Thank you, everyone, for your prayers, thoughts, good wishes, and general support. The journey has just begun!
the good-luck tiasSunday, September 30, 2007
out out out out OUT!
I can hardly believe it, but it is indeed true -- I have in front of me the official word from the Procuraduria General de la Nacion: we are OUT. I got the call on Friday afternoon, long before I expected it (other FTC families have been waiting over 9 weeks; I managed to squeak through in the merest 8 weeks plus 1 day). I believe the tias (my aunt Anne and cousin Sasha) have brought the most excellent karma down to Guatemala -- we've had a wonderful week together, with sunny skies, consistently tasty meals, and now, to top it off, the best news of all. Pablo is freed from house arrest, and we've been galavanting about town this weekend to celebrate. Now we await the completion of the final part the process -- deed of adoption, birth certificate, second DNA, passport, visa, embassy doctor... home. I will be home for thanksgiving.
Thank you, everyone, for your prayers, thoughts, good wishes, and general support. The journey has just begun!
the good-luck tias
Thank you, everyone, for your prayers, thoughts, good wishes, and general support. The journey has just begun!
the good-luck tias
Monday, September 10, 2007
The Golden Cage
A month has gone by since my last post, and far too much has happened. The hardest has been some devastating (non-adoption) family news, but things on my Guatemalan home front aren't exactly upbeat.
You may well have heard about the police raid last month on Casa Quivira, a foster home located just outside Antigua. I don't know who is working for the Guatemalan anti-adoption forces on PR, but they hit a bonanza with this one -- apparently the story made it all the way to French TV and Al Jazeera, with stops along the way throughout the U.S. and the U.K. Almost all of the initial stories -- mostly distributed through AP -- assumed a guilty until proven innocent tone, with headlines featuring "stolen children" and the like. In recent weeks, the coverage has evened out a bit, as the home's owners have issued their own press releases, but I would say that overall the damage has been done -- for instance, most antiguenos that I've talked to assume that surely something illegal was going on at the home. For an accurate accounting of the full story -- at least, the story as far as it is known so far -- I refer you, as usual, to Guatadopt.
There are multiple problems with the CQ raid, and they go far beyond public perception. To start with, there is the fate of the 42 children who were ultimately removed from the home -- all of them were in process to be adopted by U.S. families. Their whereabouts are currently unknown. (I considered using CQ myself when I began this adoption journey; I can only imagine what it must be like to stand in those adoptive parents' shoes. It could have been Pablo.) There is the role of the Bienestar (the Welfare department), headed up by the president's wife Wendy de Berger, arch-enemy of international adoption. There is the highly questionable invocation of the 2003 PINA law, which was designed to apply not to notarial adoptions, but to children in abusive families.
Now, what does this all have to do with me? Well, for one thing, Pablo, along with all the other FTC babies, is now effectively on house arrest. We have been advised not to go out in public with our foster children, for fear that we might be subject to police harassment on the streets of Antigua. There have been rumors of court orders for the police to begin checking paperwork on adoptive children -- and we have seen what "checking paperwork" led to at Casa Quivira. My daily walks throughout the city are now solo affairs, my babe left with Gabriela (a wonderful ninera) for a couple of hours every day so that I don't go entirely stir crazy. In some ways, of course, it is easier to cruise around town without a baby in tow -- no formula/diapers/toys to drag along, no late afternoon meltdowns to worry about, no inquisitive proddings. But I miss him, and I resent the circumstances that keep him housebound. Estadounidense that I am, I resent the curtailing of my freedom. It would be ridiculous to say that I feel like my rights are being violated -- I am a visitor in a foreign land; I carry a U.S. passport, with all the privileges that entails; I have had no restrictions on my own movement; and I am not afraid, on my own behalf, of any authorities. But nevertheless, I feel trapped, and anxious, and angry.
You may well have heard about the police raid last month on Casa Quivira, a foster home located just outside Antigua. I don't know who is working for the Guatemalan anti-adoption forces on PR, but they hit a bonanza with this one -- apparently the story made it all the way to French TV and Al Jazeera, with stops along the way throughout the U.S. and the U.K. Almost all of the initial stories -- mostly distributed through AP -- assumed a guilty until proven innocent tone, with headlines featuring "stolen children" and the like. In recent weeks, the coverage has evened out a bit, as the home's owners have issued their own press releases, but I would say that overall the damage has been done -- for instance, most antiguenos that I've talked to assume that surely something illegal was going on at the home. For an accurate accounting of the full story -- at least, the story as far as it is known so far -- I refer you, as usual, to Guatadopt.
There are multiple problems with the CQ raid, and they go far beyond public perception. To start with, there is the fate of the 42 children who were ultimately removed from the home -- all of them were in process to be adopted by U.S. families. Their whereabouts are currently unknown. (I considered using CQ myself when I began this adoption journey; I can only imagine what it must be like to stand in those adoptive parents' shoes. It could have been Pablo.) There is the role of the Bienestar (the Welfare department), headed up by the president's wife Wendy de Berger, arch-enemy of international adoption. There is the highly questionable invocation of the 2003 PINA law, which was designed to apply not to notarial adoptions, but to children in abusive families.
Now, what does this all have to do with me? Well, for one thing, Pablo, along with all the other FTC babies, is now effectively on house arrest. We have been advised not to go out in public with our foster children, for fear that we might be subject to police harassment on the streets of Antigua. There have been rumors of court orders for the police to begin checking paperwork on adoptive children -- and we have seen what "checking paperwork" led to at Casa Quivira. My daily walks throughout the city are now solo affairs, my babe left with Gabriela (a wonderful ninera) for a couple of hours every day so that I don't go entirely stir crazy. In some ways, of course, it is easier to cruise around town without a baby in tow -- no formula/diapers/toys to drag along, no late afternoon meltdowns to worry about, no inquisitive proddings. But I miss him, and I resent the circumstances that keep him housebound. Estadounidense that I am, I resent the curtailing of my freedom. It would be ridiculous to say that I feel like my rights are being violated -- I am a visitor in a foreign land; I carry a U.S. passport, with all the privileges that entails; I have had no restrictions on my own movement; and I am not afraid, on my own behalf, of any authorities. But nevertheless, I feel trapped, and anxious, and angry.
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