Posts Tagged ‘international adoption’

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Seven years

Wednesday, July 30th, 2014

Seven years and 27 trips to Guatemala later, the Kern family of Missouri finalizes the adoption of their son Hudson, born in Guatemala. Congratulations!!!!

Here’s the link to TV news coverage.

It’s hard for me to understand how living in an orphanage for years while a family waits for you benefits a child. Yet that was the reality for Hudson, and for all the children whose cases stalled after adoptions between Guatemala and the US closed in December 2007.

Reform, yes.  No doubt the adoption system was broken and needed to be fixed. Or shut down permanently. But to allow a small boy to spend seven years in an orphanage when he doesn’t really need to: Why?

Again, congratulations!~

 

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Update on orphanages in Guatemala

Tuesday, January 28th, 2014
The Wall Street Journal published Mary Anastasia O’Grady’s “Guatemala’s Stranded Orphans.” Below is a link to an interview with O’Grady–the article itself won’t “re-post.” Everyone agrees: Children first should stay with their mothers or be placed with extended family; second, children should be adopted in-country. But when that doesn’t happen–and few other countries besides the US embrace a culture of adoption, a documented fact–kids grow up in orphanages. Which is what is happening now.
http://live.wsj.com/video/opinion-guatemala-forgotten-orphans/410993E0-1A7B-48FB-8C7C-C83D0B695850.html#!410993E0-1A7B-48FB-8C7C-C83D0B695850

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Interview with the Cooperative for Education

Monday, January 20th, 2014

The Cooperative for Education, an NGO that works in Guatemala, interviewed me about Mamalita, and our connection to our children’s birth country.

Here’s the opening paragraph:

Jessica O’Dwyer knows Guatemala. She and her husband Tim adopted two children, Olivia and Mateo, from the land of eternal spring. Her memoir, Mamalita, is a beautiful account of her dogged pursuit to complete Olivia’s stalled adoption—even quitting her job to move to Antigua! In the past 12 years, Jessica and her family have been back to visit Guatemala many times, and have intentionally cultivated a connection with their children’s country of birth. We interviewed Jessica about writing the book and the ways in which she stays connected with Guatemala. Enjoy! –

See more at: http://coeduc.org/blog/a-look-at-guatemalan-adoption-an-interview-with-mamalita-author-and-adoptive-mom/#more-2777

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

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On the Trip to Maine

Monday, December 16th, 2013

I’m thrilled because my essay, On the Trip to Maine, is featured in the Winter issue of Adoption Constellation, the quarterly publication of Adoption Mosaic, an organization based in Portland, Oregon. The publication is not online, so I’ve posted it here:

On the Trip to Maine

Olivia, Mateo and I are on the last leg of our all-day cross-country journey to my nephew’s wedding, to be held in a tiny coastal village in central Maine. The airplane is small, so the kids sit together in seats 9A and B, while I sit across the aisle in 9C. Because we’re in the brief, blessed lull that often happens close to the end of a long trip when they’re too exhausted to fight with each other, my face is buried in the book I’ve been trying to read for weeks, hoping I can progress beyond Chapter Three, which may be why I don’t notice the flight attendant until she appears beside my elbow, leaning into my kids.

“How old are you two?” she asks without any preamble. Olivia looks up in the way she has when she wants to be sure she’s answering correctly. “Eleven and eight?” She says it like it’s a question.

The flight attendant gives a thumbs-up. Whatever test she’s administering, Olivia has passed. “Big kids,” the woman says. She pushes off and scurries up the aisle, her fingertips running along the overhead bins, slamming one shut as she passes. Turning sharply when she reaches the cockpit, she begins the safety demonstration, showing the belt low and tight across your lap, and the way you should affix the oxygen mask to yourself before assisting others.

A few seconds later, she’s back addressing Olivia. “Can you show me your nearest exit?”

Olivia points to the front door. “There?” Her voice sounds uncertain.

“Exactly,” the flight attendant says. “How about you, young man. Can you show me?”

Mateo’s face brightens. Happy to be noticed, he aims a finger forward. “There.”

The flight attendant smoothes her hair back behind her ears. “Excellent.”

Then it dawns on me: She thinks they’re flying unescorted. She must have spotted my two brown-skinned children, looked around and seen a plane full of white people, and assumed they were flying alone. Sure enough, in the next breath, she asks, “Are you traveling with an adult?”

“My mom,” Olivia says.

The attendant takes a quick scan of the surrounding faces, including mine, eye level with her elbow. “Where is she?” she asks.

“Right here.” I smile. “Beside you.”

“Oh.” The flight attendant’s eyes take in my pale skin, my blonde hair and blue eyes. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize…” Her voice trails off.

Reaching across the aisle, I squeeze Olivia’s hand and wink at Mateo. “How would you?” I say. “No worries.” The kids stay silent. They don’t smile. When we’re out in the world, people often mistake us for strangers to one another, instead of for who we are: mother and daughter and son. The mistake is not malicious. My kids are adopted from Guatemala. We look nothing alike.

And although I was warned, by our social worker and adoption agency, of what lay ahead, I have to confess: I wasn’t prepared. After spending the first four decades of my life blending in, how could I imagine what it would be like always to stand out? To be the family who forever must explain, in the airport security line, at the new dentist’s office, during the drop-off at the first day of school: Yes, I’m the mother. Yes, these are my kids. Yes, we’re related, although not by blood. Yes, they’re really brother and sister, although not biologically.

I signed up for transracial adoptive parenthood. I embrace my role as my children’s mother. But today, as I sat on an airplane inches away from my children and someone assumed they were alone, I wonder, as I have a thousand times, what does that feel like for my children? When confronted with the reminder that they’re adopted, do the questions threaten the bond they feel with me? Or do they make the bond stronger?

Over the years, I’ve heard every argument there is against transracial, transcultural adoption. People who know nothing about me or my relationship with each of my children’s birth mothers judge me, based on their own assumptions and beliefs. I’ve been called a privileged white American, an entitled imperialist, a baby snatcher. None of that bothers me. What bothers me is being faced with the fact that, because of our physical appearance, our family tie is undermined. I know it’s a small thing, but just once it would be nice if a stranger saw my kids and me, and knew that we belong together.

 

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Back home and reading at the O’Hanlon Center

Wednesday, August 28th, 2013
I’m back from a summer of traveling virtually nonstop with Olivia and Mateo–from San Diego to the Rocky Mountains to Virginia and North Carolina, up to Northern Minnesota, back to San Diego and then to Maine. What an amazing country this is! Gigantic and incredibly diverse, in looks and attitudes. Having spent most of my life on the two coasts, I’m always grateful for the chance to experience life in other places, especially ones as beautiful and interesting as where we visited.
On Monday, the kids returned to school, and I’ve spent most of every moment since then getting organized. One of my nieces lent me the book, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (a bestseller years ago, which everyone else in the world has read already, I realize, but hey, better late than never!), which has inspired me to attack the chaos of my life, beginning with my closets, the closets of my kids, and my desk downstairs. In the past 48 hours, I’ve made huge progress, ending up with bags and bags of stuff to be donated or thrown out. My hope is that by clearing out the old, I’ll make room for the new, and for me, that means enough space in my brain to allow it to wander. My big realization this summer is how much I long to return to writing a piece longer than 300 or 500 or 800 words. If my external vista is clear, my thinking goes, so will be my internal one. That’s my hope anyway.
In the meantime, tomorrow, Thursday, I’ll be reading (a new essay) at the O’Hanlon Center in Mill Valley from 7-9 PM, with three other local women authors: CB Follett, Eve Pell, and Abby Wasserman. I love reading at the O’Hanlon–a beautiful setting and always an incredibly attentive and literate crowd. If you’re in the neighborhood, please stop by!

PS: The paragraph breaks have disappeared. Why, I don’t know. And I’ve given up trying to fix it. Sorry for the compressed type!

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Summer in San Diego

Thursday, August 8th, 2013

I’m in San Diego with the kids, where my sister Deanna and her three girls also are visiting. I love being in a quiet house with sleeping children, the morning after a day at the swimming pool and dinner at our favorite taco restaurant, topped off with big bowls of mint chip ice cream over a game of Monopoly. This entire summer, I’ve never slept better. Playing outside all day does that to you, I guess. Once I gave up the idea of trying to “do” anything else–writing, reading, exercising in a focused way, and a million other activities and tasks I can’t remember now because I’m distracted thinking about getting breakfast on the table–I’ve cherished this summer. We can’t be productive all the time, you know?

Sometimes we just have to load up the snacks and the beach towels and the sunscreen and pile everyone into the minivan to drive hither and yon in search of the perfect pool, beach, playground, or zoo. This summer, that’s my job. And I’m grateful.

 

 

 

 

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Heritage Camp for Adoptive Families

Tuesday, July 2nd, 2013

We just returned from six days in Colorado, the main purpose of which was to attend Heritage Camp for Adoptive Families. I love our life, but a part of me wishes we could live in that supportive, insulated world forever. This is our fifth year attending, over the past six years: The first time I flew alone from California with Olivia, when she had just turned five, and from the moment we walked together into the big gathering hall filled with more than 100 adoptive families with kids born in Latin America, we looked at each other with disbelieving eyes. Was this place real? Even at five years old, Olivia, perhaps more than me, sensed we had discovered something special.

I’ll try to put into words why I love Heritage Camp. It’s the feeling of being at home, among friends, among families who also get stared at, everywhere else they go. Of not needing to explain anything to anyone. Of our family being in a large social situation, and in a very deep and rare way, feeling relaxed. It’s watching the teen counselors, most of whom are camp alumni, as they interact with our children–so caring and empathic because the teens are also adopted, with parents and other family members who don’t look like them, and they’ve already endured years of that, and have come out the other side, which gives me hope my children will, too. Of dancing at the Fiesta on Saturday night and realizing every child on the dance floor is adopted, not only mine, and what a relief that must feel like to my kids–for once, being like everybody else. Of listening to a roundtable discussion by a panel of adult adoptees, and learning from their experiences about ways I can try to do better. About ways we can all learn from each other.

I sometimes feel like a broken record, the way I constantly promote Heritage Camp, Heritage Camp, Heritage Camp! But then at dinner our first night, I asked an attendee from Illinois who was sitting at my table how she’d learned about Heritage Camp, and she said, “I read about it on a blog I follow, Mamalita.” Even better, she told me she definitely planned to return next year.

So I’ll say it again. If you haven’t ever attended Heritage Camp for Adoptive Families, think about it.  That’s all. Think about it.

Thank you. ~

 

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“The Child Catchers” by Kathryn Joyce

Thursday, May 2nd, 2013

I recently read Kathryn Joyce’s The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption. The book’s premise can be summarized by this excerpt from the description on Kathryn Joyce’s website:

To tens of millions of evangelicals, adoption has become a new front in the culture wars: a test of “pro-life” bonafides, a way to reinvent compassionate conservatism on the global stage, and a means to fulfill the “Great Commission” mandate that Christians evangelize the nations. Influential leaders fervently promote a new “orphan theology,” urging followers to adopt en masse, with little thought for the families these “orphans” may actually have. Christian adoption activists have added moral weight to a multi-billion dollar adoption industry intent on increasing the “supply” of adoptable children, both at home and overseas.

The Child Catchers is a shocking exposé of what the adoption industry has become and how it got there, told through deep investigative reporting and the heartbreaking stories of individuals who found that their own, and their children’s, well-being was ultimately irrelevant in a market driven by profit and now, pulpit command.

There’s a lot to say about The Child Catchers, but my overriding reaction is intense frustration that so little has been learned and implemented following Guatemala’s shutdown. Many of the cases cited by Kathryn Joyce take place in Ethiopia and involve corrupt facilitators in-country, who coerce and trick before the final faked paperwork ever makes it as far as the US Embassy. As you probably know if you’re reading this, Ethiopia replaced Guatemala as the adoption “hot spot,” and adoption numbers there sky rocketed after Guatemala closed.

Will nothing ever change?

My second reaction is more of a question: Why should anyone’s religious beliefs enter into the debate over corruption in international adoption? Adoption practices either are corrupt, or they’re not. If they are, shut them down. Or better, don’t allow them to start, which is the intention of the Hague Treaty.

If adoption practices are not corrupt, then it really shouldn’t be anyone’s business why someone chooses to adopt, or what religion they embrace. Religious freedom is one of the hallmarks of the US. Honestly, I’m curious to know what Kathryn Joyce hopes to accomplish by criticizing evangelical Christians for their beliefs and practices. Because my guess is that such criticism in fact may produce the opposite effect of what she intended. Instead of reform, it may (understandably) cause (some) evangelical Christians to feel attacked, leading to a posture of defense.

As I noted above, the book’s description states “[t]o tens of millions of evangelicals, adoption has become the new front in the culture wars,” implying that tens of millions of evangelicals are adopting children internationally through nefarious means. This simply isn’t true. The number of intercountry adoptions to the United States in 2012 in total was fewer than 9,000. If the “tens of millions” refers to evangelicals who are concerned about children in need, then wonderful. Otherwise, the figure seems exaggerated and misleading.

Overall, Joyce’s book is thoroughly researched and well-written, albeit to me as an adoptive mother, unfairly one-sided. Adoption for my husband and me, and every other adoptive parent I know (and that’s a lot of people), is about creating a family. That said, I respect Joyce’s point of view and her right to tell the story she feels compelled to report.

One quibble, though, with The Child Catchers, in general:  Joyce devotes much ink to the case of “self-declared missionary” Laura Silsby, who illegally removed children from Haiti after the earthquake, even while admitting Silsby was an outlier who chose not to follow the rules. This was true of several “players” Joyce profiled, who seem extreme in every way, not only regarding adoption.

Also: I was sorry and confused to read that some US birth mothers affected by the 50s “Baby Scoop,” now feel that parents who opt for open adoption are doing so only as a way to ingratiate themselves to birth mothers, and perhaps convince them to relinquish their babies. As many of you reading this know, our family chose open adoption with our kids because we believe it’s healthiest—mentally, psychologically, spiritually, and just the right thing to do—for everyone involved. I’m very sad to learn that some birth mothers may feel we have an ulterior motive or immoral agenda.

Here are links to interviews and articles for more information. The first is a cogent rebuttal by adoptive parent and Senior Counsel at the Center for American Law and Justice, David French. The remainder feature Kathryn Joyce and The Child Catchers:

From the National Review Online: Is the Left Launching an Attack on Evangelical Adoption? by David French.

An interview with Kathryn Joyce on NPR’s Fresh Air: How Evangelical Christians Are Preaching the New Gospel of Adoption.

Kathryn Joyce’s 2011 article in The Nation: The Evangelical Adoption Crusade.

Kathryn Joyce’s 2011 article in The Atlantic: How Ethiopia’s Adoption Industry Dupes Families and Bullies Activists.

An book excerpt in the May 2013 Mother Jones: Orphan Fever.

Finally, a link to an MSNBC interview conducted by Melissa Harris-Perry with Tarikuwa Lemma, a young woman featured in the book who was adopted from Ethiopia at 13 and is now an adult. Scroll around the site to find the interview with Kathryn Joyce and Karen Moline, board member from PEAR (People for Ethical Adoption Reform). I especially liked what PEAR board member Karen Moline said, as an adoptive mother to a son from Vietnam, circa 2001 I believe. Something like “American parents are so trusting that they never, ever believe that bad people motivated by greed could be involved in adoption.” Yes, that would be my husband and me, in the beginning of our process, before we knew anything.

On that note. Still praying for the families of the Guatemala 900, waiting, at a minimum, for more than five years. ~

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Back to reality

Monday, April 15th, 2013

This week, both kids finally are back in school, and life, I hope, will return to some semblance of normal. First Mateo had what is called in these parts “February ski week,” and because we don’t ski, he and I flew down to Guatemala together, and among other things, climbed a volcano, about which I wrote here. Two weeks later, Olivia and I shared 14 wonderful days in Antigua and Panajachel during her Spring break, which happily coincided with Guatemala’s famous Semana Santa and the holiday schedules of several other adoptive families, with whom we shared many laughs, meals, and unforgettable experiences such as making chocolate, visiting the Zoo and Children’s Museum, crashing the pool and playground at Hotel Antigua, and engaging in philosophical discussions about adoption, parenting, the politics of Guatemala, and other subjects about which we all obsess. In addition, we visited with Olivia’s birth family, the true purpose of our trip, as you no doubt already know if you’re reading this. I believe I speak for everyone involved when I say how deeply grateful I am to feel our relationship develop.

Olivia and I flew home late last Sunday night—exhausted but happy, and only one of us sick (my usual bug that I cannot seem to avoid, and to which Olivia thankfully seems genetically impervious). And while Olivia returned to school early Monday morning, Mateo did not. For, oh yes, Monday heralded the start of yet another vacation for my dear boy, his official April Spring break. How do parents manage who work regular hours in offices?

Anyway, this week, we’re back on track and I plan to begin writing again, especially about Semana Santa before the details fade, and now that I’m almost finished whittling down the stacks of bills, papers, taxes, and laundry that seem never, completely, to disappear.

But I cherish the weeks I had alone with each of my children, who fascinate, challenge, and energize me, and whom I madly love. I wouldn’t trade a minute.

The photo above was taken on my birthday last year while we visited my sister Deanna and her family in Boston, and is the only recent one I can find that shows the three of us together. The talented De made the cake from scratch, gluten-free. Kind of wish I had a slice right now. Mmm-mmm!

xo

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Semana Santa 2013. A visit with Olivia’s birth family

Friday, April 5th, 2013

 

This week, we met with Olivia’s birth family in Panajachel, a town on Lake Atitlan about three hours northwest of Antigua. The family—Olivia’s birth mother, “Ana”; her grandmother, Abuela, and her older brother and sister, now 18 and 16—traveled to Pana by bus from where they live in Totonicapan. Opinions around the subject of international adoption are mixed in Guatemala, ranging from supportive to very negative, so to protect Ana’s privacy we always meet in Pana, two hours from her town. (In small villages such as the one where they live, outsiders never pass unnoticed.) As you can see from the photo, Olivia is almost as tall as Ana, and about the same height as Abuela. Olivia had just turned seven the first year she met her family; next month she will be 11.

This meeting was a little different from our previous ones for two reasons: first, because my sister Patrice usually accompanies us on birth family visits and couldn’t this time. (We missed you, Tia!) And second, because Abuela’s shoulder was bothering her so much she couldn’t move her arm to do anything, including lift a fork to eat. The lightest touch caused her to wince with pain. Bear in mind, this is a woman who for decades has chopped firewood, hauled water, made tortillas, and washed thousands of loads of laundry by hand.

Olivia wanted to take a boat ride to another village on Lake Atitlan—she doesn’t like to feel conspicuous in “our” town of Panajachel—so we did. As usual, our first stop was to pray together in the town’s Catholic church, and may I just say that the faith and goodness of Olivia’s birth family absolutely humbles me.

Afterwards, we ate a nice lunch, over which we perused the photo albums from last year’s visit that I had assembled and brought. But none of us could ignore Abuela’s obvious suffering. Trying to ascertain the exact nature of the problem, I could make out the Spanish word for “bone,” although nothing about a fall or injury. As far as I could determine, a visit to their local clinic in Toto hadn’t revealed a root cause.

Long story short, I called Nancy Hoffman, my fellow adoptive mom who owns a travel agency in Antigua, and she said the desk clerk at our hotel knows a good doctor. Turned out he does: Dr. Luis de Pena, the physician who runs the clinic at Mayan Families, the NGO many of us adoptive families support, and where, in fact, I had been last month with Mateo, dropping off shoes donated by Olivia’s Girl Scout troop.

Our group clambered onto the next boat to Pana, piled off and into two tuk-tuks, and zipped up to Mayan Families.

After a physical exam, Dr. de Pena made a diagnosis: bursitis. If the injection he administered doesn’t work—he sent me out to buy the syringe from an NGO-subsidized pharmacy around the corner and two blocks down, “Fe, Salud y Vida”—and other causes are ruled out, Abuela may need surgery. This only can be performed in a hospital by an orthopedic surgeon, and in Guatemala, apparently, orthopedic surgeons’ numbers are few. If necessary, Abuela must travel to Guatemala City or Quetzaltenango.

Today’s report is that the pain has subsided somewhat. We’ll see.

What I appreciated most about this visit was how natural it felt. Abuela was in pain, and we did our best to help her feel better. That’s what family does, and we’re family.

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