We're Still Here

I have been pretty quiet on my blog lately, but we are still here, praying through every day that we will be allowed to bring our son home. We have been in this adoption process now for 2 years and 4 months. Roland received his immigrant visa (the final step before applying for an exit permit) 9 months ago (2 months after the suspension began). Roland turns 21 months old today (he was 3 months old when we were first matched with him).

For the last 18 months, Roland has been cared for at our adoption agency- run transition house. However, that is sadly coming to an end. By the beginning of October, our agency will close our transition house because it is just too expensive for them to keep running. The 42 children who have been living in the house will all be moved into foster care. This may save us a little bit of money on the monthly childcare fees, but I am not happy about this situation at all. Honestly, I just do not trust "foster families" in Congo to care for my son. Our agency says they will screen them, but I do not know if anybody holds them accountable after that. Just the culture difference makes it unlikely they would raise our children according to our standards and customs. Not to mention that the families could possibly be dishonest, abusive, neglectful, etc. (just like people are in every part of the world). I feel quite uncomfortable with this situation being forced upon us, but there really isn't any other option beside me moving to Congo to care for Roland myself. I do toy with the idea, some days more seriously than others, but finances will always be the limiting factor. We just keep praying he will be able to come home as soon as possible.

Over the past few months all of the adoptive families with children stuck in Congo have banded together to get our story to the ears of the public and those in power. In April, 171 members of Congress sent a letter to Congo's President Kabila asking for the adoption crisis to be resolved. In May, John Kerry brought up the exit permit suspension during his visit with President Kabila. In June, a few of the children were allowed to come home, but shortly after the door seemed to be slammed shut tighter. At the end of June, 56 families gathered together in Washington, D.C. to meet with nearly 100 members of Congress and to raise more public awareness of the Congo adoption crisis. In July, Jill Biden traveled to the DRC and requested that the ban on exit permits be lifted. A few days later, the House of Representatives passed a Resolution calling on the DRC to end the suspension of exit permits. Following that, 167 members of Congress wrote a letter to President Obama asking him to personally engage with President Kabila to end the suspension.

President Kabila is expected to attend the African Summit in Washington, D.C. in a few days. If you have not already done so, we ask that you sign and share the petition that asks President Obama to bring up the adoption crisis while President Kabila is here. Our cause has gained a lot of momentum the past couple months and we need to keep it going until every last one of these adopted children are safely home.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/please-call-democratic-republic-congo-president-kabila-end-suspension-adoptions/F3rtB79G



Here is a video describing the adoption crisis in Congo. It was taken when the adoptive families gathered together in Washington, D.C.

From Bad to Worse

In my last post I wrote about how we have to wait for Congo to write new adoption laws before we could bring our son home. It was our assumption that was something they were currently working on. However, our newest tidbit of news is that the Congo Parliament will be out of session all summer. They will not even begin writing the new laws until the fall. It is unclear who needs to adhere to these new laws and who gets "grandfathered in", but for some reason we all have to wait for them to get written. Who knows how long it will take them to write and pass the new adoption law and then process the hundreds of adoption cases.

At the end of this month dozens of adoptive families who have children STUCK in Congo will be making a trip to Washington, D.C. to meet with their senators and representatives. It is not possible for us to make the trip, but our prayers will be with them. We don't know what all they may be able to accomplish, but hopefully at least more awareness and support will be raised for our children.

Some movement, but not for us

It has been quite the roller coaster of a day. Tidbits of positive news have been trickling in since yesterday, but the U.S. Embassy did not send out their official adoption notice until this evening. The good news is that 62 Congolese orphans get to come home. This is the first time adopted children are being allowed to leave Congo since last fall. The bad news is that the rest of the children are not coming home now. There are hundreds of adopted children in Congo who have parents in the United States waiting for them, but only 15 of those are being allowed out of Congo. [The rest of the 62 children are going home to other countries.]

The remaining hundreds of children and their families now have to wait for Congo to re-write their adoption laws. Nobody knows how long this will take or what will be in them, but we are all required to adhere to whatever they may say (even those of us with finalized adoptions!). No timeframe was presented at all. This is getting really ridiculous. This morning we thought things were starting to move again because a few families were receiving exit permits, but now we realize that is not the case. Congo just wanted to get rid of a few of the oldest adoption cases before continuing to hold the rest of our children hostage while starting the process of writing new laws. I guess we just continue on with no timeframes and no promises while we wait for this never- ending adoption to finally come to an end.

An Update with No Real Updates

Sadly, there is not much adoption news to report. Officials from the U.S. and Congo are meeting to discuss the future of Congo adoptions. It is a good sign that there is still an ongoing dialogue. However, DGM still claims the exit permit suspension will last at least until September. That means we are halfway through the year- long suspension. What are the chances that the suspension will actually be lifted in September? I really don't know. DGM isn't even specifically holding themselves to that so we don't have any promises to cling to ourselves. Also, when/ if they do lift the suspension, they still do not have any plan how to efficiently process all the adoption cases that have been accumulating all these many months. I really don't know how all this is going to play out.

Based on the information we have, Roland seems to be faring well enough. Most months we receive pictures and an unreadable medical report. We can make out his weight and he is only a couple pounds smaller than a child should be at his age so we don't think that is too bad. In the pictures he looks pretty healthy. He has full cheeks, his arms and legs aren't skinny, he has a cute little round belly and a full head of healthy hair, at least in the front.  Unfortunately we don't have any information on things like talking, walking or eating (they may be briefly addressed in the medical reports, but we can't decipher them). In the last pictures we received, when he was 15 months old, he was unsteadily standing with assistance. So, he is a little delayed, but that is to be expected. He hasn't had the luxury of parents doting on him every day of his life. We do get notified when a doctor prescribes medicine for something, like diarrhea or a rash. As far as we know, he has not come down with malaria or anything else serious. That is something to be grateful for, especially since adopted children are not allowed to leave Congo, even for medical emergencies.

In a couple weeks we will reach the two- year mark since we first applied to our adoption agency. Hopefully Roland will be home with us well before the three- year mark approaches.

A Year Ago...

A year ago, on Matt's 29th birthday, we accepted a referral for a tiny 3- month old baby boy. Over the past year we have watched Roland grow up in pictures. We have seen him sleepy or sad, alert and curious, and happy and smiling, in pictures. The first several months we only received pictures of him laying in his crib. Then, for a few months we saw him sitting upright, either on the floor or in a chair. In the last pictures we received of him, he was standing, with a supporting hand from one of the nannies. In one picture we have even glimpsed new baby teeth emerging.

The three of us have missed out on so much together. We have missed an entire year of gazing into each other's eyes, and reading, snuggling, playing, singing, teaching, comforting, laughing, and building lifelong bonds of love and trust. Young children yearn to be adored by their parents, but I doubt if Roland realizes that such a thing as parents even exists. From what I hear, the nannies at the transition house are capable and kind, but they have 80 children in their care so I know they do not spend all day doting on our little Roland.

Last Fall I was really hoping we would be celebrating Matt's 30th birthday in Congo, meeting our son for the first time. However, it looks like we will have to settle for dinner and a movie again this year.