Stories of your adoption experiences

Adopted our third child from Guatemala! What a blessing ! Please show the positive side of adoption, this beautiful country , the beautiful people and the children who desperately need loving families! Our child was born in Coban, Guatemala. Born on Feb 25, 2006. Arrived in the US as a citizen Feb 9th, 2007. Celebrated his first birthday, first Halloween, First Thanksgiving and First Christmas this year! Would we recommend Guatemala? Yes we would!!! with absolutely no doubt or reservations! --Anonymous , eldersburg, MD (submitted on Jan. 16, 2008)

I'm keenly aware of the flaws of the notarial system in place while I was adopting from Guatemala (2002-2004). I have felt the utter pain and despair of having "my" daughter taken from me ... from my care in Guatemala, by a man diefied by others ... a real adoption saint of sorts, and I've not seen that child since that day. I somehow knew I would never see her again ... I'd been asked to bring her back to the hogar for a "pgn check." I knew her case was in investigation, and I wanted to believe my US agency that the accusations by some mysterious woman were baseless ... but I somehow knew in my heart that wasn't the case. I returned to the US the day after I sat in the anteroom of the hogar for 2.5 hours ... watching the older children "play" ... waiting to find out why my daughter hadn't been placed back in my arms so we could return to our life, as it were, in Antigua. Once back in the US, I hired yet another attorney in Guatemala to find out the adoption was completely fraudulent ... falsified documents ... falsified history ... falsified everything. I remember one weekend of staring at the cedula (workers card) of the biological mother and the DNA sheet, noting, for the first time, the thumb prints were not the same at all. It was perfectly clear all along. And I remember thinking there was no adoption system in place so cruel as the Guatemalan system. You bond with that child the day you catch your first glimpse of her from a picture... hear her name for the first time ... see and study over and over her medical stats. She is the most beautiful child on the planet and she is yours ... no one really tells you she isn't and that the system she's coming from is rife with corruption and full of peril. And if it comes to it, you will do anything to get her home ... anything... that is the most frightening aspect of it all. I've also seen the beauty of Guatemalan adoption ... I see it in my daughter's eyes every day. I picked up the emotional pieces and waited out the Hague shutdown of 2003 ... signed on with an agency of unimpeachable integrity (and with a FAST track record for bringing home the babies) and was flat out lucky. This agency was upstanding, moral, and practiced due diligence .... and ultimately, I brought my daughter home a week after her four month birthday. I've found my daughter's biological mother. I know her adoption was "clean." I know my daughter is living a better life than she would in Guatemala and that she will have the opportunity to know her biological family and help make this a better world. It has been a win/win. Still.... there is sorrow ... as there is with most everything. Her biological mother misses her, I'm sure. My daughter will feel a loss when she is old enough to understand, I'm sure. And I still wonder about that little girl I fostered ... if she is safe ... if she is loved. Guatemala is a country of contradictions and inscrutability .. as is adoption. --Anonymous , Charleston, SC (submitted on Jan. 16, 2008)

I'm keenly aware of the flaws of the notarial system in place while I was adopting from Guatemala (2002-2004). I have felt the utter pain and despair of having "my" daughter taken from me ... from my care in Guatemala, by a man diefied by others ... a real adoption saint of sorts, and I've not seen that child since that day. I somehow knew I would never see her again ... I'd been asked to bring her back to the hogar for a "pgn check." I knew her case was in investigation, and I wanted to believe my US agency that the accusations by some mysterious woman were baseless ... but I somehow knew in my heart that wasn't the case. I returned to the US the day after I sat in the anteroom of the hogar for 2.5 hours ... watching the older children "play" ... waiting to find out why my daughter hadn't been placed back in my arms so we could return to our life, as it were, in Antigua. Once back in the US, I hired yet another attorney in Guatemala to find out the adoption was completely fraudulent ... falsified documents ... falsified history ... falsified everything. I remember one weekend of staring at the cedula (workers card) of the biological mother and the DNA sheet, noting, for the first time, the thumb prints were not the same at all. It was perfectly clear all along. And I remember thinking there was no adoption system in place so cruel as the Guatemalan system. You bond with that child the day you catch your first glimpse of her from a picture... hear her name for the first time ... see and study over and over her medical stats. She is the most beautiful child on the planet and she is yours ... no one really tells you she isn't and that the system she's coming from is rife with corruption and full of peril. And if it comes to it, you will do anything to get her home ... anything... that is the most frightening aspect of it all. I've also seen the beauty of Guatemalan adoption ... I see it in my daughter's eyes every day. I picked up the emotional pieces and waited out the Hague shutdown of 2003 ... signed on with an agency of unimpeachable integrity (and with a FAST track record for bringing home the babies) and was flat out lucky. This agency was upstanding, moral, and practiced due diligence .... and ultimately, I brought my daughter home a week after her four month birthday. I've found my daughter's biological mother. I know her adoption was "clean." I know my daughter is living a better life than she would in Guatemala and that she will have the opportunity to know her biological family and help make this a better world. It has been a win/win. Still.... there is sorrow ... as there is with most everything. Her biological mother misses her, I'm sure. My daughter will feel a loss when she is old enough to understand, I'm sure. And I still wonder about that little girl I fostered ... if she is safe ... if she is loved. Guatemala is a country of contradictions and inscrutability .. as is adoption. --Anonymous , Charleston, SC (submitted on Jan. 16, 2008)

We adopted our daughters (Mia 3 (2005) and Mazlin 1 1/2 (2007) from Guatemala. I fostered Mia in Guatemala and it was the most amazing journey we've taken in our lives. We were able to meet Mia's birth mom twice and it was so meaningful to us and will be to her. The thought of this not happening for other families is heartbreaking to us. --Laurie McGrath, St. Louis, MO (submitted on Jan. 16, 2008)

My husband and I have been married for 10 years. From the day we said, "I do," we wanted a family and got right to it. After a year we realized medical intervention was necessary. We tried it all, including 3 in-vitro fertilizations. Despite my husband being in medical school, we took on significant debt, believing that our dream would become reality. After spending in the tens of thousands, we had to come to the realization that having a biological child was not to be. As a result, we turned to adoption. We each have collegues that adopted from Guatemala and we fell in love with these children - the silkiness of their hair, the deep richness of their eyes and their eternally tan skin - features neither my husband nor I have, but admire. We especially liked the foster care system--a feature only found in Guatemala. Knowing our child would receive individual and immediate attention at a critical time in his life was important. Also, Guatemala is only a short 6 hour plane ride from where we live, so we could visit often, during and after the adoption. Thirdly, we like that we could adopt an infant. On June 12th we received our referral for our darling baby boy. My husband and I have traveled 4 times to visit our son. On our first trip our son was 2 1/2 weeks old. He was eating every 2 hours, so we got no sleep and loved every minute of it. We had such a great time with our son that we took our mothers to meet their grandchild. This visit was even more heartwarming as we watched our mothers with our son. Times grew stressful, however, as we learned that Guatemala was completely up-ending their adoption laws. There was a very real threat of losing our son! We spent many late hours writing letters to congressmen, UNICEF, and the state department, pleading our case. Thankfully, a grandfather clause was put into place, and we seem to be in good stead. Even though it's from a distance, we've had the honor to watch our son grow and experience life in his earliest months. We just received word that he'll be coming home to us sometime in Feburary. I will forever be indebted to this country for allowing me to realize my life-long dream to be a mom. Our only sadness is that the new Guatemalan legislation will mean that many others won't experience the joy with which we've been blessed. --Lisa Heise, Germantown, WI (submitted on Jan. 16, 2008)

Our family could use Dateline's help with an Guatemala adoption horror story. My aunt adopted twins, born April 3, 2007. She is currently in the process. Last week, she was told that the twin girl died one week prior. Apparently, the foster mother the twins were staying with went to the hospital to have her own baby. During that time, the twin girl became ill with vomiting and diarrea. She ultimately dies of dehydration. For one week, the adoption agency, doctors and lawyers lied to my aunt that the twins were doing great. Obviously this tragedy could have been avoided, but now the concern is getting the twin boy out. What can she do? How can she prevent another tragedy and get the twin boy through the process. It has been nine months and she has waiting so long, too long. --Robin Kaplan, Aventura, FL (submitted on Jan. 16, 2008)

I'm sitting next to my son who we adopted from Guatemala in April of 2006. If I could bottle up the pride I have to be this child's mother, I would. It's one of the best feelings a person can experience. I feel so lucky to finally be a parent and especially a parent to a child from Guatemala. He is sitting here laughing and singing along with an episode from one of his favorite shows. We all realize that corruption occurs with many adoptions... especially here in the United States. As far as our son's story goes, I can assure EVERYONE that my son's birth mom was not coerced into "giving up" her child. We worked with an amazing agency in the United States and they worked with ethical people in Guatemala who helped us finally become parents. I work in the television industry. I freelance for NBC in New York. I am an Audio Technician and have even worked for Dateline. Many of my friends at NBC went through this journey with me. They saw the tears of joy we shed when we were finally able to bring home our son home. I realize that your show will show some of the bad that does occur in the Guatemalan adoption processes, but I sure do hope that some positives are mentioned as well. Thanks, Becky Stone --Becky Stone, Bronx, NY (submitted on Jan. 16, 2008)

My name is Nadia Ortiz and I am 39 years old. I have Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) and am wheelchair-dependent because I am three feet tall. My disability is a collagen-insufficiency which causes my bones to break easily. I have been married to my husband, Marco, for 7 years, he has no physical disabilities. We have two beautiful children, boys, adopted from Guatemala. I put a career of being a successful Speech-Language Pathologist on hold to stay home full-time with our two children. Our first son came home in February 2004 at 6 months old and our second son came home September 2006 at 11 months old. I am physically not able to bear children, so we turned to Guatemala to adopt because my husband's entire family is from Guatemala, many of whom still live there. In addition, it is the one international country that does NOT discriminate against physical disabilities. China's travels were too tedious (and they now have tighter restrictions against the disabled) as was Russia or Ukraine. Korea would not allow us to adopt because of my disability. Besides, adopting from Guatemala seemed a "natural" choice next to biological children because of our already close ties with its heritage. Both children, while in foster care in Guatemala, were visited by my in-law family. We were also fortunate enough to visit both children ourselves (for each individual process) and have them stay with us for a week during the adoption process. Guatemala’s adoption system, as we knew it, was the ideal process. We knew our children were getting individual attention and care; they were taken in by families, not institutions. Both children became an integral part of their foster families. This, without a doubt, helped the children start to learn early about healthy, loving relationships. Domestic adoption is too pain-staking. Private adoption did not provide us hope because I was not confident that a woman would choose me to raise her children. And being first-time parents, we wanted to experience raising infants. Private adoption would be the best opportunity for that, but we could not bear the potential disappointment of an interrupted adoption. Guatemala has given us the gift of two beautiful children – this country has made our dream of a family come true. Guatemala has provided me a dream come true that I never even thought possible – to be called “mommy.” And for that, I am forever grateful. I am also currently owner and moderator of a Yahoo!Group Disabled Adoptive Parents (DAP) with over 200 members. We provide information and support to those disabled individuals who want to adopt, or have adopted, both domestically and internationally. --Nadia Ortiz, Floral Park, NY (submitted on Jan. 16, 2008)

We are the Trost family from Ohio. We adopted our daughter Myah from Guatemala in November 2007. She came home at 9 months old. Our agency was Guatemala Miracles, with Carol Slater. Although we had our ups and downs, we had a great experience. The extensive medical information and updates during the process was great. We spent a total of 18 weeks in "PGN" because of being "kicked out". Our file was scrutinized and gone over with a fine tooth comb. I know, I have the documents with the writing all over it to show. We got background information on Myah's mom and pictures of them together. Her birthmother signed off at least 4 times during the adoption process, giving her consent for adoption. Not to mention the 2 DNA tests that were done during the process to make sure there was no "baby switching". We took a total of 4 trips to Guatemala to visit Myah during the process, by choice, because we enjoyed the country so much. We took our 10 year old daughter, Tori, on one trip and she loved Guatemala. We plan on returning when Myah is older. As I sit here typing and listening to the sound of my husband and daughter making eachother laugh hysterically while playing with toys on the floor, I know we made the right decision. --Emily Trost, Tipp City, OH (submitted on Jan. 16, 2008)

My name is Kathryn and found myself single and wanting a child at age 39. I started out using a sperm donor and going through 5 insemination cycles. A friend of mine had adopted a child from Guatemala and she was beautiful! Giving up the notion of birthing my own child was difficultm but I quickly started on my journey to adoption, Home study in January 2004m referral of a little girl in April 2004, a visit to Guatemala in September and then pick up on November 24th (National Adoption Day) My process was pretty smooth and my child was well taken care of in the Hogar where she lived. My child is completely intact and superbly matched to me. As a teacher of children with special needs for the last 16 years, it is a daily joy to wake up and be greeted by my now 4 year old, Gabrielle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! --Kathryn Mahony, Amherst, MA (submitted on Jan. 16, 2008)

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