Ethiopia Adoptions

There have been a lot of changes going on with the Ethiopia adoption program. Basically, as I understand it, as the number of international adoptions of Ethiopian children has increased, there have been more opportunities for corruption. In order to improve the process, the agency in Ethiopia that processes the adoption cases has drastically reduced the number of cases they review at a time.

I understand the need to improve the process and wholeheartedly support anything that protects the children. However, we were just there twice and had the opportunity to visit our daughter's orphanage. I truly believe that there are many children in the Ethiopia adoption program who are there out of a need for a family. We felt very confident that our agency acted ethically and we never saw anything that made us question the legitimacy of our adoption. My concern is that by decreasing the adoption cases processed by up to 90% (by some accounts) that children who should be eligible for adoption are going to caught in long delays. Aliyah hasn't even been home for five months yet and I have to wonder, what if she had gotten caught in this type of a delay and she was still in Ethiopia?

Here is a picture of her that another family took for us before we traveled for the first time..

And here is a picture of her at the St. Patrick's Day festival..

And another of her playing the guitar and singing Patty Cake.

I am beyond thankful that Aliyah is here and having the opportunity at a childhood filled with love and laughter and learning. At the same time my heart breaks for the children who are delayed from their forever families and I pray that things improve soon so that Ethiopia can find a way to ensure ethical adoptions are possible.