“It is tragic for children that the U.S. government has not been able to find ways to work with the Vietnamese government to prevent adoption abuses while at the same time processing legitimate adoptions,” said Tom Atwood, president of the Washington-based National Council for Adoption, a research and advocacy organization.

“Many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children will not have families as a result of this failure of leadership.”

Will keep you updated on this but in the meantime the AP has great details. Please read.

Post from: Blisstree

Vietnam Halts US Adoptions

The new report is a nine page report detailing brokers who “scour villages for babies, hospitals selling infants whose mothers cannot pay their bills, and a grandmother giving away her grandchild-without telling the child’s mother.”

Vietnam is denying these claims stating that orphanage directors possibly take bribes but baby-selling is not an issue.

What happens in several cases is that adoption agencies provide donations to orphanages in return for referrals. If referrals are scarce orphanages will then go “scouting” for children to refer to the adoption agencies. This, unfortunately, is where the fraud comes in to play.

However, perhaps the entire system is somewhat fraudulent? If the adoption agencies were not funding the orphanages through donations (the main source of income) then the orphanage would not feel pressure to find children?

At this time Vietnam adoptions are very popular among US families, especially after Angelina Jolie’s adoption of Pax. Adoptions were up over 400 percent last year.

The current Vietnam/US adoption agreement expires on September 1. The US is suggesting a similar DNA test to Guatemala to help prevent fraud.

The US has also recommended that US adoptive parents not begin any new paperwork with Vietnam.

For more information about Vietnam adoption visit the Adopt Vietnam.

Post from: Blisstree

Vietnam Corrupts Adoptions?

What was your “call” like? How did you get your referral?

Post from: Blisstree

The Call

Head here to take a look at the stats.

Post from: Blisstree

Adoptive Families Polls Are In!

Instead of completely pulling out of the process we decided to put our names into domestic adoption as well (along with some of our money) and keep our name on the list with our agency just in case. Several weeks ago we received an email from our agency stating that although the Guatemalan congress had passed the Grandfather Clause they would not be issuing referrals because they were focusing on the families who were in process, something that I think is admirable.

However, last Friday, our social worker called in a panic…trying to get a hold of us (were were in a doctor’s meeting and were not answering the phone). To our surprise she had a referral for infant boy and wanted to know if we were interested. The only catches; we had to give her an answer immediately, we would be traveling blind, and we had to be there on the 26th.

So, without (okay, with a lot of ) hesitation we said yes…booked our flight and invited my parents over for dinner, as we needed to ask them to watch AJ. We waited to tell the rest of the family in person on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

As expected our family was ecstatic for us because they know how much this means.

Post from: Blisstree

How We Got to Guatemala

We traveled to Guatemala on faith and hope…not knowing anything about him except that he was a boy. When we arrived our foster mother handed him to us after kissing him goodbye and our lawyer told us he was only 8 days old. In fact, he was so young that they had to look up his name and birth date, as they had just received him from the birth mother (or whomever had been caring for him since his birth).

He is a healthy, gorgeous, and happy baby boy and we are hoping to complete the process before next year is over. Our agency has no estimate on time frames but is hopeful that things will run between 6 and 10 months.

We are still deciding on a name and luckily our foster mother, bless her heart, will call him by that. We have her daughter’s email and her address so we can stay in touch with her and send her the name when we chose it. We feel honored to have such a loving foster mother to take care of him and we are looking forward to her updates.

I will post more in the next few days regarding the process we took to get to Guatemala but I wanted to share a picture of our future son because he is beautiful.

Post from: Blisstree

Nuestro Muchacho Del Bebé (Our Baby Boy)

I will keep you posted but if I don’t get back to you for a few days don’t be mad! I’m a little bogged down with details. Even we don’t know what is going on yet. All I know is that my heart is racing and we can’t wait to meet him.

Post from: Blisstree

The Best Christmas Gift EVER…A Baby Boy Referral

Waiting is frustrating.

especially when you don’t know what you are waiting for

will they be issuing referrals?

’cause if so…I might have a plane to catch

and some warm weather to soak in

and a Christmas to miss

and a baby to meet

and a son to miss horribly, terribly, madly

or…

will someone chose us to parent their child

forever?

Post from: Blisstree

Tick, Tock

One thing I would like to warn you about though is to not take the recommendation of your agency. We originally consulted with Dr. Jenista and then went with the recommendation of another doctor upon the referral of our agency (because they work with her). Many times agencies tend to recommend particular doctors because they may feel that they are “soft” and won’t give a very definitive answer regarding health issues.

This is a very important list for prospective adoptive families so I have taken it directly from Karen’s Adoption Links (she has already compiled it so why reinvent the wheel?).

The importance of consulting an international specialist after you receive your referral and during your adoption journey: to ensure that your child is healthy and there are no misleading issues. ie: do you really know what hypotrophy is? (less growth)

Dr. Adesman – Adoption Evaluation Center …._
Dr. Aronson – International Ped Health
Dr. Bledsoe / Dr. Davies
Dr. Chasnoff - Child Study Center
Dr. Federici
Dr. Feldman – Miller Children’s International
Dr. Gordina – Global Pediatrics
Dr. Jenista
Dr. Johnson – International Adoption Clinic
Dr. Miller – International Adoption Clinic
Dr Powell – Children’s Hospital Columbus – InternationalAdoption@chi.osu.edu
Rainbow Babies Adoption Health Services
Drs. Rogu & Reilly
Dr. Skurkovich – Adoptions International
Dr. Staat – International Adoption Center
Dr. Benikova - International Adoption Medical Center

Links to other ‘Adoption Doctors‘ ..
Links to AAP list of adoption doctors

** Russian American Medical Association
http://www.russiandoctors.org/
Doctors in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, etc.
** Canada’s list of In-Country Approved Doctors
(Russian, Kazakhstan, worldwide)
Canada’s Designated Medical Providers
US Embassy Visa Panel Physicians (I don’t know if any of these doctors do pre-adopt medicals…)
** American Clinic – Moscow
** American Medical Clinic – St. Petersburg
British American Family Practice – St. Pete ??
Dr. Sarah Basham – Adoption Medicals Russia – St Pete ??
Dr. Natalia Belova (IOM) in Moscow
Russian Adoption Medical Services
(Dr. Downing in Moscow)
ofilina@hotmail.com
** Dr. Victoria Khouloudis (MD, PhD)
Vkhouloudis@yahoo.com
Dr. Ludmila Tsepkova in Moscow
Euromed – St. Petersburg

Researching Medical Terms – first read these websites, then try the Russian Medical Term Searcher below
http://www.russianadoption.org/
http://www.orphandoctor.com/medical/
http://www.adoptionphysician.com/ then click Q & A

We used Dr. Staat in Cincinnati and she was available at our every need, even when she was on vacation and we needed her in an emergency. That was worth the donation to her clinic. We felt her evaluation was credible and she went over everything with us, even called me at work to review a referral I was nervous about. However, I would chose Dr. Jenista if I were adopt from Russia again because I have heard she give the most honest and forthright opinion of any adoption doctor. Basically, she tells it like it is even if it scares you.

I have heard GREAT things about Dr. Jenista in Michigan, Dr. Sarah Basham, Dr. Gordina, Dr. Beldsoe, and Dr. Aronson (I believe Angelina Jolie uses Dr. Aronson?).

Post from: Blisstree

International Adoption Doctors