Melissa Fay Greene: "I Found 12 Million Kids I Couldn't Leave Behind"
Written By Lexi Walters
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For readers considering international adoption, what would be your best advice for choosing a location from which to adopt?
The country of origin is less important than making a good match: what is the child's prenatal, postnatal, and early childhood history? Will this child be able to adapt to the hopes and expectations of the parents? A child with a traumatic early history or with a particular developmental or physical challenge needs parents willing to accept and to nurture him or her.Countries get reputations for having more- or less-challenged children eligible for adoptive placement. Such generalities are not relevant. You need to learn about a specific child. You need to see the medical reports, photos, a video, and you'll want to have those materials screened by an American pediatrician specializing in international adoption medicine. You'll want to know what key risks are posed to children in different regions: is the child at special risk for fetal alcohol syndrome? For hepatitis B? For HIV? Children with these diagnoses can be joyfully adopted and lovingly embraced, but parents are entitled to know in advance. Reputable agencies will not surprise you.
You'll want an agency director who knows the children personally. Agencies will provide you with photos of waiting children. Try not to fall in love with a photo. If you start to fall in love with a photo, ask yourself, "What would this child look like when throwing an all-out, no-holds-barred tantrum?"
I shy away from photos with captions like "She is said to be a very smart girl."
"Who has said this?" I wonder. "Who knows this girl?"
Prospective adoptive parents must do their homework! They must carefully research the adoption agencies they're considering: Is the agency licensed in the countries it claims to have permission to work in? In the vast online networks of adoptive parents, what is the reputation of the agency? Have complaints been filed against the agency in its home state? There are fraudulent operators preying on prospective adoptive parents, yet there are also plenty of reputable and ethical agencies. Find one of the latter.
Many — perhaps even most — parents enter the adoption world in search of a baby. Especially a baby girl. In many countries, there are long waits and waiting lists for baby girls. Yet, in those same countries, often in the same orphanages, older children wait. Children of 2 or 3 years of age, or 5, or 7, or 12, watch the baby girls come and go. Who wants an older boy or girl?
The older children can do marvelously well in adoptive homes. Of course you'll want to ask: What is the history of the child? How did she lose her family? Has she been loved?
A child who has known love will be eager to love again. A child who has not experienced much love — a child raised in an institution — will need to learn what a family is, what parents are. Such a child is not a hopeless case, but parents must proceed knowledgeably, pushing aside the little angels and hearts embellishing the adoption agency website or brochure.
Two years ago, my family adopted a 10-year-old boy from Ethiopia. Of our seven children — four by birth, three by adoption — Fisseha has been in every sense the easiest transition.
I tell people now: You should simply start your family with a 10-year-old Ethiopian boy.
He is loving, helpful, eager to learn, handsome, bright, and a spectacular athlete. He wasn't used to being hugged, so at first, he ran from hugs. Lily, two years older, used to chase him through the house, threatening to hug him. Then, when Fisseha saw what it was, he stood very, very still if a hug was coming his way. Sometimes he'd position himself nearby, arms at his side, waiting for a hug. After about a year, his arms began to go up to return the hug.
We are in the process now to bring over a pair of brothers, ages 10 and 12, from the foster home described in There Is No Me Without You.
I know the boys personally, and I also, in a more general sense, know who they are: fine, intelligent, gentle Ethiopian boys, traditionally raised to respect their elders, value schooling, work hard.
Of course we'll spoil them, unfortunately. Fisseha, who easily covered 10 miles a day or more as a goat-herd in Ethiopia, sometimes asks us to drive him the three blocks to school ("Because backpack heavy") and, sometimes, we do.
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