It is a Long and Bumpy Road

The long, winding road to adoption is full of bumps and dips and mud and quicksand and boulders and downed trees and....and....

It's not too bad travelling down this road when you know you will eventually arrive at your destination. Although, some of these obstacles make you doubt if you will ever successfully make it to the end.

The first big scare I had was last November. While everybody in the U.S. was busy preparing their Thanksgiving meals, a rebel group in Congo completely took over a city in the eastern part of the country. The Congolese military had retreated and it seemed as if the Congolese government had no control over the eastern half of it's nation. I was really nervous that adoptions would be suspended during all this turmoil. That incident actually did not affect adoptions because the cities that people adopt from are usually in the western, more stable part of the DRC. But, it is still hard to have faith in an adoption program from a country that is barely holding itself together.

In the beginning of this year we received some more bad news. The US Embassy changed their orphan investigation timelines from two months to up to six months. A few years ago there were only 50 adoptions from the DRC; this year it is expected to have 500 adoptions. The US Embassy has not hired any new employees to keep up with the piling workload. For the investigation, they need to travel to the child's birthplace to interview family members. The worst part is that they are only doing investigations for children from Kinshasa. They do not have the resources to travel to other parts of the country to conduct investigations. The US Embassy currently does not have a plan as to how they will conduct the required investigations in the city where my son is from. Without the Embassy investigation, my son will not be able to immigrate to the United States. Until they hire new people and get a real plan in place, it is easy to believe that the investigations for children from outside Kinshasa will take longer than the six month estimate.

Last week we received even more bad news. The Congolese government has  "temporarily suspended issuance of exit permits to adopted Congolese children seeking to depart the country with their adoptive parents". This basically means they have suspended adoptions since you can't bring your child home without the exit permit. This suspension is in response to a Canadian adoption that was not complying to their rules. While they investigate that adoption and others, nobody else can bring their children home. The exit permit is the very last step of the process, so it is not affecting our adoption yet. Our agency does not seem overly concerned and I am hoping that it will all get worked out before we get to that step. The word "temporary" makes me nervous. It could mean two weeks or a year or it could be a stepping stone to "permanent".

When we first started this adoption, adopting from the DRC was supposed to be a relatively easy, one year process. It seems to me that Congo is on it's way to eventually shutting adoptions down. This goes along with the general trend of most countries. When a country's international adoption program becomes popular, they become uneasy about other countries taking all their orphans. They shut down adoption programs and blame it on "unethical adoptions". (Child trafficking and other unethical adoptions are serious issues, but completely shutting down adoptions permanently is not the answer).  It really seems that throughout the world, many countries are closing their doors to international adoption, even if their own domestic adoption is not improving. I don't know if it is a pride thing or an anti- America thing, but I know so many children are going to miss out on being a part of a loving family because of it. I will not be surprised if the DRC eventually shuts down its adoption program. I just really hope we can bring our baby home before they do.