Adoption in Guatemala

Adoptions in Guatemala

I've not written much in your journal about adoption from Guatemala. Since you've been home with us, much has changed and many new rules and regualations are in the works. Much of this is being done to protect birth mothers and their children and to ensure that all is ethical. The current adoption system is run by notaries and lawyers and children are kept in foster families until the adoption is completed. This is one of the reasons your Daddy and i were drawn to Guatemala-children were in foster care as opposed to an orphange setting. There has been much in the news lately about birth mothers being paid for their children and how lawyers make a substainal amount of money on adoptions. There is also much talk on the Guatemalan adoption boards about the pros and cons of this new system.....and of course, there is much emotion in those posts. No one wants to think that money is being made on children....no one. But i'm afraid that it's true, Emma. Money is a powerful thing and sometimes makes people do things that aren't acceptable or ethical. I don't think that any proseptive adoptive parent want to think that their adoption of their child was unethical-but some adoptive parents who have searched for the birth mother have found out (much to their dismay) that their adoption wasn't done on the most ethical of motives.

I don't know the answers to the problems in Guatemala, Emma. I wish i did. My fear is that many children who's mothers who aren't able to provide for them will abandon their children in the hopes that someone will be able to provide for their children better than they can. In the end, it always seems that the children, the most innocent, suffer. And in this, so will the women who give birth to these children. I hope that this won't be the case in Guatemala. It is such a beautiful country with strong and wonderful people.....when you are a little older, we will take you back so you can see Guatemala for yourself. You will be in awe of it's beauty, little one.
And so i'm sad today; sad for the adoptive parents who will be caught up in the changing of the rules. Sad for some of the outcomes that no one wants to see. Perhaps adoptions will continue and be better....but right now, well, i guess it is a wait and see type of situation for everyone.

This is one of the very few photos that we have of you and your foster mother. I wish that we had more....but this is one of my treasured photos of you and her together.

Love you to the moon and back....

Mommy