoptive families and their commitment to the birth culture of their children.