Just a quick update -- I got a call from Rachel (the Senior Vietnam Program coordinator at FTIA) today. There is a problem with one of our documents. When the Vietnam Consulate in San Francisco authorizes documents, they fan all the sheets of one document out and stamp it so that part of the stamp shows on each page. Apparently, there is not enough of the stamp showing on one of the pages of one of our documents, so the notary in Vietnam won't accept it. The office in Hanoi had to send it back to the States. (Rachel said they actually couldn't figure out what was wrong with the document at first, so Keith's wife, who is Vietnamese, called Vietnam to find out!) FTIA has sent the document to the consulate in San Francisco to have them stamp the page again. She hopes that this will satisfy the notary in Vietnam, but she's not sure. So, if it doesn't, we will have to redo the document. Right now we just sit back and wait to see what happens. The rest of our dossier will be submitted to the IAD without this one document, and then they will submit the correct one later.
All I could do was laugh. It's a good thing this is going to take 18 months because it'll take us that long to get our dossier right! :)
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Monday, June 25, 2007
Some News, Plus Questions and Answers
Hi all!
Well, Keith returned from Vietnam feeling optimistic. Things are progressing, and he does not feel that there is a need to extend the wait times. So, we are still looking at 12-18 months (I am banking on 18 months). Yahoo! Also, we received an email from Rachel, the Senior Coordinator of the Vietnam Program, and she said that they have begun to receive paperwork on children from three of the four provinces. Because of the rules in Vietnam governing the process to identify a child as an orphan, there most likely won't be any referrals until August. An ad must run in Vietnamese newspapers for 60 days identifying the child in case a relative decides to step forward and claim him. I'm a bit fuzzy on what the entire process is for the child to be classified an orphan and what the child's paperwork involves, so I think that is a good place for me to do some research and report back later. :)
Anyway, the mood is much lighter now that we know referrals will be starting again.
Now, to answer some questions I received:
Is the wait time different for a boy or a girl? Yes, it is. The wait time for boys is shorter (by about three months, I think). For some reason, people want to adopt more girls than boys. This is true everywhere, not just Vietnam. I'm not sure why, and I think it would be a very interesting thing for a sociologist to study. I know some reasons people want girls... we do because we already have two boys. Some other people have said that they have a girl and want her to have a sister, or that they are single women and would just feel more comfortable and familiar with raising a girl. This is an issue that I struggle with. I LOVE raising my boys -- they are so much fun! And knowing that it's harder to place boys makes me feel for them. I flip flop on it, but John and I have discussed it, and he really wants a little girl. Truthfully, so do I. My daydream wish would be for us to receive a set of siblings, boy and girl. But the odds aren't in our favor for that. A lot of other people have the same dream.
Are there more girls coming out of Vietnam? This is an interesting question. Vietnam is not like China. There is no limit on how many children a family can have. That is a big contributor to why a majority of children adopted from China are girls. In that culture (and in many other Asian cultures), the oldest son is the one who takes care of his parents as they grow older. So, if you can only have one child, it's "better" to have a son so that there is someone to take care of you. I think that many boys who are available for adoption in China are adopted by Chinese families for this reason, also. But back to Vietnam. I believe that there is probably an equal number of boys and girls being classified as orphans, but there may be more girls coming to the U.S. because more people want a girl.
Are there different wait times based on the age of the child (infant, toddler, older child) or disabilities? Yes. The younger the healthy child, the longer the wait. That is one of the reasons Angelina Jolie was able to adopt her son so quickly -- he was 4 years old. There aren't very many people looking for an older child. (I won't conjecture on other reasons she was able to adopt so quickly...) Also, children with disabilities have a much shorter wait time, as they are harder to place. In fact, there are Wait Lists with disabled children who are ready to be adopted now. John and I based the age we requested on the ages of our sons. We feel it is important to keep the birth order, so we are requesting a child/children who would be younger than Ethan (our youngest) would be at the time of the adoption. We are also basing our request for a healthy child on our sons. If we didn't already have children, we might consider some disabilities, but we have to take into account how that will affect our other kids. My sister is deaf, and while our family made a point of treating her the same as the rest of us, there were still the extra hospital visits, speech therapy, time dealing with schools and special education programs... Of course I wouldn't trade my sister for anything in the world, and I don't at all resent the extra things she needed, but it does affect the family. Also, I personally consider deafness an issue that would be much easier to handle than a severely crippled child or one with serious mental disabilities. I would be more open to adopting a deaf child, but I have to respect the fact that John isn't as comfortable with it. He didn't grow up with it as an everyday thing.
So that leads to my viewpoint on these issues. It's easy to say that people are being selfish for choosing healthy baby girls over children who are waiting for homes now. It's not so easy to actually take a waiting child into your home and raise him. Each family makes the decision based on what is right for that family at that time. There are a lot of different factors that go into making the decision -- factors that others may not even think of. It isn't a flippant thing. Our hearts cry out for every child who needs a loving home, but we have taken a long hard look at our lives, and we know what our family can handle and what it isn't ready for. In the end, I don't think it would be right for a child to be placed in a home that isn't prepared to deal with his issues, and may not be able to handle them. That's why children and families are "matched" in adoption rather than randomly coming together. I don't think we can judge anyone for making the choices they did, because in the end, it's the right thing for both the families and for all the children out there. It can be argued that you don't have a choice when giving birth, but really, you don't know what might come up with an adoptd child in the future, either. My sister lost her hearing over time, and it wasn't diagnosed until she was 3. Not to mention the fact that anyone adopting any child of another race from another country with a different culture -- who has spent time in an orphange -- is already taking on some special issues.
See what kind of deep thinking you guys make me do! :) These were great questions! Please keep them coming!!
Well, Keith returned from Vietnam feeling optimistic. Things are progressing, and he does not feel that there is a need to extend the wait times. So, we are still looking at 12-18 months (I am banking on 18 months). Yahoo! Also, we received an email from Rachel, the Senior Coordinator of the Vietnam Program, and she said that they have begun to receive paperwork on children from three of the four provinces. Because of the rules in Vietnam governing the process to identify a child as an orphan, there most likely won't be any referrals until August. An ad must run in Vietnamese newspapers for 60 days identifying the child in case a relative decides to step forward and claim him. I'm a bit fuzzy on what the entire process is for the child to be classified an orphan and what the child's paperwork involves, so I think that is a good place for me to do some research and report back later. :)
Anyway, the mood is much lighter now that we know referrals will be starting again.
Now, to answer some questions I received:
Is the wait time different for a boy or a girl? Yes, it is. The wait time for boys is shorter (by about three months, I think). For some reason, people want to adopt more girls than boys. This is true everywhere, not just Vietnam. I'm not sure why, and I think it would be a very interesting thing for a sociologist to study. I know some reasons people want girls... we do because we already have two boys. Some other people have said that they have a girl and want her to have a sister, or that they are single women and would just feel more comfortable and familiar with raising a girl. This is an issue that I struggle with. I LOVE raising my boys -- they are so much fun! And knowing that it's harder to place boys makes me feel for them. I flip flop on it, but John and I have discussed it, and he really wants a little girl. Truthfully, so do I. My daydream wish would be for us to receive a set of siblings, boy and girl. But the odds aren't in our favor for that. A lot of other people have the same dream.
Are there more girls coming out of Vietnam? This is an interesting question. Vietnam is not like China. There is no limit on how many children a family can have. That is a big contributor to why a majority of children adopted from China are girls. In that culture (and in many other Asian cultures), the oldest son is the one who takes care of his parents as they grow older. So, if you can only have one child, it's "better" to have a son so that there is someone to take care of you. I think that many boys who are available for adoption in China are adopted by Chinese families for this reason, also. But back to Vietnam. I believe that there is probably an equal number of boys and girls being classified as orphans, but there may be more girls coming to the U.S. because more people want a girl.
Are there different wait times based on the age of the child (infant, toddler, older child) or disabilities? Yes. The younger the healthy child, the longer the wait. That is one of the reasons Angelina Jolie was able to adopt her son so quickly -- he was 4 years old. There aren't very many people looking for an older child. (I won't conjecture on other reasons she was able to adopt so quickly...) Also, children with disabilities have a much shorter wait time, as they are harder to place. In fact, there are Wait Lists with disabled children who are ready to be adopted now. John and I based the age we requested on the ages of our sons. We feel it is important to keep the birth order, so we are requesting a child/children who would be younger than Ethan (our youngest) would be at the time of the adoption. We are also basing our request for a healthy child on our sons. If we didn't already have children, we might consider some disabilities, but we have to take into account how that will affect our other kids. My sister is deaf, and while our family made a point of treating her the same as the rest of us, there were still the extra hospital visits, speech therapy, time dealing with schools and special education programs... Of course I wouldn't trade my sister for anything in the world, and I don't at all resent the extra things she needed, but it does affect the family. Also, I personally consider deafness an issue that would be much easier to handle than a severely crippled child or one with serious mental disabilities. I would be more open to adopting a deaf child, but I have to respect the fact that John isn't as comfortable with it. He didn't grow up with it as an everyday thing.
So that leads to my viewpoint on these issues. It's easy to say that people are being selfish for choosing healthy baby girls over children who are waiting for homes now. It's not so easy to actually take a waiting child into your home and raise him. Each family makes the decision based on what is right for that family at that time. There are a lot of different factors that go into making the decision -- factors that others may not even think of. It isn't a flippant thing. Our hearts cry out for every child who needs a loving home, but we have taken a long hard look at our lives, and we know what our family can handle and what it isn't ready for. In the end, I don't think it would be right for a child to be placed in a home that isn't prepared to deal with his issues, and may not be able to handle them. That's why children and families are "matched" in adoption rather than randomly coming together. I don't think we can judge anyone for making the choices they did, because in the end, it's the right thing for both the families and for all the children out there. It can be argued that you don't have a choice when giving birth, but really, you don't know what might come up with an adoptd child in the future, either. My sister lost her hearing over time, and it wasn't diagnosed until she was 3. Not to mention the fact that anyone adopting any child of another race from another country with a different culture -- who has spent time in an orphange -- is already taking on some special issues.
See what kind of deep thinking you guys make me do! :) These were great questions! Please keep them coming!!
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