Posts Tagged ‘Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir’

San Diego, Part 4. Water world

Friday, April 15th, 2011

Yesterday morning, while Olivia and Tim stayed home to struggle with my daughter’s math enrichment homework–a long story for another day–Mateo and I took a walk on the beach. At that hour, on a Thursday in April, the flat stretch was almost deserted. I strolled while Mateo skipped ahead, stopping every few feet to examine the thousands of rocks and shells that had washed up on shore. Neither of us could remember ever seeing so many.

On the way home, we spied two sweethearts kissing in the shallow water. In the sand, one had drawn a heart with an arrow through it, proclaiming his love. Mateo asked me to walk ahead, then wrote his own proclamation, shown below. If I could have, I would have cast his drawing in bronze. As an alternative, this picture.

Afterward, the kids decided they wanted to go swimming, so we headed for a public pool. If you ever wonder why a large number of athletes who compete on the national level live in San Diego, here’s why: Local municipalities and their residents dedicate substantial funds to athletic facilities, like this public pool, open to non-residents willing to pay a day rate. Wonderful. Tim and I took turns watching the kids and alternated swimming laps. Everyone got a work-out.

After an afternoon playing in the sun, pizza sounded good. Thus ended another beautiful day in San Diego. 

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Whose story is it? AP article on adopting HIV-positive children

Monday, April 4th, 2011

During the five years I wrote Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir, I grappled daily with the question of how much of the story I was entitled to tell. After all, the book’s subject is the adoption of my daughter, Olivia, from Guatemala. Ultimately, I decided the story belonged to me, too, at least partially. As long as I kept the narrative from my point of view, I believed her privacy would be maintained. Foremost in my mind was the question, “When my daughter’s in high school, will she be okay reading this?” I can say with confidence that I believe she will.

That said, I also wanted to write the truth of intercountry adoption as I experienced it. A baby strapped in a stroller in front of a television set or kicking me away because I was her fourth mother-figure aren’t the ideal visuals to communicate, but that was what happened. Change can never be made if no one talks about reality, including the impact on children of prolonged foster or institutional care, or multiple caregiver placements.

I was reminded of the struggle between privacy and truth-telling as I read this Associated Press article by David Crary, More families adopting HIV-positive children. One of the children discussed was born in Guatemala. Do parents have the right to reveal their minor children’s HIV-positive status via an Associated Press article? Although there is absolutely nothing shameful about the disease, it might not be information a person necessarily wishes to share with the world at large.

I don’t know the answer, but my guess is that, like me, the parents in question hoped to normalize their family’s situation by being honest about it. Time will tell if our children feel the same.

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New Yorker article on the death of Rodrigo Rosenberg

Saturday, April 2nd, 2011

This week’s issue of The New Yorker (April 4, 2011) contains a riveting article about the death of Guatemalan attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg that should be read by anyone interested in the country or adoption. A Murder Foretold: Unravelling the Ultimate Political Conspiracy by David Grann begins this way:

Rodrigo Rosenberg knew that he was about to die. It wasn’t because he was approaching old age—he was only forty-eight. Nor had he been diagnosed with a fatal illness; an avid bike rider, he was in perfect health. Rather, Rosenberg, a highly respected corporate attorney in Guatemala, was certain that he was going to be assassinated.

Not only is Rosenberg’s death a tragedy, it occurred under circumstances so tangled and unbelievable, you must must read the entire article to appreciate its impact. The more people understand why a man would be driven to do what Rosenberg did, perhaps the more they will care about Guatemala, and the less Rosenberg’s death will have been in vain. For purposes of this blog, which deals with adoption, I will focus on a few early paragraphs, because they lay out the context in which adoption to the United States occurred:

Rosenberg had frequently expressed despair over the violence that consumed Guatemala. In 2007, a joint study by the United Nations and the World Bank ranked it as the third most murderous country. Between 2000 and 2009, the number of killings rose steadily, ultimately reaching sixty-four hundred. The murder rate was nearly four times higher than Mexico’s. In 2009, fewer civilians were reported killed in the war zone of Iraq than were shot, stabbed, or beaten to death in Guatemala.

The violence can be traced to a civil war between the state and leftist rebels, a three-decade struggle that, from 1960 to 1996, was the dirtiest of Latin America’s dirty wars. More than two hundred thousand people were killed or “disappeared.” According to a U.N.-sponsored commission, at least ninety per cent of the killings were carried out by the state’s military forces or by paramilitary death squads with names like Eye for an Eye.

***

In 1996, the government reached a peace accord with the rebels, and it was supposed to mark a new era of democracy and rule of law. But amnesty was granted for even the worst crimes, leaving no one accountable. 

***

After the peace accord, the state’s security apparatus—death squads, intelligence units, police officers, military counter-insurgency forces—did not disappear but, rather, mutated into criminal organizations. Amounting to a parallel state, these illicit networks engage in arms trafficking, money laundering, extortion, human smuggling, black-market adoptions, and kidnapping for ransom. The networks also control an exploding drug trade. Latin America’s cartels, squeezed by the governments of Colombia and Mexico, have found an ideal sanctuary in Guatemala, and most of the cocaine entering America now passes through the country. Criminal networks have infiltrated virtually every government and law-enforcement agency, and more than half the country is no longer believed to be under the control of any government at all. Citizens, deprived of justice, often form lynch mobs, or they resolve disputes, even trivial ones, by hiring assassins.

I personally would like to know what author David Grann means by “black-market adoptions.” Use of an alias on paperwork? Change of a birth date? The omission of the name of a husband when one existed? None of those things are “right,” but they are a far cry from baby-snatching, which is what “black-market adoptions” implies, at least to me.  Perhaps Grann simply is saying that adoption was handled in a manner he observed often in Guatemala. As my lawyer once told me during my daughter’s adoption, “Things are different here.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011

/04/04/110404fa_fact_grann#ixzz1IN5OtDYa

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Conference call on Guatemalan adoption, 3/31/11

Thursday, March 31st, 2011

I just hung up the phone from the U.S. State Department conference call on the status of Guatemalan adoption and I’m in awe of the composure of the other people who were on the line. Not the State Department employees, who are doing their best and are trained to remain composed. But the parents who have been waiting for their children for more than three years–the group known as the Guatemala900. How did those mothers and fathers not shriek with outraged fury–My child is growing up in an orphanage without me! My kid needs a loving family! Does anyone care about the fate of our children?

I’m afraid that’s what I might have done.

The first thing we were told was that the call was “off-the-record” for journalists. I doubt anyone considers my blog “journalism,” but in case they do, I’ll respect that caveat. Besides, there is little new to report since the 12/21/10 conference call. Guatemalan working groups continue to review cases. The universe of cases seems to remain around 385. The ones in PGN are staying in PGN; the ones in CNA aren’t moving from there, either. The pace is still slow. Excruciatingly so. Six cases per week, on average. At that rate, we’re looking at another year and a half to two years, minimum, for large-scale resolution.

I understand how important it is to remain positive. But the more I read articles, books, and other blogs about international adoption, the more I realize that emotion, and not reason, often seems to drive the decision-making process.  Take adoption from Ethiopia. Recently, the government there announced that due to “irregularities”–real or perceived–only five cases a day would be processed. A spate of blog posts followed, pro and con, including an excellent overview at Creating a Family. In the Comments section, “abiye” wrote this: 

“Most Ethiopians are not happy in what’s going on in the Adoption dram[a]. Ethiopians, particularly in Addis Ababa, get angry seeing white people coming into their country and leave with a child – as if that child is a pet. This is/was a talk of the town for last few years & the government knows it that at any time the anger can reach a boiling point.”

I posted in response: 

“As an adoptive mother to two children from Guatemala, I admit there are problems in the system that must be fixed. However… From my observation, some of the controversy around international adoption stems from th[e] anger [abiye describes]. If that’s the case, perhaps no level of reform will ever be perceived as satisfactory.” 

In a February 17  blog post, I wrote about the Kyrgyzstan 65, a group of adoptive parents in the U.S. whose pending adoptions have been hung up for years.  Yesterday, March 30, an article titled Bishkek Lawmakers Reluctant to Lift International Adoption Freeze appeared on Eurasianet.org.  

In 2008, responding to local rumors that foreigners were adopting babies to harvest their organs, the Kyrgyz government imposed a moratorium on international adoptions. Since then, American families… have been waiting to bring home 65 children whose adoptions were in progress when the freeze was announced. According to the Ministry of Social Protection, 30 of the 65 orphans have special health conditions and need regular treatment that is difficult to find in Kyrgyzstan. Two have died. Families in Kyrgyzstan have adopted only four.

Could it be that, around the world, unreasonable delays are happening because, bottom line, some people really don’t want these adoptions to be resolved? That, for reasons of their own, a nation would prefer their children live in orphanages than go to the United States? Recently, I was asked to participate on a panel about adoption from Guatemala. In preparation, the question arose about domestic adoption in Guatemala–that is, Guatemalan families adopting children who are not blood relations. How many such adoptions have occurred, now that adoptions are closed to outsiders? If an answer exists, none of us could find it, including a Guatemalan national with close ties to adoption. “Domestic adoption first” is held up as a solution, the better way to provide permanent families for children who need them. Wonderful. But in the three years since the December 2007 shutdown, few, if any, families in Guatemala have stepped up to adopt orphans.

Meanwhile, the families on the phone line today continue to wait.

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The “Who am I?” question

Thursday, March 3rd, 2011

During one of my readings for Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir, a woman in the audience, “Sula,” said she cried when she read the book’s dedication: “To my children and their other mothers, with love.” Sula and her husband had chosen to create their family via egg donation. My dedication, and the parts of the story that highlighted the role of Olivia’s birth mother and my subsequent search for her in the highlands of Guatemala, triggered something deep within Sula. She said because of my book, she now views the role of her egg donor in a different, more substantial way.

I was reminded of this episode today when I read this article by Tom Blackwell in Canada’s National Post, published in the February 2011 edition of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute Newsletter. The abstract reads:

A pending case in Vancouver will determine if donor-conceived individuals in Canada will have a right to learn the identities of the people who provided eggs or sperm for their conceptions, Tom Blackwell reports in a January 28 National Post article titled “Genetic Rights: The Other Half of the Family Tree.” Although opponents of disclosure argue that raising the curtains on donor identities will decimate an already-small pool of gamete providers, the suit emphasizes the importance of finding one’s identity and roots, and points to the success of mandatory disclosure in Great Britain.

In the same edition, the Adoption Institute posted a report on adoption’s lessons for assisted reproductive technologies (ART), “Old Lessons for a New World.” The summary states:

The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute released this Policy Perspective brief in February 2009 which suggests that the knowledge derived from adoption-related research and experience can be used to improve policy and practice in the world of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) such as sperm, egg and embryo “donations.”  Old Lessons for a New World” identifies several areas in which adoption’s lessons could be applied, including secrecy and the withholding of information; a focus on the best interests of children; the creation of “nontraditional” families, particularly as more single, gay and lesbian adults use ART; the impact of market forces; and legal and regulatory frameworks to inform standards and procedures.

Clearly, as an increasing number of people turn to assisted reproduction as a method of forming families, the lessons learned from adoption will become even more critical.

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Guatemala Part 6: Last day in Antigua

Saturday, February 26th, 2011

Today is our last day in Antigua. Tomorrow we go to the capital and fly home to California. Entonces, I have time only to post a few photos. Above, the front door of the casita where Olivia and I lived in 2003. The lovely woman with us is our dear friend Paola, known to readers of Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir by her real name. (One of the few names I didn’t change.) The home is owned and rented by Elizabeth Bell, founder of Antigua Tours and author of Antigua Guatemala: The City and Its Heritage, among other titles.

Below is the pool at Hotel Antigua, early this morning, and the wonderful new play structure, perhaps the grandest in all of Antigua.

The last photo I’m including for anyone who visited Antigua with their children in years past. Remember these original swings? Happily, they remain. 

My sister and daughter are waiting. Time to hit the calle. xo

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Guatemala900 on FOXFiles; and the group known as the Kyrgyz 65.

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

The TV segment on FOXFiles in St. Louis, Missouri begins like this:

Imagine adopting a baby, but not being able to bring him home. For several hundred couples across the county, it’s a sad reality that has been going on for years, including Carri and Jason Kern of Wentzville. “We were told it would take 4 to 6 months for him to come home,” said Carri Kern, adding “it has been over 3 1/2 years.”

The have named him Hudson. He is still living Guatemala, which is where he was born. For a long time, adoptions from Guatemala were quick and easy, but the system there had become so corrupt, in 2007 the Guatemalan government shut it down, agreeing to grandfather in hundreds of couples whose adoptions were already in progress. And one of them was Hudson’s. But because of that past corruption, adoption judges there are under now such scrutiny they have made the process cloudy, unpredictable, and long.

The Kerns have been to Guatemala for court dates 13 times. “It is a very emotional attachment, seeing him every time. You can’t let go and you can’t stop fighting,” said Jason Kern.Though Hudson has never seen his new home, he knows it is waiting for him. He already calls Carri and Jason mama and papa. They talk on Skype, and visit him in person on special occasions like Christmases, and birthdays.

Readers of this blog recognize the Kerns as belonging to the Guatemala900, families who have been waiting for their adoptions to be finalized since adoptions closed in December 2007. It’s heartbreaking to watch the TV segment and see the Kerns stand in the cozy but empty bedroom they have prepared for their son, filled with toys and books and mobiles, and to listen as they verbalize their grief. 

I’ve recently been made aware of another group, known as the “Kyrgyz 65,” who also wait for their children. Gabrielle Shimkus found me on the Mamalita Facebook page and wrote: 

We received our referral in Aug. 2008. A little boy, 2 months old, with a cleft lip and palate. He was as frail as could be. We had all of our paperwork here in the US approved and our dossier in Kyrgyzstan. We went for our first visit in November 2008, and spent 2 full weeks with him, loving him.

It was only supposed to be one more month before we returned to go to Kyrgyz court and take him home with us for good, but that didn’t happen. One day the Kyrgyz government heard rumblings of people forging paperwork. It turns out to be vaguely true, but of another country, not ours. That day they decided their adoption laws were too easy and in one fell swoop got rid of every law on the books. They did not consider that there were 65 families in the immediate pipeline to adopt—families, like ours, who were weeks away from that one court hearing that would have allowed us to take our kids home. Their government refused to allow our adoptions to go forward because they no longer had the laws to finish them.

Still they dangled the carrot in front of us. “Just give us a few months. 6 months we promise. You will have your kids by Christmas.” They then placed a moratorium on international adoptions.

After months of hanging by a thread, the country elected a new president, who was the first female Asian president. She heard our pleas, told us to be patient. Months more went by.  A new Parliament was elected and we were promised our legislation would be one of the first to go through. It didn’t happen. The US State Department has been involved all along, but provide us with no concrete answers.

We are now 2 1/2 years since this tragedy began. The 65 families have a forum where we keep in daily contact with each other. We have contacted every Senator, Congressman, and person of influence we can think of. Some of the families have dropped off. 2 of the children have died waiting. Yes, 2 children are dead because they succumbed to illnesses treatable here in the US. It is horrible, beyond words.

The crazy thing is that all along they have said we can have our kids. Very few people are against this. They just don’t have the know-how to finish our process. Crazy to still hold on to hope when everytime it gets ripped out from under us. Still, no one will tell us “NO YOU CAN’T HAVE YOUR KID.” Maybe if they did things would be different. Maybe some of the parents could heal and move on. But the carrot is still out there dangling. We get pictures every few months, and that is the closest we come.

How can you respond to an email like this one? Or to the TV segment about the Kerns? By sending positive thoughts and prayers and solidarity? The faithfulness of hopeful adoptive parents like Carri and Jason Kern and Gabrielle Shimkus and her husband, Frank, nearly flattens me. These are people dedicated to their children.

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Jennifer Lauck in The Huffington Post

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

My publisher, Seal Press, posted a link to an article by Jennifer Lauck on The Huffington Post: Abducted Versus Adopted: For 1.5 Million of U.S. Adoptees, What’s the Difference? Lauck is the bestselling author of Blackbird, a memoir of a childhood that includes the early deaths of her adoptive parents and the upcoming Found: A Memoir, about her search for and relationship with her birth mother. Lauck writes:

Carlina White said she always had a sense she did not belong to the family that raised her. The twenty-three-year-old woman had been abducted in 1987 from a Harlem Hospital when she was nineteen-days-old. White was then raised by her abductor, Ann Pettway. Pettway is now in custody for kidnapping.

What White expresses about her sense of belonging is what I have felt for all the years of my own life — only I am called adopted versus abducted.

I have to wonder, what is the difference in these terms, especially when I consider the circumstances of my own birth and subsequent relinquishment.

Lauck goes on to tell how her 17-year-old unmarried birth mother was forced to relinquish Lauck as a baby, without ever holding the baby in her arms.

In my own case, the Catholic agency placed me in the home of a terminally ill woman. My adoptive mother died when I was seven. My adoptive father died when I was nine. I was homeless and wandering the streets of L.A. by ten. A long investigation into my case revealed that the Catholic agency knew of my parentless circumstances, noting the deaths of both my adoptive parents in their files, but they did not inform my original mother.

And it turned out that my original mother became a very good mother despite the fact she was told such a reality would be impossible. She married my father when she was eighteen and they had a second child. She went on to have another child as well. Both of my mother’s kept children grew to be successful, well-educated and productive adults.

*** (more…)

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Suburban wildlife

Saturday, January 29th, 2011

We live in suburban Marin County, and in our yard, we’ve spotted possums, deer, rabbits, gophers, raccoons, and snakes, but never a fox, and never on the back deck–a destination that requires climbing some 20-odd steps. That’s why when I saw one peering in at me, I grabbed the camera and called to the kids, and why Mateo is so delighted in this photo. The silver-furred fox must have been tracking the mice who scamper through our tomato and strawberry beds, stringy and watery after a long winter. 

Our visit with the fox was short-lived. Once Mateo slid open the deck door, eager to play, I shooed the animal away, worried about the transmission of diseases. He trotted back down the deck steps, and disappeared into the stand of bamboo.

A few days later, I went outside to pick up the mail and was greeted by this: a male turkey leading a bevy of females on a trek across our front yard. As Olivia would say, “What the word?” How did they get here is what I want to know. And where are they going?

Such wildlife sightings may be common in your neighborhood, but not in ours. Tigers aren’t native to Marin, I hope.

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Home and home

Monday, January 24th, 2011

I arrived back in California late on Saturday after a whirlwind Mamalita reading trip to the East coast. I’ve lived in California more than twenty years, but in many ways, the East coast still feels like home.

Today is a holiday for our school district, so Olivia and Mateo are here with me now as I post a few photos from my glorious journey to visit friends–Debbie Bower and Maria-Rose Contini from grammar and high school in New Jersey; and Susanne Donovan, Anne Maffia, Robin Wray, Sean Culkin, and Brian Doerner from college in Delaware. Susanne invited me to speak to her book group in Pennyslvania. I have to tell you, that reading almost made me want to transfer my base of operations to the Keystone State, those women were so much fun. The last photo is of fellow adoptive parents who, through the wonders of cyberspace, learned about my reading at Borders Books in Bryn Mawr.

It’s great to be back, fortified by my friends for life.

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