The Road Less Traveled

I haven't posted much about adoption of our daughter in the last nine and a half months we've been journeying to her. Oddly, 9.5 months is the same length of time it took our full journeys to Ashen and Torin, and yet we're still months (and months) from our Little Miss. Unlike the nine months of expectation with the boys, the last months have been fairly uneventful in the adoption process. We knew we had a very long wait--Children's Home Society and Family Services estimated 12-18 months to referral (when we're matched with her) and then another 3 months to travel. The wait is much longer for this adoption because CHSFS has grown tremendously in the last couple years, from about 150 families waiting when we adopted Ashen, to ~400 families today. This means that families wait longer to be matched with their child(ren). About a month ago, CHSFS formally announced that the wait for referral estimate was extending to 18-24 months, and that travel would likely be 6 months after that due to issues at the US Embassy, adding at least 9 months to our wait (with obviously no guarantee that the timeline might not be extended again). That puts us traveling to Ethiopia in late 2011. When I shared this new timeline with Mark, he said "Um, when does 2011 even start!?"...the year after next, my dear.

Though Mark and I have been generally satisfied with CHSFS, of course, like any agency there have been things that have bothered us or that we do not agree with. I'm not going to go into detail here, but it's safe to say that if we were starting the process all over again right now, we would not choose CHSFS.

So, we decided to take a step back and think about what we would do if we were starting our adoption right now. Though it would mean starting over in many regards, we were only a quarter of the way into our wait with CHSFS, so we felt like we had the flexibility to make a big decision like this. We considered several agencies for this adoption in January of this year. Out of 22 agencies operating in Ethiopia, there were three agencies on our short list that we considered to be top in terms of ethical adoption practices, humanitarian efforts, and level of child care in Ethiopia. We reconsidered the two we didn't choose and made many many phone calls, did more research, talked and prayed and finally decided to switch agencies to Holt International. It's amazing the peace I felt after we made the decision, where I had been feeling very anxious and unsettled.

Holt has been around since the 1950's, but has only been operating in Ethiopia since early 2008. Like CHSFS in the earlier days of their Ethiopia program, the wait at Holt is considerably shorter than what we were anticipating now at CHSFS. Shorter, as in a couple months (or less) to referral. Honestly, I had to do some major research to figure out why Holt's wait is so much shorter than CHSFS and came out realizing that Holt's program is just so much smaller (there are only 6-7 families on their waiting list right now...we're #7). Holt recently established a relationship with a second orphanage in the southern region of Ethiopia, and also began partnering with a new Care Center in Addis that allows them more capacity.

One thing I really like about Holt is their commitment to family preservation. Holt says that is their #1 goal, which may seem counter to adoption, but is in fact the essence of ethical adoption--since it should truly be the last resort for a child, but often is not. My heart aches when I think of children who are relinquished because their parent cannot afford the $5 needed monthly for medicine for their malaria (so that they can work and provide for their child), or because they need a $150 microloan to reestablish an ailing business (so they can provide for their child). Oh the injustice of a parent who longs to keep and cherish their child, but cannot due to poverty. This cuts to my core.

So, all this means that hopefully we will have good news of our Little Miss in the next couple months (did I just write "couple months!?").

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

~Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken