When people in the U.S. are adopting newborn babies, there are waiting lists of people willing to take the child. When one family doesn't work out, another loving family does. When the birth mom changes her mind and decides to keep the baby, the baby is still in a family. I know it's not what the prospective family may have dreamed for the baby, but regardless, the baby will still have a mom.
Now let me tell you about Dasha. She was given up at birth simply because she has Down syndrome. Her mother had two other children. She had prenatal care and all signs point to the fact that this was a wanted, planned pregnancy. Then, the day after Dasha was born, her parents signed away their parental rights. The grandparents and aunts and uncles did as well. She was unwanted.
When we went to Russia to meet Dasha, nobody could believe we wanted this child. Do you know why? Because there has NEVER been a child adopted from this Region with Down syndrome before. Ever. We were questioned like you wouldn't believe!
So let me ask you this. If we aren't allowed to adopt her, who will? The answer? Nobody. This beautiful, precious child of God will never know the love of a family. She will never go to school. She will never experience the outdoors. She won't ever get to be in water (they sponge bathe them). She won't even learn to eat, really. She won't ever be special to anybody. Here is a blog post from a family that adopted a 5 year old boy from Russia a year and a half ago. Here is where Dasha will end up in 2.5 years if we're not allowed to adopt her.
This is in a different region than Dasha, but in the end, does that matter? The institutions are all fairly similar. So her fate? She will most likely be dead in 3-4 years.
I can't even begin to tell you how this tears my heart out. A life never lived. I cannot let this happen. To us, she is our child. We met her. We loved her, and she loved us. She is a bright, happy child full of life and brimming with potential. We are doing absolutely everything in our power to bring this child to the family that already loves her.
At this point, there's nothing too new to report. The Supreme Court made their ruling today that those who had completed court by December 31, 2012 could go home. They made no mention of families in process other than those who have completed court. There is an opportunity to join a lawsuit in European Court. We are seriously considering this. For now, though, we beg for your continued prayers. This has been the most emotionally and spiritually exhausting experience of our lives. Our nerves are beyond frayed. We aren't going to give up, though, and right now the only thing we can do is pray. We have continued work on our court dossier, and it is almost complete. We are working on a few last papers and are waiting for our FBI fingerprints to come back. We have emailed all the papers that are complete up to this point to our facilitator, who is currently translating them. We remain hopeful that by some crazy miracle, we might have a court date. And we continue to pray like maniacs.
Thank you for your continued support. It truly means the world to us at this time!
We are also in the same position. We visited our two sibling girls at the beginning of December. We are furiously getting our court documents together. But today we were told that we should consider the lawsuit, choose another country, or put our file on hold. We are distraught, like you. I can't believe this is happening. I can't accept that our girls might grow up in an orphanage. This is madness. We don't know what to do right now. Today is a dark day.
ReplyDeletePraying for your family and Dasha!
ReplyDelete