This morning when I woke up and checked my emails.
I opened the one from the journalist at the Washington Post
with the link to the article he wrote about me.
Here is the link
I am too emotionally and physically exhausted to blog about Day 3 of
my trip so tonight I will just post about the article and some about my day today.
When being interviewed for an article you are taking risk.
You are hoping the journalist thinks the things you think are important will be
important to them too.
You hope you answer the questions of those you know will find reasons to hate you.
You hope that somehow your article will do good and that more people
will care about the issues you care about.
I think the journalist did a pretty good job of telling the story
but of course there are things I would change.
First,
I spent almost 2 hours speaking to this journalist.
We spoke about why I was there,
what I was hoping to accomplish,
why I still felt an obligation to this little girl,
and why I felt I was not allowed to adopt her.
I brought up several times that I felt the US needed to take greater
measures to protect the children who had been adopted.
That a group of parents had gone to Washington with a proposal of
changes we would agree to if we were allowed to adopt.
I do not know why most articles choose to not report about the abused children.
Most people who are trying to adopt are well aware of them.
We do not agree with the way the government has handled it along
with a lot of things our government has done.
We have been unsuccessful in getting our government to do anything about this.
The fact remains that a child with special needs stuck in an orphanage
is far more likely to be hurt and abused there than they would be if adopted
by an American family.
That does not mean American families who do horrible things to these children
or any children should not be punished.
But punishing all the children who met prospective families is not the way
to fix the problem either.
Next,
We never told Natasha we were her parents.
Her caregivers told her that.
Even if they had not told her that she is old enough to figure it out.
We were the only people EVER to come visit her.
So if an American family comes and spends 3 days with you
what are you supposed to think they are there for?
I also never said I thought the child was bonded to us.
My comment was that she knew we were there for her and by the
3rd day came running to us and did not want us to leave.
We know that once she came home there would have been a lot of issues
with bonding as she has been an orphan for 8 years.
While I am happy the journalist mentioned Downside Up I really wish
he would have focused on it more.
I honestly believe the way to help solve the orphan crisis is to
have more families actually keep their children with special needs.
The only way this will happen is if there are more programs and support for
organizations like Downside Up.
Since they started their organization over 15 years ago they have made a huge
difference in the number of families that keep their children with DS.
It used to be that 95% of children with DS were given up to the orphanages.
Last year that number was closer to 40%.
Downside Up works in all the regions to help families even though their
office is located only in Moscow.
They could do so much more if they had more funding and had
locations in the other regions.
Now to explain why I am so exhausted and to answer those lovely comments
that ask why not adopt from the US foster care system.
Most people who read my blog know that my adorable princess is
adopted from foster care.
Her story is a heartbreaking one as is any story where a child is
removed from their birth family by force.
Here is the short version of her story.
She was taken at 2 months old because her parents had been shaking her and had drug issues.
We fostered her while doing parental visit with her birth family for 19 months.
At 17 months it was determined her birth family had made enough progress
they could have weekend visits with her.
I would drop her off at the halfway house for the weekends to a place
I would not willfully drop an animal off to if I had a choice.
Her birth family loved her.
They just were not capable of taking care of her.
I will not discuss all the reasons I feel this way because I don't want to air it all out here.
The social worker was iffy on if she should be placed back with them or not.
But the weekend before court her birth parents called us and said they
would like us to adopt her and they would relinquish their rights.
They asked if they could still be a part of her life and we agreed
as long as they would abide by our strict terms of no drug use
and no drama.
To this day we still our shocked that this was the outcome for our princess and
after watching her birth family for the last 4 years do some really stupid things
we are very grateful that she did not have to be a part of them.
Eighteen months ago,
right before we traveled to meet Natasha,
we were told by the birthmom that she was pregnant again.
I was cautiously optimist that she might actually get her act together
and be able to raise this baby.
There was a different father once again
and I was hoping he might be able to do things differently.
Unfortunately, just like she did with the previous 5 children,
mom got the baby taken away.
And when did I receive this news.....
My 5th day in Russia.
Sometimes I think God has a weird sense of humor.
Here I am in Russia trying to find a family for a little girl my heart aches to bring home
and Nevaeh's birthmom is calling us begging us to take care of the baby
while she tries once again to get her life together.
Today was the meeting to determine what home would be best for this little guy
while the parents try to reunify.
while the parents try to reunify.
I do not know what he's outcome will be as it is a very complicated case.
All I know is that foster care is not this easy you go pick up a kid and live
happily ever after thing.
No adoption every is.
There is hurt and loss in any adoption.
It is not God's first plan for families but it is a necessary plan
when the first one fails.
There are two sides to adoption
Love and Loss.
It doesn't matter where it is from or how it happens
there are people who lose.
There is joy in adoption but there is also
much pain to work through.
There is no system that works perfectly in adoption.
So my outrage tonight with those wonderful
"What about the children in the US"
and
"Why don't people just adopt from foster care"
is HUGE.
HUGE I tell you.
I do not know if I have the strength or energy to fight anymore.
Tonight I am so very tired.
Tired of all the criticisms by people who sit by and do nothing but
criticize those who are trying to do something.
Tired of screaming for children that no one seems to care about.
Just so very tired.
Maybe it's the jet lag
I don't know.
But I feel like I could sleep all week and I would still wake up exhausted.
One quote the journalist did not put in is one I kept saying over and over again.
I am not going away. I will continue to fight. I am not going away.
So tonight I am going to bed but I am not going away.
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