When Adoptions Go Wrong: Dateline Exclusive

It is NO secret that Guatemalan adoptions have been under scrutiny for years because of alleged illegal practices. What Dateline has supposedly uncovered is unreal; three children kidnapped from the same family and attempted to be sold off into adoption. Two of the children have since been returned to the parents and one, the eldest daughter, is still missing. Dateline will air an exclusive on Guatemalan adoptions tonight (January 20).

There are two detailed articles; one written by Benita Noel, the producer of the show, and the other by Leonor Ayala, the Dateline Field Producer. Additionally, Guatadopt has posted an estimate of what they think the third daughter now looks like in efforts of finding her.

Many of you have spoken up about the good side of Guatemalan adoptions by posting your pictures of your beautiful children on Dateline’s site and some of you have even written about your adoptions.

Adoptions go wrong all over the world, domestically, internationally, and even within families. I believe that President Colom is attempting to safeguard Guatemalan adoptions, does have children in his best interest, and will continue to work for a promising adoption “future”, if I may call it that. He has restructured the Central Authority to better meet the new government’s needs, not Oscar Berger’s, and he seems to, on the surface of it all, really care about the Guatemalan people.

It is our job, as adoptive families, to safeguard our future children and to “spot check” the agencies we use. How many of you have ever felt something was wrong with your adoption process and did you question it or just go with the flow? There are many families that get caught up in the gut feeling of it all and forgo medicals, miss paperwork, and never question their agencies.

I know that I tend to get caught up in things…in the whirlwind of meeting my child or holding him for the first time. But, I force myself to step back and examine things (or make my analytical husband do it) because in this roller coaster of an adoption process we have to stay one step ahead of things or we can be taken advantage of, be sucked dry of all of our money, or have a bait and switch pulled.

And sometimes, no matter how hard we try to prevent things…it does happen and we do end up with the special needs child we never expected. And we become the BEST parents we can be for our new child.

Question: Will you watch this tonight?