Dateline NBC

I have not yet been able to watch the Dateline episode, my plan is to try to find it online as soon as I finish this. There is a great website on all things Guatemalan adoption (guatadopt.com) and I wanted to share what it's main contributor shared today. It is so touching, and so true.

An adoption attorney once told me "at its best, there is no adoption system as good as Guatemala's, at its worst, there is none worse". This statement is incredibly true.

Tens of thousands of families like ours have been formed through adoption from Guatemala. For many of us, our experience was far more than an adoption process, because our lives grew in ways beyond just the size of our families.

Many of us remain involved in the community of adoptive families through websites like this, local community groups, and other means. Many of us now have a devotion to help alleviate the extreme poverty in Guatemala that leads to children needing families.

Guatemalan adoptions were not all corrupt. It is horribly wrong and inaccurate to assume all children adopted from Guatemala came to this country through a corrupt process. More importantly, it is incredibly unfair to the children. But as is the case with any system, the combination of money and poor law enforcement created an atmosphere for corruption.

Intercountry adoption is an incredibly complex issue. It is political. It can be easily sensationalized. It is heart warming. But as Dateline has demonstrated, something that is obviously a wonderful concept – children finding families despite border – can run awry if left open to unethical opportunists. The real debate lies in what should be done when unethical and abusive practices exist.

The global norm is to stringently reform intercountry adoption laws. For example, Romania has formally ended the practice. Through much of Central and Southern America the trend has been to create an underfunded, complex, bureaucratic system that keeps intercountry adoption open on paper, but in reality makes it virtually impossible. The latter has occurred. No one, not even the critics of intercountry adoption like Unicef, can say what the impact has been on children. In an effort to remove corruption, are we throwing away the baby with the bathwater.

It is quite amazing that we live in a world where countless children die each day from malnutrition and other curable diseases. This is a world where children languish in squalid institutions and orphanages because their parent(s) knew that was better than what they could provide. And this is a world where there are many thousands of loving adults who just want to be parents and provide a family for a child.

Our children are not our “adopted children”, they are just our kids the same as anyone else’s. They are our purpose in life. They are the sparkle in our eyes. We love them more than words could describe. Our families may have been formed through intercountry adoption and because of this we celebrate Guatemalan holidays.....and we drink pachas rather than bottles.

Dear Blog Fairy

I LOVE IT!!!! Thank you so much. I think it looks just like me!

For those of you out in blog land... my friend that did this is very talented and this blog uplift is new to her many talents. If you look on the sidebar you will see a link to her blog Peek-a-boo Greeting. Go check her out and let her give your blog a face lift (or if you are in the market for invites, announcements, greeting cards, etc). This sweet, sweet, Mommy has been a help and inspiration to me throughout my adoption journey. She created my announcements, Christmas Cards and a video journal of her time in Guatemala. And truth be told, I met her through a friend and most of our relationship was through e-mail...I believe she is one of the most genuine people I have ever met, and I did meet her when I went to pick up my video.

She herself (being a young pup) is waiting to be OF AGE so that she can adopt the child that has always been in her heart from China. The services and goods she offers are all a way for them to raise funds for their travel expenses during their adoption. Please go support her.

Thanks again, M, I LOVE IT!

Surprise!

Dear Ashley,

I thought you could use a little happy before you head out. Let me know what you would like to change. I tried to use as many "dots" with a good mix of boy and girl (of course, a little heavier on the girl since that IS what you are). I hope you LOVE it!

Love,
your blog fairy

BBBBBEEEEEPPPPP

This is a test... this is only a test... your regular programming will return shortly.

HA HA

Actually my friend is doing a facelift to my blog this weekend... I will be back soon. Come back to see the magic she has worked. Because then you can go to her blog and sign up for her to give you a facelift. (all in the name of adoption fundraising).

SNOW DANCE

Every good (former) elementary school teacher, and every parent of a kid in elementary school knows that once it begins to snow and you really want a good snow, you go outside and do a SNOW DANCE. I did get it on a video clip, but I cannot get it turned upright... I will need to fiddle with it later.

But here are the boys out on the deck dancing...


Here are Daddy and Liza enjoying her first real snowfall.

Baylor trying to catch some flakes.

"I think Liza had one?"

Mommy: "Silas, Mommy did not say it was okay to have a donut."

Silas: "I didn't... I had one lest-er-day."

Mommy: "Then what is on your mouth?"

Silas: "I think Liza had one."

Mommy: "Liza had a donut, that got on your mouth?"

Silas: "Yep"

and he takes of running. ( This picture was taken after he had a chance to get most of it off. AHHH...the mind of 2 year olds with a little sister to blame.

Inquiring minds...

Okay... since you asked ;)

I used BLURB. On there you download the booksmart program to your computer and you have it for your making. There is a place to just click "download blog" and it does the work for you in that matter. I just went in and tweaked my pictures took out a few post ( video's obviously do not transfer) changed font sizes so stuff would fit on pages... combined several post to some pages, etc. Just made it fit better. It ended up being 114 pages. I did have to go in and check every photo to make sure it was centered but the program has a little "alarm" icon if the text or pictures are not working for that page. I will add here that I did not transfer my comments and I might regret that later but I do have a friend that is doing that so maybe she could share (M???).

As far as my FTC book... all my pictures worked because they were not 4x6 size and I was doing several on a page (like 9 in some cases) they were small enough that they images worked. For my medical reports... I had a hard copy of them all and I retyped them as well as the surprise vists...but it was basically
"M says that you are now taking Isomil Soy, you like a bath at 11AM, you go to bed at 10 PM and you wake up at 3, 5, and 8 AM"

I literally uploaded my pictures month by month and "drug" them over to the pages in the book. It really is not hard once you get the hang of it.

I did however have a practice run. My son loves the Atlanta Braves and we went to a game for his birthday last year. I took our pictures from the game and the trip and made a Birthday Book out of it for him as my trial run. I suggest you do that first so you will get the hang of it (even if you never print it out) so you can see what to do. I also recommend picking all your settings first like layout pages and backgrounds etc. If you go changing things after everything is in it sometimes sqews the pictures and text and changes things around and then you have to go back through page by page.

I have not published my FTC book yet because as I was typing the Dr. reports I realized that Dr. M just casually typed it and there are really no peroids or commas and such and I first thought I would just leave it that way as he sent it, but then I decided I retyped it and it was technically "mine" so I would fix it. So I have to go back and read through all of that.

There is a way I can e-mail you my book that I made. So if you would like to see my Atlanta Braves trip book, post your e-mail and I will send it to you just to glance at it, and then when I finish my FTC one, I could do that too.

Hope that helps... and I sure wish Blurb would give me a kickback for the advertising (you know for all 3 of you).