Tag: Adoption Page 18 of 24

Babies on the Brain

On February 5, 2011

I’ve been thinking a lot about babies recently.

Maybe it’s because tomorrow I am helping to host a baby shower for three, that’s right, three HOPAC ladies who are having babies in the next few months. The kindergarten teacher, the wife of the science teacher, and the wife of the history teacher. Two are giving birth in country.

Maybe it’s because I spent an hour yesterday looking at these beautiful babies. Forever Angels just might be “our” orphanage this time around.

Maybe it’s because my worker, Esta, is pregnant and due in April.

Maybe it’s because Stella is always on my mind.

That’s a heck-of-a-lot of babies.

So this here post is a dual update: partly about Stella, and partly about what’s next for us. Here you go:

Stella:

Stella had an appointment yesterday. The doctor said she is doing great. He said she will be admitted no later than March 10th. They will do an ultrasound to find out the size of the baby at that point. If the baby is big enough, then at that time they will take the baby by C-section. Or she will stay at the hospital until the baby is big enough, and then do the C-section. The doctor said that after losing 4 babies in labor, they will not let her go into labor this time. So that means she has five weeks to go! Pray with me!

And us:

Assuming that Mama S’s report really was sent yesterday (and we’ve learned never to really assume anything), then the next step is that we wait for approval from the District Commissioner. A few things would have to happen to make this problem-free:

1. They receive the report, which really was sent, and does not get lost in the mail or someone’s office.

2. They accept the report as it is written and do not require Mama S to add anything else.

3. They don’t require us to do an International Report. (We had to do this for Grace and Josiah, but were assured that we don’t have to this time. However, they could change their minds).

4. They decide that they will approve us for a third child.

As friends have rejoiced with us, the inevitable question is always, “So when will you get the baby?” Well, hypothetically, it could happen as soon as a couple of months. But as you can see, a number of scenarios could lengthen that process.

Next week, I will go to the district social welfare office. Instead of nagging Mama S, now I get to nag Mama A. We will tell her which orphanage we are requesting, and remind her that we have requested a girl between one and two years old. And I will weekly talk to her about the “progress” of our approval letter….until we get it. That letter, Lord willing, will not only grant us approval to foster a child, but will give us the name of the particular child they have chosen for us. We will have a name, a face, and then wait for the paperwork to be done on that child. The paperwork gets sent back to the district office, and they issue a final-final-final letter which will let us take her home.

It always starts and ends with a letter, remember?

I love adoption. But I must admit that sometimes I am envious of all these other ladies who actually have a due date. 🙂

Finally.

By Amy Medina

On February 4, 2011

In Other

Yesterday I went to visit Mama S again. It had been almost three weeks since my last visit, and despite trying to call or text her, I hadn’t heard anything from her.

Got to the office, waited outside. There was no place to sit, so I plopped myself down on the concrete floor with my Kindle. I’ve seen other women do this (well, not with a Kindle), so I figured it was culturally appropriate, but I still got some strange looks. However, I always get strange looks there. I’m always the only white person.

After a while I realized that no one was going in or out of the office, even though I knew there were people inside. I realized there was a sign on the door. I couldn’t translate all of it, but I got the gist that the social workers were now only seeing people on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays. Wednesdays were for meetings and Thursdays….well, I couldn’t understand that part, except the word “kuandika.” To write. That was encouraging. Maybe they were allowing themselves Thursdays to write reports.

I peeked in the office anyway; there were a bunch of staff in there. I made eye contact with Mama S, which satisfied me, since really this was only a “nagging” visit anyway…I didn’t really have anything to say to her. But at least she knew I had been there. I sent her a text message….again. And didn’t expect much.

That evening, I got a message back from her. The report has been written. It will be mailed tomorrow.

And there was much rejoicing in the Medina household.

Labor Pains

By Amy Medina

On January 14, 2011

In Other

The social welfare office for the Kinondoni district is in a large, warehouse-type building. Cement floors, high ceilings with windows around the edges. The windows are unscreened and always open, allowing birds to fly back and forth among the rafters. Six large ceiling fans dangle, and provide the only means of airflow, at least when the power is on. The room is filled with rows of cubicles, which may or may not contain a computer and always have stacks and stacks of files crammed along the walls.

The cubicle of Mama S is down the first row, all the way to end on the left. I love Mama S; I really do. I’ve worked with a dozen or so social workers through my adoptions and she is definitely my favorite. A tiny, middle-aged woman with short hair and a gentle smile, I really get the impression that she cares about what she does. She is always nice, always patient. Way back in July, when she was doing our home study and interviewing our references, she was also more thorough than any other social worker has been. And she got through them faster than any other social worker. I was excited. This will be our smoothest adoption yet! I thought. She told me it would take her two months to write the report. I thought that was a long time, but I begrudgingly smiled and agreed, since she had been so nice. So I waited until the end of September before I asked her about it again.

No report in September.

No report in October.

Or November.

Or December.

I kept calling, and sending text messages, and coming up with reasons to go visit her. She was always nice, always polite, just as sweet as ever. But the report just never gets done. I’m positive she doesn’t want a bribe. After our home study, she wouldn’t even take the taxi money we offered her. I’m positive she’s not pulling a power play on us, lording it over us that she has the power to postpone our adoption. (That has happened before with others.) I think she’s just busy. And it’s hard to get mad at someone who is busy. Helping with adoptions are only one of many tasks she has to do.

I went to visit her again yesterday. I counted: There were 17 people waiting outside her office. It’s always an interesting experience, waiting outside of Mama S’s office. It’s usually mostly women waiting, some with babies strapped to them. One of the babies was restless and whiny until the mama rustled around in her shirt, pulled out a breast, and stuffed it in the child’s mouth. A man came out of the office, seemingly crumpled on the ground, pulling himself along with flip-flops on his hands. A polio victim, most likely. Yet he had on a button-down shirt and dress shoes on his useless feet. I’m pretty sure he works there.

No one seemed as impatient as I felt; a lot of the women had their eyes closed. I sat on the narrow bench in the hallway for an hour, wishing I had my Kindle, and then remembered that there is no “line” to get in to see the social workers, and if I ever expected to get in there, I’d better stand. So I positioned myself right by the door, and jumped in as soon as the next person came out. That’s how you do it in Africa, and it’s not considered rude.

Mama S looked sheepish this time. She apologized for not doing the report, and acknowledged that we had been waiting a long time. She said she would work on it this week. She’s said that before, so that still doesn’t give me a lot of hope. If she hasn’t found time to work on it in the last five months, when will she find time to work on it?

As always, adoption is a miracle–just like birth. When it happens, God will get the glory.

God’s Sovereignty in the Lives of Two Little Girls

By Amy Medina

On November 10, 2010

In Adoption

October 12, 2005 email prayer update:

Many of you know that we have been interested in adoption in Tanzania for a long time. This last Sunday, we met with an American lawyer here in Dar es Salaam who has helped numerous families with Tanzanian adoptions. She warned us that the process would be long and arduous, that it would take at least a year to get a baby in our home, and another year to finalize the adoption.

That was Sunday. Then came Tuesday, when we were driving to meet the lawyer to turn in our application. She called us on the way and said, “Uh, I have a baby I want you to meet. She’s available for immediate foster care and then adoption.” We arrived and she immediately placed a one-month old baby in Gil’s arms.

After we picked ourselves up off the floor and our heads stopped spinning around, the lawyer explained that this baby was an exception to the rule, because she had not been turned over to a government orphanage. Thus, her family could hand her over to us immediately, and we could go through the process of becoming foster parents and then adoptive parents while we were caring for her.

This process has more risk than the “long-way” of getting a baby from an orphanage, because the family could change their minds and want the baby back before the adoption is complete. But the baby’s mother has died, the father is nowhere to be found, and the remaining relatives are very poor. They have adamantly expressed that they want the baby to be adopted. She is currently being cared for by a middle-aged (white) South African woman who loves her, but wants her to have a good family.

What does this mean? We have a significant decision to make within the next couple of days! If we decide to take her, as soon as we have received written consent from the family, she would be in our home–as soon as two weeks from now.

October 14, 2005 email prayer update:

To update you: We have decided to move forward with the process of getting this baby! We’re not getting our hopes too high yet. This Sunday, at 3:00, we will meet with the baby’s uncle, who represents the family.

Then, on Tuesday (hypothetically), the uncle, the baby, the lawyer, and us will go to meet Miss Moyo, the regional social worker.

Once all these consents are done with, we will shortly be able to take the baby into our home! She will not be legally adopted for a number of months. So please also pray that the family does not change their mind before the adoption is complete. We are trusting God with this, but we still want to pray about it!

October 16, 2005 email prayer update:

Unfortunately, the meeting this afternoon with the baby’s relatives did not go well. Adoption is a very foreign process in Tanzania; in fact, there isn’t even a word in Kiswahili that is an exact translation. The woman who rescued this baby and is fostering her is not Tanzanian, and even though she thought the family had made it clear they wanted the baby to be adopted, we found out today that isn’t true.

The uncles were very clear about the fact that they did not want to relinquish rights to this baby; they only wanted someone to care for her for a while. Unfortunately, in Tanzanian culture it is more acceptable to let a child live in an orphanage for her whole life than to have her be adopted by another family.

We are, of course, very disappointed. But we are thankful that this came out before we had taken this child into our home, named her, and had our hearts set on her. We prayed that God would make this very clear to us, and He has answered that prayer.

————————————————————-

We were crushed, of course. I cried a lot that day. It felt the same way as my miscarriage.

That baby’s name was Lisabel. For a week I thought she would be my Grace. But she was not. My Grace was not born until January 2006. And I did not bring her home until November 2006.

But Lisabel’s story did not end there. The woman who had taken her in as a starving infant (a white South African lady whose children were grown), though she wanted her adopted into a good family, had then cared for her for 4 weeks and was not willing to give Lisabel back into the terrible situation from which she had come. So she kept her, even though she knew that the uncles did not want her adopted. After about two years of this, she finally, finally, finally convinced them to let her adopt Lisabel, and it even came down to the very last wire in the court room.

During the last five years, we have run into Lisabel and her adoptive mother twice, very briefly. It was always strange to see the little girl who, for a week, I thought would be my daughter.

So who would have thought, that out of all the roads in this city of 5 million people, Lisabel and her mother would be living on the same road as us. And who would have thought that out of the thousands of pre-schools in this city, and even the dozen or so on this road, that Lisabel would be going to the same pre-school as my Grace.

And now they are best friends.

Sometimes the ways of God make me a bit dizzy.

Our Five Minutes of Fame

By Amy Medina

On September 20, 2010

In Other

About a month ago, a reporter from The Citizen Newspaper (Tanzania’s largest English newspaper) contacted us. Our lawyer had given him our contact information because he was doing an article on adoption. After we ensured that this would be a positive article, we agreed to answer his questions and send him some pictures. The article came out yesterday, and what we didn’t realize was that out of the four families he interviewed, we were the only ones who sent pictures! So, lo and behold, we found our faces all over the paper.

Here’s the front page, with Gil and Josiah on the bottom right hand corner.

This is the first page of the section where the article was placed.

And this is the center-fold spread! Right next to the article titled “Mega meat portions at Coral Ridge Spur.”

Unfortunately the paper is too big for me to scan, and so far I haven’t been able to find the article on-line, even though the paper has a website. So you won’t be able to read it. But the reporter did a good job of talking about the cultural issues that keep Tanzanians from adopting, as well as explaining the red tape that makes the process difficult. A side bar goes through the process that a family would have to go through if they wanted to adopt. He talks about how there are millions of orphans in Tanzania, and so few families will adopt, yet he quotes me and another family on how much of a blessing it is.

We’re excited! Anything that may get Tanzanians interested in adoption is a good thing. We pray this will help!

Tomorrow they may wrap fishes in it, but I was a star for one whole minute! (Anyone? Anyone?)