finally.

A Year Ago Today.

Last year, right about now I was heading back to my classroom from the bathroom. While I was in the bathroom my cell phone rang. I ignored it because, you know, I was in the bathroom. On my way back to the classroom I checked my messages.

“Hi Abby, this is Angie from Children’s Home Society. Could you give me a call back before our meeting tonight?” I called her back. I was thinking she was going to cancel our meeting to update our homestudy. (She has 2 kids at home, it was December, I was assuming sick kid.) It was 10:20 am and since I didn’t have to pick my class up from computers until 10:30, I decided to give her a quick call.

A really perky voice answered the phone.

“Hi Abby! I’m so glad you called me back. I’ve got some news for you! (at this point I was trying to unlock my classroom door, dropped my keys twice and was desperately trying to get to my computer) We have a referral for you to look over.” Now she read me all the details of the referral. But she still hadn’t given me a name, age, boy or girl, etc. I was pretty impatient at this point. I cut in to the details with “I need to know if it’s a boy or a girl! I have 8 minutes left to call Kevin with the news, look at the pictures on the computer and pick up my class from computers.” She laughed and said “It’s a boy. His name is Rahimeto Keyredin and he’s 5 1/2 weeks old.”

I called Kevin and at the same time checked my e-mail. When my slow (ridiculously slow) computer finally opened the file I saw this:

and this:

I hung up with Kevin and went running down the hall at school, interrupted about 6 classes to announce “It’s a BOY!” on my way to pick up my class.

We got back to the room and I briefly explained what was going on. I told them they could color or play with toys or read books or basically do whatever they wanted as long as they didn’t hurt anyone or break anything. (not one of my finer teaching moments, I’ll admit it.) And I spent the next half hour pouring over his referral paperwork.

I printed off his picture and carried them around in my pocket for the next week at least, showing them to anyone who walked past me.

The two pictures above are Milo Rahimeto Hendricks – 5 1/2 weeks old.
Here’s Milo over the next year:
We didn’t get any more pictures until he was 4 months old

We met him in Ethiopia when he was 5 months old.

6 months

7 months

8 months (hanging out with friends from Ethiopia. Harry was at the Care Center with Milo. We met Claire on the plane ride home.)

9 months

10 months

11 months

12 months

13 months

NaBloPoMo Post #21: ABC and their Crappy New Reality Show

ABC is getting set to premere a new “reality” show called Find My Family. A show that will allow viewers to watch as adoptees and birth family find each other.

Great.

Before people jump to the conclusion that I am against search for birth family. I’m not. I believe in open adoption and keeping the connection to a child’s birth family is extremely important.

What bothers me is the tagline and language used to sell this show. The tag-line reads:

Some people have spent their whole lives searching for the one thing that matters most… Their wish will now come true. Let’s find your family.

“Let’s find your family”? Are you kidding me? As an adoptive parent, that’s just a slap in the face. Like I somehow don’t count as family. I feel like they are saying, “Let’s find your real family.”

Just like any reality show, it’s a good guess to say the show will focus on the most extreme examples. And now I wonder, what assumptions will the general public be making about my family? Are people going to start assuming they know Milo’s wants and desires? Do they feel they understand the questions he may have or the personal feelings he has surrounding his adoption?

This is a good perspective on the damage a show like this can cause:

For years, the adoptive community has sought to rectify the past vilification of birth-parents as people who gave away their children. Birth parents are now widely recognized as the First Parents of children, deserving of love, respect, and understanding. It is in no one’s best interest to turn the tables and begin to portray adoptive families as second-class, or less-than’ a family created biologically. This new series is a step back for everyone. (RainbowKids.com)

And yes, the show does use terms like “gave away” and people who “are adopted” (Milo was adopted, not is adopted. It happened once, just like birth. Lexi was born, not is born.) And let’s face it because the show will be filled with drama, raw emotions, heavy editing and extreme circumstances, it will take a while before it’s canceled.

NaBloPoMo Post #12: A lot to think about

Today we found out that our adoption agency is temporarily closing to people who are requesting a child 0-24 months from Ethiopia. Currently there are over 400 people waiting for a baby which is pushing wait times out to at least 24 months. (Our estimated wait time in Dec 2007 was 6-9 months and extended to 12 months in October of 2008. We waited 11 months and 11 days for our referral.)

They are closing the program simply because there is not a need for parents in this age range. Once upon a time when the Ethiopia program was new (about 5 years ago) it was considered a long wait if you waited a week. Most people heard back within a day or two after submitting their dossier. But the program took off. It got big very, very fast and homes were quickly found for infants and toddlers.

There are people who will say that the program is closing because the “demand” can’t be met. And there are accusations about unethical practices happening. Personally, I don’t beleive that is what is happening with our agency. Has it happened elsewhere? Yes. It’s a tragic side to both international and domestic adoption that corruption and “blackmarket” practices exist. Do your research when looking for an agency. Be careful and cautious. At the same time know that there are plenty of agencies who are working to provide homes for children who need them. But the “whys” are not what this post is about.

This is about what we now need to think about. We really liked our agency. We had a good experience with them. We know that while Milo was in their care they truly loved him and took excellent care of him. The information we have about his background is priceless and the opprotunity to meet people who were a part of his life before us was amazing. And, all of that we have on DVD for him to watch when he is ready. We don’t want to switch agencies because we don’t want our next child to not have the same amount of information. I would have a hard time explaining to a child that Milo has a lifebook with pictures of his village in Ethiopia but he or she doesn’t because we switched agencies because we wanted a baby.

So that leaves us with some decisions to make.

Do we switch agencies? I doubt it.

Do we wait and see if the infant program opens back up? Well, that would put a lot of years between Milo and the next child.

Do we adopt an older child or sibbling group? I’d like to. I’d love to actually. But Milo is only one. We want the next child to be younger than him. So that would mean waiting until Milo was 3 or 4 before starting the process again.

Do we adopt a child from the Waiting Child List? That’s a possibility.

Lots of things to think about. But, one thing is for sure, it makes me grateful that we to the leap and applied to adopt when we did. I can’t really imagine our family without Milo.

NaBloPoMo Post #4: Children Just Like Me

Finding children’s books with pictures that represent a wide variety of children is a challenge to say the least.

When we first started our adoption process this book, Children Just Like Me, was recommended to us by several people. And I totally lucked out, I found it for $5 at a used book store.

It’s a great book. It has a wide variety of countries covering major parts of the world. It is pictures of real children and their families and their homes or schools, a few of their toys and descriptions of all the pictures. Except for Ethiopia. Every child in the book is shown with their family. Except the Ethiopian children. For the section on Ethiopia, the children featured are orphans.

Did the authors/photographers really have that difficult of a time finding one family in all of Ethiopia to interview and photograph?

I had one person say “Well, it really is kids just like Milo.” And true, Milo was an orphan in Ethiopia but this simply perpetuates the stereotype of Ethiopia that it is a country unable to care for their children. That’s not how I want my son to view his birth land. That’s not how I want anyone to view Ethiopia.

Am I calling for a boycott of the book? Do I want it removed from libraries? Not used in schools?

No. The rest of the book is extremely valuable and beautifully done.

I think what I am asking for is two things.

1. For people to realize that how they represent a country or people group may be the only small information some people may read on that particular topic. And, personally, I don’t want the world just assuming that Ethiopia is a country full of orphans because it’s not. It’s much, much, more than that.

2. For parents, teachers, grandparents, baby-sitters, anyone who reads books to kids to look carefully at the books they are reading to children and the message the book is sending.

Just to clarify, we do own this book. But for now, it will be put away until I can find enough other books that show real kids in Ethiopia with their families to balance out the picture.

NaBloPoMo Post 1: HIV Ban Lifted

There is big news for those with HIV. President Obama signed the Ryan White Care Act and with that comes the removal of the travel ban. What does this mean? It means that people with HIV are free to come to the US with out a specail waiver that was previously needed. It means passports won’t have an astrisk that notes that something is “wrong” with the person. It means that people with HIV equal opprotunity to enter this country.

It also means that children with HIV who are waiting to be adopted do not have to wait any longer than their peers. They no longer have to wait for their parents to jump through all sorts of paperwork hoops and red tape just to bring them home.

As of January 1, 2010, a medical condition that cannot be transmitted by casual contact, will no longer slow down the visa process for those hoping to travel to the US.

Important Information regarding Foreign Adopted Children Equality Ace (Face Act)

Please read and contact your representatives. Thank you.

Open Letter to the Adoption Community
July 31, 2009

As an adoptive Mother, the President and Founder of Equality for Adopted Children, and a former senior legislative aide on Capitol Hill, I would like to address some questions that have been raised about the newly introduced Foreign Adopted Children Equality Act (FACE Act). These questions have caused some to suggest the bill should not be supported. This is unfortunate, because the FACE Act will bring significant improvement to the adoption process and will, if signed into law, provide equality for our internationally adopted children as well as save adoptive parent’s time, money and regulatory hurdles. I know because I was deeply involved with its predecessor.

The FACE Act was introduced to amend and improve upon the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 (CCA), a bill introduced by Senator Don Nickles and Senator Mary Landrieu. At the time the CCA was introduced and passed, I was Legislative Counsel to Senator Nickles and was responsible for shepherding the CCA through Congress. The bill was conceived after my husband and I adopted three siblings from Eastern Europe and I discovered that despite the fact that my husband and I were both American citizens, our citizenship did not transfer to our foreign adopted children as it would have if they had been born to us abroad. As a lawyer I found this disturbing because I knew that under adoption law, once a child is adopted, that child is entitled to all the same rights, duties and responsibilities as a biological child. The law says they are to be treated as if they were the “natural issue” of the adoptive parents. CCA was drafted to remove discrepancies between the treatment of children born abroad versus children adopted abroad to U.S. citizens. In short, to bring adoption practice into line with the law and in the process ease a number of procedural burdens unnecessarily borne by adoptive parents.

The CCA began the process of addressing a primary inequality: If an American gives birth to a child overseas the child is considered a citizen from birth and is given a U.S. passport and a Consular Report of Birth (which acts as the child’s birth certificate). The child is allowed to enter the United States as a citizen with documentary proof of citizenship. In other words, the child does not have to go through an immigration process. Not so for an adopted child who must obtain an immigrant visa, go through a very different (and more costly and cumbersome) process even though they are every bit as much the son or daughter of American citizens. Unfortunately, the United States is one of the few developed countries that still treat internationally adopted children of their citizens as immigrants and force adoptive families to go through an immigration process to bring their children home.

U.S. Court decisions have established adoption laws that recognize that adopted children are entitled to full equality of treatment as biological children. Yet despite the passage of CCA, not all inequalities have been addressed. The FACE Act would align U.S. adoption laws with U.S. statutes by recognizing all children of U.S. citizens as equal, whether biological or adopted. The FACE Act would rectify inequities both past and present. Regrettably, as I know is often the case with legislation, some have misunderstood the contents of the legislation.

Protecting Safeguards and Meaningful Procedures

Some allege that by removing adopted children from the immigration process the bill removes the safeguards that protect adopted children, their biological families and their adoptive families. This is a completely incorrect assertion. This bill absolutely upholds current requirements in regard to approval of parents to adopt a foreign born child, preserves current safeguards, and maintains current regulations related to intercountry adoption. Here’s how:

Upholding Requirements and Procedures.

The FACE Act continues to require that before citizenship attaches to an internationally adopted child, adoptive parents must be approved by the U.S. government as fit to adopt, just as under current law.
Adoptive parents will still need to meet the same requirements currently submitted for approval of an I-600A or I-800A including an approved home study, criminal clearances and all other documents that are now part of the approval process.
Preservation and Maintenance of Safeguards and Investigations.
The FACE Act continues to uphold and require all immigration safeguards currently in place to ensure that a child has been adopted legally without fraud or trafficking.
Conditions required to fulfill an I-600 or I-800 form will continue unchanged including an orphan investigation as mandated under current law.
The U.S. government will continue to affirmatively determine that a child has been adopted appropriately and that the child meets the adoption requirements of U.S. adoption law for international adoptions.
A welcome change in the FACE act would be the elimination of the paperwork, procedures and costs required to file for an immigration visa after an adoption has been completed and the child has been approved by the U.S. government as having complied with U.S. adoption law governing international adoption.
Put simply, American adoptive parents abroad would take their documentation of a legal and appropriate adoption and follow the same process as American biological parents who gave birth abroad. The entire process would be simplified and standardized for both sets of parents and most importantly, would apply equal treatment to the children as established in U.S. adoption law. Time and travel costs for adoptive parents would be reduced lowering further the barriers to international adoption.

The FACE Act makes no changes to current regulations related to intercountry adoption. Current adoption law language does not detail what must be done to approve a family to adopt or what paperwork must be filed to get an immigration visa. Rather, the details are found in the regulations implementing the law. This bill and subsequent regulations would do the same. The FACE Act merely sets the parameters of how the law would be implemented and the subsequent regulations would provide the specifics of how it would be implemented.

Establishing Equality for All and Respecting Heritage

Another unfortunate misunderstanding of the FACE Act arises from a section of the bill that amends Section 301 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which defines who is a U.S. citizen at birth. Currently, this section of law provides automatic U.S. citizenship to children born to U.S. citizens abroad, but not to those adopted abroad by U.S. citizens. The practical effect is that under the status of an immigrant instead of a citizen at birth, the adopted child could never be President of the United States even though a child born in the same foreign country at the same time to American citizens could. Amending this section of law to include our internationally adopted children as citizens from birth will finally correct one of the major remaining inequalities that our children suffer under federal law.

Some have erroneously concluded that this provision will strip adopted children of their birth country’s citizenship and erase their birth history. In actuality, the FACE Act will help support adoptees who seek to learn more of their original birth history and reconnect with their country of origin. The FACE Act includes provisions that state:

“It is the sense of Congress that the government of each foreign country from which children are adopted by citizens of the United States should provide documentation of the adopted children’s original birth history to the adoptive family in accordance with the laws of such country.”

“Nothing in this Act, or in any amendment made by this Act, may be construed to abrogate any citizenship rights provided to an adoptee by the adoptee’s country of origin, or nullify the facts of the adoptee’s birth history.”

Granting of citizenship from birth cannot eliminate the fact of where a child was born, or to whom that child was born, or deprive them of their original citizenship rights any more than what occurs now when U.S. citizenship is granted to them under the CCA.

To the extent a foreign country allows dual citizenship and the privileges that accompany that citizenship, that child will always have those privileges as a citizen of that country in the eyes of that country. No legislation passed by the U. S. Congress can change citizenship laws of other countries. If a country chooses to negate the citizenship rights of a child born in that country because they become a citizen of the United States, there is no law that the U.S. Congress can pass to rectify that decision.

Further, although Congress cannot pass laws ordering other countries to provide original birth documentation to adoptive families or to change their citizenship laws, these provisions mark significant steps towards establishing U.S. policy in these regards and would strongly encourage countries from which children are adopted by American citizens to provide such documentation and maintain such rights.

Protecting U.S. Citizenship and Preventing Family Separation

The FACE Act also improves the current citizenship process for international adoptees with a provision that rectifies the damage that is done when adoptive parents fail to take the necessary steps under past and current law to acquire U.S. citizenship for their child. Prior to the CCA, internationally adopted children had to go through a naturalization process to attain citizenship. Many parents wrongly assumed that their adopted child was a citizen because they themselves were citizens. Unfortunately, this was not the case and there are many adult adoptees who found out much later in life that they are not citizens.

Even after the CCA was passed, the problem remains due to the way the law is implemented. Currently, only adopted children who arrive on IR3 visas (where both parents, if married, saw the child during the adoption process) receive automatic U.S. citizenship upon entry into the United States. Adopted children who arrive on IR4 visas (where only one parent, if married, saw the child during the adoption process) must be readopted in their new home state (whether required by state law or not) before citizenship attaches. If the child is not readopted prior to his or her 18th birthday, they lose the right to automatic citizenship.

Over half the international adoptees enter this country on IR4 visas and risk losing their citizenship rights if their parents fail to readopt them. Many children do not find out they are not citizens until they apply for a passport or for college scholarships. A number of adoptees have been deported back to their country of origin due to minor crimes they have committed because their parents failed to take the necessary steps at the time to acquire citizenship status for their child. The FACE Act rectifies this for all future international adoptees by conferring citizenship upon completion of the adoption and the U.S. determination that the child was adopted according to law. Citizenship is conferred with no further action required of the adoptive parents. This is a significant improvement over current law and will eliminate the tragic stories of adoptees deported to their country of origin with no knowledge of their original language, no support structure and no ability to return to the United States.

For deported adoptees, The FACE Act allows these adoptees to file for and receive U.S. citizenship if U.S. citizens adopted them under the age of 18.

In summary, the changes made by the FACE Act are significant but easily implemented. The FACE Act would:

Remove internationally adopted children of American citizens from the immigration process saving time, money and, for many, travel costs;
Confer U.S. citizenship upon internationally adopted children immediately upon completion of all the necessary steps without requiring readoption within the U.S.;
Improve upon the current system by encouraging foreign countries to provide original birth documentation; and
Provide the added benefit of making our internationally adopted children eligible to run for President.

The sponsors of the FACE Act – Senator Mary Landrieu, Senator Jim Inhofe (S.1359) and Representative Diane Watson and Representative John Boozman (H.R. 3110) are great friends and supporters of the adoption community and have crafted a bill that will provide equality under the law for our internationally adopted children and allow them to benefit in all ways from full American citizenship.

In closing, I recommend that all read the relatively short FACE Act bill in its entirety. It can be found at: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.1359:/ In addition, I invite you to read a detailed section by section explanation of the bill as well as answers to Frequently Asked Questions that can be found at the following link: http://www.equalityforadoptedchildren.org/legislation/face.html. Once you do so, I believe, like me, you will find this bill worthy of your wholehearted support.

For the sake of our internationally adopted children,

McLane Layton
President, EACH

Making Ring Slings

I like to sew but one of my favorite things to make is ring slings. And recently I’ve been making a lot of them and giving them away to parents who are in the process of adopting.

For those of you unfamiliar with babywearing, it’s amazing. It’s a great way to bond with your baby, it allows you to have your hands free while you carry your baby around with you and in general makes life with a baby a little easier.

I originally thought I would sell my slings but honestly, I don’t really like to sell my stuff. It’s much more fun to sew when I’m not trying to make a profit. Instead I posted on an adoption forum that I am on a message stating that if anyone wanted a ring sling to contact me and I’d make them one.

So far, it’s been great. I’ve got about 20 slings to make and I’m done with about 9 of them. But there’s no rush – most of the people waiting for a sling probably won’t hear about their baby until late winter or early spring this year.

I’ve been gathering up fabric to use and I’ve got quite a bit. My brainstorm that bedsheets would work was a good guess, they make great slings. And then there is my freecycle stash. A lady I picked up fabric from must have bought stuff by the bolt because I have yards and yards of material that will work. And I’ve got lots of scrap material and ribbon that is adding a few finishing touches to each sling – just to make them a little different from each other.

Here are some I’ve done that I really like:

Big News in the world of Adoption

This came from a fellow adoptive parent’s blog: (I’ve added a few things in italics.)

People, this is HUGE. Follow this link to read a press release about a bill introduced in both the Senate and the House last week. If this bill passes it will remove the HIV waiver, the TB testing and the need to get a COC (certificate of citizenship – which is expensive and time consuming). Long story short, right now parents wanting to adopt an child that is HIV+ need to fill out extra paperwork and jump through way too many hoops to bring them home. Also, all children need to be TB tested before receiving their visa allowing them into the US. Basically it will allow our children to be treated like just that, our children. While they are recognized as our children they treated as though they are immigrants. This bill will allow them the same rights as children who are born overseas to American parents – rights such as being allowed to run for President and to serve in the US military. They won’t be denied scholarships or passports or at the most extreme not being deported for minor juvenile offenses (yes, that has happened). PLUS, and for me this is a biggie (I agree with Amanda on this – changing the age limit is HUGE. Children aging out of the system before they are adopted is an incredibly sad and scary situation for them to be in.) – children would be eligible for adoption up to age 18 (right now it’s 16 with younger siblings).

Once the bill is closer to a vote I will be posting here asking EVERYONE (that means you) to please, please contact your Senators and Representatives insisting on their support.

One Month Update

On Monday, Milo will have been home for a month. It’s a little hard to believe it’s already been a month. Some days it feels like he’s been with us forever and some days it feels like we just got off the plane.

People have been asking us if we’ve had any issues since coming home…no, not really. He is so young that it feels very similar to bringing Lexi home from the hospital. We didn’t know Lexi all that well when we brought her home. We knew we loved her and we knew she was ours but we didn’t know her eating habits, her sleeping habits, what she liked to do when she was awake – we had to figure all of that out as we went along. Same thing with Milo. Although with Milo we had the advantage of observing and talking to the people who cared for him for the first 5 months of his life so I feel like we were a little more prepared.

Since we’ve been home he’s started to show his personality a lot more. When we first met him he was pretty quiet and just observed and took in his surroundings. He wasn’t withdrawn, just very quiet. Now…well…now he’s found his voice. He loves to shriek and squeal. He thinks Lexi’s brand of comedy is freakin’ hillarious and will laugh a full-on belly laugh for her. He still sucks his thumb but now likes to blow raspberries while sucking his thumb. He makes that ppllbbbt noise all the time. His feet are one of his favorite toys. When he’s happy, he’s very happy.

He let’s us know when he’s hungry. And when he’s hungry, he wants food NOW. There is not much patience when it comes to food. Food issues were an issue we knew was a possibility with an infant and I’d say that while he’s not nearly as obsessed with food as other adoptees, he’s does have some issues with food. He mostly just needs the reassurance that he will get fed when he’s hungry.

We’ve had a few days where he needs to be held a lot but I’m not convinced that it’s adoption related. I think he just really likes to be held and some days he wants it more than others.

His sleeping his great. He naps decent during the day but at night he goes to bed around 7:30 or 8:00 and then sleeps until about 10. Gets a bottle and then goes back to sleep until about 6:30. Another bottle and then back to bed until about 8. We’ve had the occasional night of waking up at 2 or 4 wanting another bottle or waking up due to gas but all in all, I am not complaining one bit about his sleep.

I’m so glad we came home in the spring because he really likes being outside. There’s just so much for him to watch and observe.

Lexi seems to really like having a brother. She talks about him quite a bit. She asks where he is when he’s napping and always wants to kiss, hug or hold him. And when the social worker came to our house for a post-adoption visit, Lexi was very concerned that she was coming to take Milo back to Ethiopia.

Oh, and he’s putting on weight like crazy. We go to the doctor on Monday and my guess is he’s over 13 pounds. He’s actually putting on body fat in his legs and arms. And the muscles in his back and legs are gaining some strength. Today he spent a good portion of the afternoon attempting to roll over.

It’s been a good month.

Leaving Ethiopia

Today is our last day in Ethiopia. We head to the airport in about 8 hours. It’ll be sad to leave but I’ll be glad to be back home in a familiar place with both my kids.

I’ll be posting much more later but for now here’s some highlights:

· Going to Hosanna to meet people who are an important part of Milo’s life.

· Watching the nannies take care of the kids

· Hanging out at the guest house (with candles because of zero power)

· Watching School of Rock

· Going to Metro Pizza (it’s almost as good as Punch Pizza)

· Playing with Lily, the dog that lives at the Guest House

· Finally taking Milo home on Tuesday. No more saying goodbye at the care center.

· Beautiful weather. In the morning it’s a little cloudy and breezy and about 70 degrees. It gets hot around lunch time and then the evenings are cool again.

A couple of things I won’t miss:

· Flies.

· The cats. Seriously, two cats somewhere in our neighborhood would sound like it was a fight to the death every morning around 2ish.

If everything goes as scheduled we should be home by about 4:30 pm on Friday. (We’re leaving Ethiopia at 10:30pm Thursday). See you then.