Why International Adoption?

So, I had intended to continue my 'A Heart For Adoption' series of posts with another post about how God has prepared me for the adoption journey - an important one - but right now I feel it important to address the 'Why' before I address the 'How'.  Further, I feel it is important to answer the number one question that has been asked of me in two months (ish) since I've made this decision.  So, this post will seek to answer the question of not only "Why", but "Why adoption" and "Why international adoption."

I'll start with the first - Why adoption?  Why not go the traditional route, get married, have your 'own' kids, why pay thousands of dollars for something you can do naturally?  Don't you want your kids to be "yours"?  Don't you want to pass on your genes?  Is something wrong with you?  Can't you have your 'own' kids?

Well, the answer to those questions is not a simple yes or no.  Because truly, I do want a biological child - if only for the amazing experiences unique to giving birth.  Those are things I've dreamed of since I was a child - yes, even the decidedly unglorious stretch marks, engorgements, labor pains.  I do not want to, and I do not feel the need to give up on those aspirations simply because I have decided to adopt.  Many, many people do both.  I'm going to be one of them, biology allowing.  But to clear a few things up, no, I do not want to give birth to have a child that is "mine".  All of my children will be equally mine, no matter how they came to me.  And no, I do not want to give birth to 'pass on my genes'.  I don't know if you've met me, but I'm a bit of an oddball.  Llama.  Any child bearing my genes (or likely, my rearing)... is probably going to be a bit of an oddball too.  Which is okay.  I like odd.  Narwhals.  (The tourettes is getting worse...)  But I don't have any sort of delusion that my genes are 'superior' to anyone else's, or that I need to continue a biological lineage.  As long as I have children and love to give them (and I have so much of that already!) I will have been successful as a mother.

And as for the question "Can't you have children of your own?" - the short answer is, why yes, I most certainly can.  If I can't conceive them, I can adopt them... and hey, guess what?  They will still be my own.  The longer answer is, well, yes, I have endometriosis.  It's currently unknown whether I will be able to have biological children.  The doctors say everything looks okay for now, but many women with endometriosis can't conceive for reasons that can't be physically explained. I personally believe that the amount of testing, medication and radiation that we are exposed to in the course of diagnosis and treatment contributes to infertility issues.  So, well... I won't know, if I can carry a child, until I try.  But my endometriosis and the uncertainty of my childbearing future is not the reason I have a heart for adoption.  It adds to it, certainly, but I do not wish to adopt simply because I may not be able to conceive.  If I could conceive 50 'healthy' children, I'd still want to adopt.  There's just too much of a need.  Make sense to anyone?

Further, as I stated, there is an immense need for adoption.  There are tens of thousands of adoptable children in the world.  Tens of thousands of children growing up in foster care, orphanages, boarding schools, or worse, mental institutions - simply because they were born with some sort of special need, ranging from sometimes fatal genetic conditions, to simple birthmarks!  Having had my heart prepared for adoption - particularly special needs adoption - as described in three recent posts, having seen their little faces, heard their cries for help, their simple desires for a family... how could I say no?

Take a look at the 292 adoptable children here, in my home state of Ohio:  http://adoptionphotolistingohio.org/browse.php

Listen to this:  These words describe a 15 year old girl, whose desperation for the love of a family is painfully evident.  "[The child] really wants a family to call her own.  [She] really wants to be adopted."


She is fifteen.  Older children are statistically less likely to be adopted and more likely to have serious problems tat require dedicated parental involvement.  To be blunt, people want to adopt babies.  And can you blame them?  Babies are amazing!  Everyone should have the priviledge of loving one.  But our older kids need love too, and our special needs kids, and so many others.  I have love to give.  How can I not put those two puzzle pieces together?




So now, since I have acknowledged the tremendous need for adoption, even within my own state... why, you might ask, don't I do that?  Why not skip the politics and uncertainty and complications of international adoption and adopt locally?  Why not foster?

Once again, there is not a simple answer here - at least not at first.  Because, you see, I do plan to do those things.  Specifically, I plan to be a foster parent, to help children feel loved and wanted and find forever families... and even become some of their forever families, when it becomes clear that this child is a member of our family.  For those who don't understand the foster/adoption dynamic (How do you choose which kids to adopt?  You know you can't adopt them all!), I recommend you read the books Another Place At The Table and One Small Boat by Kathy Harrison.  Her words and experience explain it better than I ever could.

So, the short answer is, I recognize and feel called to that need too, and plan to address it.  But there is something more.  A reason why I'm willing to go through apostilles, UCSIS, international politics, travel, expense, severely delayed children, uncertainty, and many, many things that I am historically uncomfortable with.  And that reason can be stated better in a photo than in words.

This is Ksenia (not her real name).

Isn't she precious?  Perfect little toddler girl.  She has Down Syndrome, and because of this, she has grown up in an orphanage.  Orphanages, or 'Baby Houses' as they are often called, can range from wonderfully stimulating places, to warehouses where children are simply stored.  By Ksenia's condition, it is apparent that her needs are at least satisfactorily met at her baby house.

Who, you might ask, is this poor little hurt soul?

This is Ksenia.  The same girl.  Custom in many Eastern European countries is for children to be raised in baby houses until they are 4-6 years old.  At this time they are transferred to adult mental institutions, where they are housed among others who have been there since childhood, or who are higher functioning and often take advantage of the vulnerability of the smaller children.

This word, 'transfer'... is worthy of a post all its own.  But for the sake of understanding, I will try to condense it here.

Transfer means losing the only 'family' a child has ever known.  The orphanage caregivers who have often been with them from birth, the familiar places, the toys, the lifestyle, the care.  Transfer rips all that away, from a child who has already been either literally orphaned or abandoned at birth.  Further, the children are transferred to horrible places.  Places we would prefer to believe do not exist.  Places we would like to relegate as a relic of a distant past, long before Dorthea Dix came along to reform the care of the mentally ill.  But in other countries... these places still exist.  If you have time, there is an amazing documentary on an institution in one Eastern European country that displays the sad realities of these places - places like the one to which little Ksenia was sent, at only 5-6 years old.  You can find it here.  And you know what?  It hurts to watch.  You'll think about it all day.  You'll probably cry.  But the children in this video, who have already been sent to the institution, have almost zero chance of ever being adopted.  They will live out their entire lives here.  We have the ability to watch this video, think about it a while, then go back to our comfortable lives... or not watch it at all, and pretend these horrors don't exist.  The children and young adults in the video?  They don't have that option.  Don't we owe it to them to at least take notice of their lives?

So what does this have to do with the question I'm answering?

THIS:

Does not happen in the United States.  Sure, foster care is not perfect.  Of course children deserve forever families.  Sure, there are abused and neglected children everywhere.  But the system of widespread institutionalization of people with special needs is, for the most part, a relic of the past, in this country.  We have moved from a system of institutionalization to a system of home-based care.  Children do not spend their short days bedridden, simply because they have Down Syndrome - until they pass away at an early age... in this country.

Katie's Mama, Susanna, expressed my thoughts concisely in a recent post, although her point was slightly different from the one I am making.  I should hope she doesn't mind if I quote her here:

What if you went to visit a family you hadn’t seen for years, and when you got to their house, you found out that the parents had been keeping their children in their beds, away from the public eye, foryears.

What if you found out that they valued their children so little that they had never so much as brushed their teeth, so that their children’s mouths were evil-smelling pits containing dark gray bacteria, coated thickly with discolored yellowish rock?  Swollen, bleeding gums?  Sores on their tongues?

The reeking, horrific condition of their mouths made them so unpleasant as to become socially unacceptable.  Stripped of basic human dignity.

Pronouncing their children unlovable, then causing them to become unlovely by failing to love them.

......

Why is it not okay for parents to treat their children that way, but it is “understandable” for orphanage workers not to find the time in nearly ten years to brush a child’s teeth?? 

Susanna's original post can be found here. It is worth reading, and includes beautiful pictures of her daughter. If you have not yet checked out Susanna's blog, please do.  Katie's story is amazing.  And hers is not the only one.  Stories like hers are tragically commonplace in some countries.  Sometimes, they don't have such happy endings.  Most times.

That doesn't happen here.


Anyone can argue that there are isolated cases of severe abuse and neglect that go unchecked until they come to a tragic end.  These cases occur across the globe.  But the systematic institutionalization of nearly all a country's disabled children and adults, combined with the often brutal treatment they receive... That does not happen here.


And until no child lays her head down to sleep in an institution every night, until no bellies go unfilled because the precious little one was unable to take in the rapid flow of slop from her 'bottle'... under the care of what is supposed to be a government sponsored 'aid' program...

I will want to bring them home.


This little boy, 'Vanya', was, years ago, sent to one of these orphanages - and not a good one - and later an institution.  He was thrown away.  Discarded like trash.  Left to die.  His story is chronicled in a book called The Boy from Baby House 10.

'Vanya' is six years old here.  He is unable to walk and in the 'care' of a mental institution.

This precious boy, only a year younger than myself, has Cerebral Palsy.  Because of this, he was considered an 'imbecile' and 'uneducable'.  While he lived the life reflected in that picture, far away, in the United States, another little girl lived this life:

And why?  Because she was born half a world away.  Because she was born to a family who desperately wanted her, who would have taken her home and raised her no matter what challenges she faced.  Because she was born in a place where prosperity reined, and where there were systems in place to help those who found themselves in dire circumstances. 

How is that fair?  

'Vanya', was what we would consider 'lucky' for a child of his condition in his country.  He was adopted by an American family, brought home, given proper medical treatment, educated, and loved.  He became this boy, named John.

What potential!  Look at that handsome young man that was so misunderstood as a child as to be locked away like a prisoner!  Successful!  Coauthor of a book about his own life, his own struggles!  Doing what everyone said he couldn't do.  Because he was adopted and brought to a place where children with special needs are understood and cared for.  This place.  This country.  

So.  Why adoption?  Why international adoption?  Scroll back up and look at those photos again.  Look at precious Ksenia, and imagine the potential she could have if she were treated properly.  Look at the little girl (me, in case you haven't figured that out), smiling at her baby brother, while precious Vanya suffered in an institution.  Head on over to Reece's Rainbow and look at the faces of countless angels still living that life.  Why international adoption?

Because they're worth it.