Trust and Respect

NOTE: The other night I prepared another post lamenting the poor treatment we received from the agency handling Danny’s adoption. I almost deleted the whole thing because I've posted about this before. But I realized that I need to re-express my frustration one more time before I even begin to tell our story. We were not treated anywhere near as badly as many people were, but I still find myself very very angry; partly for our situation and partly for others who have had to go through, and continue to go through so much. You can see that even late in writing of this, I wondered if I should delete it. But in the end, I’m posting it, mainly as therapy for me. You don’t have to read it – you can skip directly to the pictures at the end. Either way, thanks for checking in on us!

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Just as Danny has some set-backs to overcome, so do I. My instinct to trust and my confidence in others’ trust in me has taken a step backwards during this process.

I have to start with a story that sets the gold standard of trust and respect. It happened during Josh’s first hospital stay.

The nurse was hooking up the IV saline drip when I noticed some bubbles in the line. The nurse explained that they were very small and nothing to worry about. She paused and took a careful look at my face and then without saying another word, unhooked the tube and let the saline run into a towel until all the bubbles were gone. I thanked her and then apologized for questioning the work she was doing.

God bless this wonderful nurse. Her reply to my apology was to tell me that the nurses appreciated parents’ questions. She said questions always made them think harder about the job they were doing. She said that in serious work it’s always good to have people ask questions and keep you on your toes.

From that day on, I never hesitated to ask questions and even sometimes to ask for another opinion. There were times when my questions resulted in changes that were better for Josh and one time when my questions kept him from a stint on life support.

Why oh why did this not happen during Danny’s adoption? We were discouraged from asking questions. We didn’t even have access to the people directly involved in the adoption. We were told that parents were not to try to learn information about their case through Guatemalan sources even though case progress in PGN is available to the public.

If someone had listened to my questions and acted on them, our case would have been more then two months further along by the end of the year: possibly enough to have brought Danny home much sooner. As it was, we almost missed the year-end cutoff which would have invalidated our adoption.

During this ordeal, I found myself hesitating to assert myself in other areas. I noticed that I no longer assumed that people had the best of intentions. I felt the need to grovel and “suck-up” to people if I needed a favor. I remember asking someone: “since when do I assume that people need an incentive to treat me nicely?”

The ironic thing is that during this process the vast majority of people we met and worked with treated us very well. It is amazing how little it takes from a few people to undermine one’s confidence.

My advice to anyone heading down the adoption road is this:

Make sure the agency you work with is willing to provide regular and direct communication with you. The fewer intermediaries that lie between you and the people handling the adoption the better. Make sure they don’t object to you independently researching your case. Make sure they are confident enough in the work they do and trusting enough of you to welcome second opinions if your case runs into trouble. Make sure they respect you enough to make you a full partner in the process.

The best predictor of future performance is past history. Ask them about some of their worst cases. Ask them how they resolved the issues. If they have nothing to hide, they should be more then willing to fully brief you on the possible road blocks that lie ahead.

A lot of people make a lot of money in the adoption process. But profit should never be the objective. This should not be a “for profit” venture. In the midst of all the paperwork and process there is a child, your child.

I realize that a lot of what I’m saying is a paraphrase from a previous post. I’m stuck in the preamble to the details of this road we’ve travelled. Reading what I wrote, I see that I’m still very angry and hurt. I’m hurt that we never received a sincere apology or explanation for what happened. I’m angry because three times during the writing of this post I’ve had to run upstairs to calm a sweet boy who wakes up crying and scared and who did nothing to deserve it. Would he have come home sooner? I don’t know. Could things have been different? I don’t know. But the casual way that we were treated makes me wonder about all of it.

I’ve looked at what I’ve written above and debated deleting all of it. You don’t need to hear me re-hash this over and over. But I need to say it. Hopefully in saying it enough I can let it go and we can all get a good night’s sleep around here.

After all of this I’ll repeat what I’ve said before: this journey was worth every tear and every sleepless night. We have never once regretted embarking on this road. Our kids, all three of them, continue to surprise and amaze us. Every minute with them is a tremendous Gift.

One thing that I’ve never lost confidence in is the friendships that we have carried with us through the years. I know I don’t need to bribe any of you for your friendship! But I can certainly reward you for reading this far with a few pictures from last week!

How I actually managed to color-coordinate them I'll never know...

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The jury is still out on whether the crib helps with sleep issues, but there's unaminous agreement that it's a lot of fun!

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Sweet boy

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Sweet Girl

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Please...no photos until I perfect my technique!