It's been far too long since I last wrote a blog...but there are a few excuses. I finished up an extremely busy semester of study, and we then went on an incredible 2 week vacation with my parents in Tanzania. The safari was mind-blowing amazing, and we had a great time relaxing on and exploring Zanzibar.
I then, extremely unglamorously, fell out of the shower and my back landed on the porcelain edge of the toilet. After a couple of excruciating days in Siberia, we were flown in a private jet to Kenya, where I spent 2 weeks in the Nairobi hospital. I'm recovering extremely well, but it's a 2 step forwards, 1 step backwards kind of process, as I constantly re-assess my ability in the gym. Not being a gym-bunny, I've adapted quite quickly to being there 5-6 days a week, and I'm surprised that I'm really enjoying it. Long may it last.
The other thing that has been keeping me busy, is working on the logistics of trying to adopt. It's something we've been thinking about for a long time, but it has required a lot of talking and praying about, for obvious reasons. The idea has also spent considerable time in the too-hard basket. It was virtually impossible for us to adopt in the Antipodes primarily due to lengthy waiting lists, delays of up to 10y before a child is received, and various other limitations. Adopting as an expat is known to be one of the easier ways to do it, and legally, once we have lived overseas for 12mths, we are permitted to adopt and seek citizenship for that child in one of our home countries. But, naturally, international adoption comes with all kinds of risks and logistical complications.
The first step in the adoption process is to complete a home study, i.e an assessment by a qualified Social Worker or adoption agency, or our suitability to be parents. It doesn't make a lot of sense when most people can get pregnant and have a child whenever they like, but it does when you consider that there are so many stories of adopted children being abused and mistreated.
We were fortunate to find a home study provider that normally works with US expatriates, but agreed to work with us. They recommended that we adopt from the US, based on the ease of the process, the ability to adopt infants (this is surprisingly uncommon nowadays in international adoptions), and the speed of the process. We were surprised that we could do this, as Antipodeans, but eagerly pursued the idea with happiness at avoiding all the risks of African adoptions. We were referred to a man in New York is specialises in expatriate adoptions in the US...and then quoted USD60,000 per child, not including all the travel and in-country expenses involved. I cried. Sadly, there is a lot of money involved in the process. I had expected 25k, but 60k?!!! As He said, "they should be paying us to adopt a child"! When I mentioned the cost estimate to the home study provider, they were horrified. They had no idea that this gentleman charged such an exorbitant fee, and suggested we re-consider Ethiopia.
The most significant risks in Africa are getting fooled into adopting a child that is not an orphan, or who has been sold or trafficked into adoption, or at least 'led' by persuasion. One of the ways to reduce this risk is to adopt from a Hague-accredited country*. There are a lot of them, >30.
Unfortunately, Ethiopia was accredited but then stripped of it a few years ago due to reports of recruitment of children from birth parents by adoption service providers or their employees. There are rumours that it won't be long before it's reaccredited. Once they were stripped of their accredita
tion, the Australian and NZ governments rightly ceased formal arrangements for adoption with them. However, we can still adopt privately from Ethiopia, and I soon learned that there are a lot of expatriates doing so. Most of them seem to live in Singapore or the UAE. Unsurprisingly, none of them are in our country of residence (!)...but it has been encouraging and extremely informative to talk with them, especially the Antipodeans who've been through it and successfully obtained home-country citizenship for their adopted children.I then, extremely unglamorously, fell out of the shower and my back landed on the porcelain edge of the toilet. After a couple of excruciating days in Siberia, we were flown in a private jet to Kenya, where I spent 2 weeks in the Nairobi hospital. I'm recovering extremely well, but it's a 2 step forwards, 1 step backwards kind of process, as I constantly re-assess my ability in the gym. Not being a gym-bunny, I've adapted quite quickly to being there 5-6 days a week, and I'm surprised that I'm really enjoying it. Long may it last.
The other thing that has been keeping me busy, is working on the logistics of trying to adopt. It's something we've been thinking about for a long time, but it has required a lot of talking and praying about, for obvious reasons. The idea has also spent considerable time in the too-hard basket. It was virtually impossible for us to adopt in the Antipodes primarily due to lengthy waiting lists, delays of up to 10y before a child is received, and various other limitations. Adopting as an expat is known to be one of the easier ways to do it, and legally, once we have lived overseas for 12mths, we are permitted to adopt and seek citizenship for that child in one of our home countries. But, naturally, international adoption comes with all kinds of risks and logistical complications.
The first step in the adoption process is to complete a home study, i.e an assessment by a qualified Social Worker or adoption agency, or our suitability to be parents. It doesn't make a lot of sense when most people can get pregnant and have a child whenever they like, but it does when you consider that there are so many stories of adopted children being abused and mistreated.
We were fortunate to find a home study provider that normally works with US expatriates, but agreed to work with us. They recommended that we adopt from the US, based on the ease of the process, the ability to adopt infants (this is surprisingly uncommon nowadays in international adoptions), and the speed of the process. We were surprised that we could do this, as Antipodeans, but eagerly pursued the idea with happiness at avoiding all the risks of African adoptions. We were referred to a man in New York is specialises in expatriate adoptions in the US...and then quoted USD60,000 per child, not including all the travel and in-country expenses involved. I cried. Sadly, there is a lot of money involved in the process. I had expected 25k, but 60k?!!! As He said, "they should be paying us to adopt a child"! When I mentioned the cost estimate to the home study provider, they were horrified. They had no idea that this gentleman charged such an exorbitant fee, and suggested we re-consider Ethiopia.
The most significant risks in Africa are getting fooled into adopting a child that is not an orphan, or who has been sold or trafficked into adoption, or at least 'led' by persuasion. One of the ways to reduce this risk is to adopt from a Hague-accredited country*. There are a lot of them, >30.
Unfortunately, Ethiopia was accredited but then stripped of it a few years ago due to reports of recruitment of children from birth parents by adoption service providers or their employees. There are rumours that it won't be long before it's reaccredited. Once they were stripped of their accredita
Ethiopia is a good choice for us for a number of reasons; it was our first choice due to friends who've had good experiences adopting from there, it's one of our neighbouring countries, thus convenient for traveling in and out, it's a country that allows adoptions by people of our faith, and it is one of the few foreign countries that still offers the opportunity to adopt infants. 'Siberia' does not allow adoption by people of our faith, which is very sad, particularly because there are more than 10,000 children in need of homes from one region of this country.
Navigating the adoption is tricky. Naturally we want to do the best we can to avoid corruption, adopting a child who shouldn't be available for adoption, or unintentionally greasing the palms of dodgy providers. This is also where the expat group is helpful for their experience and advice. The number of people involved in the process is huge. The home study providers, lawyers in Ethiopia and our home countries, adoption facilitators, the Ethiopian Ministry of Women, Children and Youth Affairs, the Ethiopian courts, etc.
So, what now? It's a little astonishing that after months of paperwork and correspondence, we are really only at the first stage. The home study required a 5,000 question survey that we had to complete together. Slight exaggeration on the number of questions there, but it must have been close. It took us months. It was extremely intensive, personal and confronting, addressing our childhood histories, our marriage history, our schooling, studies, careers, faith beliefs, why we want to adopt, why we love each other, how we plan to raise children, how we would discipline, and a number of other extremely personal questions.
The organisation wisely asked us to determine numerous things to ensure that we can definitely obtain citizenship for the children once they're adopted. This was really difficult, as the Antipodean governments don't want anything to do with the adoption until the children are legally ours, so are unwilling to provide anything in writing in advance. But, this is where the expatriate group was helpful again, as there are many couples from down under who have successfully done it recently. So after 3mths of back-and-forth enquiries and discussion, the Social Worker agreed to proceed. We then had to get a visa for her to enter Sudan, which we thought would be very problematic, mostly due to her being American (she lives in Ethiopia). But, all praise to the big man, we got it in a week!
She will visit our home, assess it for suitability for children (we need smoke detectors and childproof locks for cupboards now...try finding those in 'Siberia'!), assess us as a couple, and go through all the answers we gave on the questionnaire. She then has a month to write up the report recommending us (or not...), and once we have that report, we can start the process of finding children, with the help of a facilitator in Ethiopia, who we've already connected with. We have requested two children under the age of three, no gender preferences. They might be siblings or twins, but they could also be unrelated. Adopting two at once is naturally more expensive, and this, at least in Ethiopia, appears to speed up the process. So we expect that we may complete the adoption in the first half of next year. There are no guarantees though, and plenty of opportunities for major hiccups along the way, including not ever getting children. It's hard to imagine how that would feel, but we do keep reminding ourselves that it might not happen at all.
We have decided to be open about it, and update you along the way so that it isn't such a shock if we suddenly have two children who look nothing like us :). Also, for those of you who pray, we'd appreciate your prayers through the lengthy process ahead. We'll update you as things proceed, but be aware that it is likely to be months between any significant news. And don't fear we are going to be all about adoption talk...there's always enough going on (or not going on) in Siberia to share.
*The Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (or Hague Adoption Convention) is an international convention dealing with international adoption, child laundering, and child trafficking in an effort to protect those involved from the corruption, abuses and exploitation which sometimes accompanies international adoption.
