Guatemala Adoption

I've been dreaming of travel as of late. Maybe it's a touch of wanderlust, or maybe it's the cold, dreary Chicago weather that has me longing for sunshine and warmth. While I'll never refuse a trip to Jamaica and while I'd love to take the kids to see a certain big-name rodent, my thoughts have been wandering toward Central America. I've been longing to visit Guatemala. In part, I think this stems from the fact that I have never been; we weren't able to take a visit trip and I was not able to travel for Beauty's homecoming. I would love so much to go, to soak in the sights and sounds of a country I love as deeply as… [more]

The statuses of both past and present (i.e., still in process) Guatemalan adoptions have made the headlines more than once or twice over the past few years. Most of the highly publicized information relates tales of scandal and scam, of heartbreak and broken homes. Recently, Guatemala 900 linked to an incredibly interesting article authored by John Stossel (co-anchor of ABC News 20/20) entitled USA Makes Adoption Harder. And for once, the article isn't toiling over how Guatemalan adoptions are corrupt; instead, it's offering a different perspective. Stossel explores The State Department's belief in a required central authority to oversee adoptions as it relates to Guatemala; he states: Last December, the U.S. consul even butted his way into the Guatemalan… [more]

I'm signed up for the mailing lists for many 'big name" adoption agencies. To be honest, in part it's just my sheer nosiness. I like to be "in the know" of what's being said by the agencies regarding any number of programs being offered. Recently, I received an email from an agency located in the U.S. stating the following claim, "Guatemala Adoption Program coming soon!" Uh, no. Actually, that's completely incorrect. At this time, there are no solid plans to resume Guatemalan adoptions in the U.S. whatsoever. Actually, at this time, the countries have yet to be selected for the pilot program when adoptions do reopen on a limited basis. This troubles me immensely. I sent a rather innocent and… [more]

In my previous Guatemala blog, I wrote about the question of whether to learn Spanish (or your child's native language) prior to completing his or her adoption. This blog is an offshoot of that topic; should you raise your adopted child to be fluently bilingual? If you have at least one bi- or multi-lingual member of your immediate family, this decision might be an easy one to say the least. But what if your family looks something like mine: we speak English exclusively. We both know a bit of Spanish, but not enough to carry a full conversation at a normal pace. And sure, Dora the Explorer (coincidentally, Beauty's very favorite show) has helped me brush up my… [more]

Once we decided to adopt from Guatemala, we made the decision to learn Spanish so we could better communicate with our daughter and everyone we would encounter on our homecoming trip. We had every intention of purchasing a big-name program and learning the language accordingly. We both had grandiose plans of "wowing" our friends and family, our daughter's foster mom, and everyone we encountered in Guatemala. Do you see where this is going? Enter December 2007, while my husband frantically packed for Beauty's homecoming trip and I paced around equally as frantic. So go ahead and ask the infamous question: how much Spanish did he (or I, for that matter) have under his belt before hopping a plane to Guatemala? The… [more]

This being my final post of the year, I wanted to include several noteworthy elements about Guatemala and Guatemalan adoptions. First and foremost, The Office of Children's Issues, US Department of State recently released an update on adoptions in Guatemala. It's important to note that there is absolutely no information confirming any plans to reopen Guatemalan adoptions to the United States. I can't stress this enough! If you follow information about Guatemalan adoptions at other locations on the web, you might have noticed the rumor mill is heavy with predictions that the US will be processing new adoptions by the end of 2010. This is not and has not been confirmed anywhere. It is strictly hearsay. Until otherwise… [more]

If you remember in an earlier blog, I wrote about my intent to recreate a somewhat authentic Guatemalan Christmas Eve meal--complete with tamales and punch. Well, let me be honest here: my plan didn't quite pan out. The punch part? I was all over it. I knew this would be an almost-seamless addition to our Christmas Eve traditions. I was able to find a very basic recipe and it was well received. The tamales, however, were another story. A good friend of our family, Gina, makes these amazing tamales every year with her grandmother. When I say "amazing", I mean amazing. One bite in and my husband vowed to devour all of them as soon as humanly possible (read as: that… [more]

If you've been reading the Guatemala blog for the past few months, the name Olga Lopez might ring a bell. On September 1, 2, and 3 of this year, I participated in (and consequently blogged about) Three Days, Three Daughters: An International Hunger Strike. In short (as a refresher), here is a recap of the purpose of said strike: Today as you read this, there are hundreds of children from developing nations who have been acquired illicitly, entered into the adoption system by the lure of industry created profits, and are living in households of adoptive families in countries thousands of miles away from their birth. Some adoptive families know of… [more]

When I first started writing for the Guatemala blog here at AdoptionBlogs, there wasn't really much groundbreaking information to report, seeing how Guatemala had been (and still remains) closed to U.S. adoptions. The past few weeks, however, have been full of information, mixed with a little bit of hope. On December 4, 2009, the U.S. Department of State submitted a letter of intent regarding Guatemalan adoptions. The following information comes by way of the Joint Council on Children's International Services:

Joint Council can confirm that the U.S. Department of State has submitted a letter of interest to the Guatemalan government regarding participation in the pilot program announced

The Guatemala 900 is requesting your help today and tomorrow. "This is", according to their site, "the most urgent cry for your love and support (they) have ever put out." As I've mentioned in past blogs, the Guatemala 900--briefly put--is a "series of actions that calls attention to the stagnation of the approximately 900 remaining Guatemalan adoptions that were begun before 2008." So what is the Guatemala 900 asking you to do to further the campaign? Well, they are launching a two day mass email and phone campaign "requesting the immediate support of The Guatemalan PGN (Attorney General's Office) and UNICEF to fulfill (their) mission to get as many children home as possible by the end of… [more]