In Follow-up to When Adoptions Go Wrong: Dateline Exclusive
Like Lisa at Adopting from Guatemala, I was also pleasantly surprised by the piece Dateline NBC aired last week on Guatemalan adoptions. They did not focus on the rumors of baby snatchers or birth mothers selling their babies, baby farms, or extortion. Rather, they focused in on one story and one attorney; Thanasis, who is supposed to be banned from performing adoptions in Guatemala. Good idea, Dateline. In my opinion, if they had gone that route, they would have tainted Guatemalan adoptions for a long, long, time.

What made my heart ache…
…watching the young man (in his early twenties) struggle with the immigration paperwork only to have to ask the person next to him to fill it out. He was illiterate.
…watching the foster mother walk out the hotel door with my future son.

Everyone has heard the rumors that Guatemala is baby trafficking and harvesting babies to “export” them to American families. But, are these rumors true? “Critics say a shadowy Guatemalan system has helped lawyers, middlemen — and even birth mothers — collect sizable payoffs.”