The Real Blair Family » Ethiopia

A Glimpse of the Bottleneck

April — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 02:34:43 +0000

We were told by our agency last week that we should be prepared for an 8-10 month wait before we receive a referral. It seems strange that we have to wait so long considering there are 4-6 million orphans in Ethiopia. However, we recently found a few orphanage videos that give a glimpse of the bottleneck in Ethiopian adoption. This video shows the Kebebe Government Children’s Orphanage. The living conditions made us very sad.

Here is the description:

Moving moment for all of us when we visited the Kebebe Government Children’s Orphanage. The rooms that held the children had a thick, smell in the air of urine and feces. Some of the pics are difficult to see. All of these children are waiting to be adopted. There were only 2 caretakers for all of these kids. … When we asked for the name of one of the little girls in the picture, the caretakers couldn’t find it. I have this on my video that is coming soon. A tough day for all of us.

We also found a post from an adoptive mother who just brought home a baby boy. Her son was in Bethzatha orphanage for awhile. When she went to pick him up in Ethiopia she got to visit Bethzatha. The living conditions were not as bad, but there are a lot of children.

Here are some of the things she described:

I am still processing my time in Ethiopia–there is really so much to process. . . As you may know, adoption requires waiting, waiting and more waiting. There’s red tape—lots of hoop-jumping and often programs change and even close at moments notice. With 143,000,000 orphans in the world–and almost 6 million of them being in Ethiopia–the wait doesn’t really make sense. BUT there is a wait.

Our agency’s orphanage can only serve so many orphans at a time–and one can’t come to our private orphanage to be matched with a forever family until another one has gone. SO–while our private run orphanage serves betweent 40-60 children, many are simply waiting on court dates to come and pass so families can travel and another bed can be opened for a child from bigger orphanages like Bethzatha to come in. (W)hile some (children) only spend a few weeks there, others have been there for years and years.

It’s hard not to wonder where our child(ren) are right now. We pray that they are getting proper care and attention. Families who are adopting from AGCI are praying that they pass courts and allow waiting children to be matched with loving families. We hope you join us in praying for court hearings run smoothly and ethically so that we can bring home our child(ren) as soon as possible.

Slowly but surely

April — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:31:37 +0000

You know those dreams where you are trying to run as fast as you can but are moving in slow motion? That’s how I have felt the last few months. We are slowly progressing though. Yesterday Nate and I had a conference call with a representative from AGCI. She reviewed the contracts we need to sign and talked about the process from now on. The call took about 45 minutes. Today Nate and I took the documents (over 100 pages total) to be notarized. It took longer than we expected but the notary was very patient and excited for us to be adopting.

So what now? I will mail out the documents tomorrow. AGCI will then send us a binder with pre-adoption information and the DOSSIER. I have been anxious to get my hands on that for a long time. The average amount of time for people to complete the dossier is 2-3 months. After the dossier is submitted to Ethiopia, we will go on the wait list and should expect to wait 3-6 months until we receive a referral (where we are matched with a child). It will then take another 2-4 months for the government to ensure that the child is an orphan and to process the adoption. After that, we will travel to Ethiopia to pick up our baby. If you haven’t done the math, we have 7 – 13 months to go. Hopefully it will feel like I’m moving faster soon!

Why Ethiopia?

April — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:23:28 +0000

We have decided to adopt a boy from Ethiopia. I have always been intrigued by international adoption but I thought more and more about it during my graduate studies in public health. In one of my courses I was assigned to work in a group to develop a pseudo-business and apply our management knowledge. My group decided to develop an orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. As I researched the country and the need for adoption, I realized that it was something I would want to do. I talked to Nate about it and he also started to get excited about adoption.

Nate and I were in the process of saving our money for IVF. We both did not like the fact that less than half of IVF procedures were successful. As we weighed the options (IVF vs. adoption) we tried to look at the decision objectively. We could create a life through IFV or we could find a child (who would otherwise not have a family) through adoption. If we were to choose IVF, a child would still be out there without a family and opportunities that we could offer. We could have chosen to adopt through LDS Social Services, but we know there are numerous families on the waiting list, and the children who are placed will go into good, loving homes. But in Ethiopia, there are millions of children who will not have that opportunity. The disparities between the US and Ethiopia are alarming. Here are a few Ethiopian statistics:

4.8 million orphans
12.3% of children die before their 5^th birthday
50% of all children in Ethiopia will never attend school
88% of all children in Ethiopia will never attend secondary school
Highest HIV/AIDS population in the world
Doctor to child ratio: 1 per 24,000
Life expectancy: 41
Only 24% of households have access to safe drinking water
GDP: $630

We are confident in our choice to adopt from Ethiopia (while also respecting other people’s decisions such as IVF, domestic adoption, foster care, etc). We know there is a long wait ahead of us, but we know it will be worth it.