Much Ado About a Passport

by Shoshanna Grey | More from this Blogger

28 Mar 2007 07:21 PM

Thousands of miles away I have a daughter waiting for me. Her name is Laney. She is legally my daughter; she even has my last name. However, I can't bring her home, at least not yet. The reason seems really simple to an American - all we need is a passport. However, in Liberia, Laney's country, nothing is simple. Everyone is focused on getting through each day. "Unimportant" things like paperwork often fall to the wayside when people are focused on the basics. Food, water, shelter, safety - these things take precedence. One day, probably in a few months, someone will have time to focus on passports and Laney's will be issued so that she can come home. Until then, we wait.

What we are experiencing with Liberia is a good example of the problems people often face when completing international adoptions. Most international adoptions are from Third World countries. As a result, adoptive parents come face to face with how slowly things happen in these countries. When people are struggling just to get by, adoption often isn't their first priority. Paperwork can sit on someone's desk for months, documents are misplaced, meetings don't happen because no one gets around to attending them. It's all part of the process and it can greatly frustrate parents waiting for their children.

What can you do about it? I'm sorry to say that the answer is "not much!". We have very little influence over the governments and officials who make the decisions and process the documents that will bring our children home. It is just one of the realities of international adoption. Instead, we just have to sit back and hold on for the ride. Some people's adoptions will go quickly and others will drag on and on. Yet, we can comfort ourselves in the fact that adoptions are completed and children do come home; and when they do come home they are so completely worth the wait!

So, I sit here in Texas and wait for someone in Liberia to have the time to process a passport for my little girl. In the meantime, I try to keep myself busy and I look forward to the day that Laney is here and I can happily file that long-awaited passport in a drawer and shake my head at all the trouble it took to get it.

Related Blogs: Fast Start: Hurrying Up While Waiting Choosing the Type of Adoption that is Right For You What To Do When People Keep Asking

Learn more about Shoshanna Grey

Shoshanna Grey has worked as an occupational social worker, teacher, child care provider, customer service reqpresentative, college recruiter and several other positions over the years.

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Pam Connell (2658) 28 Mar 2007 09:26 PM

Wow. We had to wait for our girls to get exit visas from their country as well as entrance visas to this one, but they weren't legally adopted with our last name all that time. Was the adoption actually completed without you being in Liberia or meeting her in person? It's neat to see other countries become open to international adoption.

Shoshanna Grey (2785) 29 Mar 2007 06:47 AM

Yes, the adoption is completed without us being there. A lot of countries do it this way - actually I thought they all did! :-) We chose Liberia and Guatemala and both countries allow escorts (meaning the parents don't have to travel) so maybe that is the difference? However, I have a friend who is adopting from Ghana which requires one parent to travel and her adoption will also be completed before her travel date.

Most countries are able to do the final paperwork (passport, US immigration stuff, etc) in a matter of weeks but for Liberia it is taking much longer.

Pam Connell (2658) 29 Mar 2007 06:07 PM

Korea also allows escorts but the adoption is not actually completed until the kids are in the U.S. and usually the 5 months post-placement supervision is completed (but the US agency has legal custody during that time, not the Korean one, so we weren't worried.)

Russia and China, and I think Peru (not up to date on that one) require the parents to take the child to court in that country's court system and the adoption is finalized then ((although many agencies advise re-finalizing in the US to get a US birth certificate).

At least at the time our daughters came, they arrived on IR-4 visas while the kids whose adoptions were finalized in Russia or China were coming over on IR-3 visas. Those kids with IR-3 visas arriving after Feb. 28, 2001 became US citizens upon entering the US while the IR-4 kids got permanent resident green cards and became citizens once the adoption was finalized in a US court. So technically our daughters did nnot even have our last name until they'd been home almost a year.