Featured Adoption Story of the month  

Our journey to adopt our beautiful little girl from Guatemala actually started over three years ago and includes many twists and turns. Adoption is truly a miraculous way to build or add to a family, and our case is no different. However, it is not for the faint of heart! Here’s how we navigated the sometimes stormy waters of international adoption..

My husband and I, like many of you, endured years of trying to conceive, fertility treatments and multiple miscarriages. We slowly came around to the idea that parenting a child was more important than bearing biological offspring, and we started researching adoption options. Because we have friends from Latin America and family members fluent in Spanish, we really wanted to adopt a child from this region. In addition, after visiting an orphanage in Bolivia, I knew that’s where my heart was with regard to adoption. We filled out initial paperwork with an agency who handled Bolivian adoptions, but found out a few months later that the country had closed adoptions to the United States. Luckily we got a full refund of the initial fees paid, and we started looking at other countries.

We next turned to Ecuador, researched several agencies specializing in the country, and selected one. From that point it all went downhill. We prepared a dossier for Ecuador and submitted it. While we waited eighteen months for a referral, the country’s program basically dried up. A very, very few adoptions across all of the licensed agencies were processed during this time, and I became more and more doubtful as I read the daily posts on the EcuadorAdopt listserv. Agencies closed their programs one by one, and the Ecuadorian government kept coming up with excuses why adoptions couldn’t be processed and were put on hold. I began to get angry anytime someone would ask “So, how’s the adoption thing going?” During this year and a half, we doubted everything about our adoption—and finally, in December of 2004, we made the painful and frightening decision to start over yet again with a different country.

Of course, by this time, we had even more doubts. Were we being sent a message that we shouldn’t adopt, since we had worked hard toward this goal, waited almost two years and had basically gotten nowhere? Also, my husband and I were two years older by this time and had ‘aged out’ of many of the other Latin American programs. On the bright side though, I had become a paperwork ‘pro’ and had gotten pretty good at locating extra copies of birth and marriage certificates, keeping our immigration file current with USCIS, and getting letters of recommendation from friends and workplaces redone. Deep down, we knew there would be a child for our family somewhere in the world, and that kept us going.

During our experience with Ecuador, I found out about another family just below us on the waiting list who had given up on Ecuador and switched to the Guatemala program through an agency called World Partners. After a brief e-mail correspondence with the father in this family, I contacted World Partners in January of 2005 and spoke with Traci DeBra by phone. After all we had already experienced with our adoption journey, I didn’t know what to expect, but something in that first telephone conversation quelled my fears and it just seemed right. Just to be completely sure, however, I checked the references which Traci gladly provided and got many positive (and no negative) recommendations from other families.

Working with Traci and Josh, I moved our Guatemalan dossier onto the ‘fast track’ and got it completed sometime around the middle of March. Let me say right here that both Traci and Josh genuinely care about helping families find each other and it really shows in everything they do. They sent us a huge binder with tons of realistic information about the program which answered most of our questions, however they were also easily available by phone and e-mail to address other issues that came up. I felt throughout the entire process that nothing was sugarcoated nor deliberately kept hidden—everything we needed and wanted to know about our adoption was willingly provided to us. I feel this makes a huge difference—after all, nobody wants to adopt a child from a country or through a process that has anything ‘shady’ going on. World Partners works with reputable attorneys in Guatemala who care about keeping the process clean. It matters!

The third week of April, just a little over a month after we submitted our dossier, we received the referral of our Katherine, who had been born on April 1. We accepted, and the next phase of our adventure began. Very luckily for us, the rest of the process went just as smoothly as it had from the first day we called World Partners. Traci and Josh kept us notified of each part of the process and made it easy for us to stay on top of all the documents and the other steps we needed to follow.

After the DNA testing came back a match (hooray!), we traveled to Guatemala to visit our little girl, then four months old, in late July/early August of 2005. When our wonderful foster mom placed Katherine in our arms for the first time, it felt as though a weight had been lifted from our shoulders and that our family was finally complete. It was clearly evident that Katherine received excellent care—this foster mother absolutely adored her and took care of her as if she was ‘her own.’ We stayed a week at the Marriott, getting to know our daughter and enjoying the culture. Guatemala is a beautiful country with easygoing and caring people.

By a remarkable coincidence, on one of the last days of our trip the final Family Court appointment was scheduled, so a representative from the attorney’s office and the foster mom came to pick up Katherine for a few hours that afternoon. The birth mother was needed at this appointment as well, so to my great amazement I had a chance to meet and talk with her a little [using my intermediate-level Spanish]. As I understand the process, meeting the birthmother is not the norm, but it did happen for us. I feel very thankful that I will be able to describe this experience to my daughter if and when she has questions as she gets older.

At the end of our visit trip, it was difficult leaving our daughter, but it was made much easier knowing that she would be in good hands with her foster mother. We are so glad we visited for a number of reasons—I’d recommend it to anyone who is able to do so. Besides the benefit of your child being an automatic U.S. citizen upon coming to the States, we were glad we visited because it gave us confidence that we really could take care of a tiny baby! In addition, anything you are able to learn about your child’s birth country and culture is a gift to them, both in the short- and long-term.

Only six weeks or so after our visit, we got the call from Traci that we were out of PGN and that our adoption was final. We could hardly believe that our process had gone so smoothly—but also knew that we needed to wait for the famed ‘pink slip’ before traveling. Luckily, we got it a couple of weeks later and Josh told us to get our plane tickets for our pick-up trip! We were very excited and nervous, but very happy as we scrambled to get our bags packed and make final travel arrangements. From the first time I saw the picture of our daughter [and especially after we had visited and held her], I felt as though we had somebody in the world who was counting on us to follow through, and there was nothing that would have kept me from getting on that plane to bring her home. Therefore we were excited and relieved to know that Katherine was really ours now—that we were really her parents! We left for Guatemala City on October 6, 2005.

While on our pick-up trip, we decided to treat the attorney, his assistant and the foster mother to dinner as a thank-you. Amusingly, we ate at a Western Sizzler which was actually not far from the hotel. The food was delicious but more importantly, we had almost three hours of great conversation about adoption, the cultural differences between our two countries, and our little girl. As you might expect, the people who work on adoptions on our behalf really do care about the lives their little charges will lead once they leave for the United States. It was reassuring to have this confirmed, and also I think it helped those who worked hardest on our adoption in Guatemala to know that Katherine would be in good hands as well. The dinner was truly an amazing experience—I’d recommend it for anyone adopting through this program.

The required appointment at the U.S. Embassy, while time-consuming, was hassle-free, and after receiving Katherine’s passport the following afternoon, we flew home the next day. Katherine’s foster mother met us at the airport for a final goodbye, and there were tears all around as we exchanged gifts and promised to stay in touch. The plane ride itself was surprisingly calm--Katherine is a sweet-natured and easygoing baby, which made the three-hour flight manageable. Once we landed in Atlanta, we spent about thirty minutes going through Immigration and breathed a sigh of relief once it was over. Then we located the gate for the last leg of our flight. Our new little citizen was almost home!

The next few days at home brought several visitors to meet the new baby and welcome her to our family. After that, we spent several weeks together full-time getting to know each other and settling in, courtesy of my employer. While the adjustment to life with Katherine has been a big one, it has not been difficult! She brings so much joy to our lives, it’s easy to get used to the little inconveniences that come with any new family member. We are also lucky to have a very supportive extended family, many of whom live close by.

I can remember while we were waiting over the many long months for some word that we were getting closer to our daughter, and hearing people say that once your child is home all the heartache and frustration melt away and it’s easy to forget what the ‘rough days’ were like. Katherine has been home for over three months and I feel as though she’s been with us forever—she truly belongs with us and I am so thankful she’s ours.

For those of you reading this who are where we were, nervous and anxious about the unknowns of adoption, first realize that while adoption is its own ‘roller-coaster ride,’ it is completely do-able and more importantly, YOU can do it! Here are a few other pieces of advice that you might find useful: