Blogs I follow

There are a few blogs that I follow especially closely.  I have read their stories back to the beginning of the blog, and have been following them for the past year and a half in real time.

First is the Musser family.  Until their tenth child was born with Trisomy 21, they were just a large, rural, Christian family living in Amish country in Pennsylvania. Little Verity introduced her mom to the Down syndrome community, and opened her eyes to the plight of children with disabilities in foreign orphanages and institutions. While still learning the ropes of taking care of a special needs baby, they committed to adopting a little girl with T21 in Bulgaria. This child, whom they would name Katie, turned out to suffer from much more than a chromosomal variation.  Warehoused in a substandard orphanage, she was literally starved, weighing less than 10 lbs. when they brought her home at almost 10 years of age.  While they nurtured her and healed her from the years of neglect, the Mussers realized that many other children in the same institution are similarly suffering.  Susanna Musser singlehandedly publicized the Pleven orphanage, inspiring dozens of families to adopt children with various disabilities from there, as well as bringing about structural changes in the orphanage itself.  They recently adopted one more child from there themselves, a boy with Cerebral Palsy who was about to age out of the international adoption program.  Susanna writes beautifully and passionately, not shying away from showing the tough side of special needs adoption, while also clearly portraying the beauty in it. She is highly motivated by her Christian faith, and refers to it often, but communicates her own experience independently of the New Testament quotes. She also includes many beautiful photographs of her lovely children.

Then there is the Alan family.  Renee has professional background as a therapist, and she and her husband have fostered many children with and without disabilities before embarking on an adoption. They adopted a 5-year-old girl with severe Cerebral Palsy in early 2012.  Unlike Susanna, Renee found her child's institution to be surprisingly good.  The children appeared to be well taken care of, and well adjusted as a result. It was clear that they desperately needed families, though, as no opportunities awaited them once they would grow up. Like Susanna, she advocated tirelessly for the children she had met, until the vast majority of those eligible for adoption have been adopted.  She writes in a more rambling, Hemingway-esque style, offering minute details and weaving multiple thoughts into each blog post.  She also punctuates her writing with New Testament quotes, but the value of her writing is in the realistic picture she paints of the experience of special needs adoption.  More recently she returned to Ukraine to adopt 3 more children with special needs, and has been writing extensively about FAS, CP, and other issues.

Finally, there is the Spring family. Their youngest child (from Leah's first marriage) has Trisomy 21. They were not expecting to conceive any more children, but after Leah traveled to Eastern Europe with her friend Shelley Bedford to assist with her adoption, they realized that adopting another child with T21 was the right choice for them. They have since adopted 3 boys from Serbia, all with T21. Like Susanna and Renee, Leah has been advocating for adoption of children from similar circumstances, in her case, Serbian orphans. Leah's writing is mostly conversational, offering a very comfortable perspective into her daily life.  While she is also Christian, religion does not play a major role on her blog, which is refreshing!

There are many other stories I follow -- just look on the right side-bar!  But these are the most consistently informative reads on this subject.

Cherish Our Children International

Leah Spring, who is at this very moment bringing home her third adopted son with Down Syndrome from Serbia, also runs an info blog about Serbian adoption.  In her first adoption, she was burned by some corrupt agents and facilitators, and after working to expose and clean up the culprits, she educated herself about the Serbian process, which was transformed at the same time.  These days, all adoptions must be processed directly by the government Ministry of Justice -- no outside agencies are allowed. The process is very streamlined, taking only a few months altogether, with just about 3 weeks in-country.  Cutting out the middlemen has slashed costs, as well. An average Serbian adoption now costs $10-15K, less than half of most other countries.

Most adoptive families, however, are reluctant to proceed without the handholding of a knowledgeable agency.  Here is where Cherish Our Children International (COCI) comes in.  This is a non-profit organization with projects around the world, ranging from providing medical care and education to children in Kenya to sponsoring Jewish/Arab integrated soccer leagues for disadvantaged kids in Israel to helping incarcerated youths in Texas break the cycle of crime.  In Serbia, they work to improve the quality of life for institutionalized orphans, especially those with special needs.  As part of that, they assist adoptive parents with the logistics of the in-country process free of charge.

However, they also have projects aimed at helping integrate children with special needs into their society at home.  With minimal manpower, they find ways to make a difference in the lives of families, so that children with disabilities are able to have their needs met at home, in the care of their loving families, instead of being institutionalized for life.  Here is a 2-part video showing the kind of work they do:

Serbian mental institutions revisited

NBC News just put up a 3-part series on the predicament of children and adults with special needs in Serbia.  This contains much footage from a much shorter (and very disturbing) 2008 video, but also includes followups, as well as a look into the very real dilemma faced by Serbian parents of special needs infants, as they must choose between relinquishing their child to these horrible places, or trying to raise a disabled child without medical or educational resources, and often without the support of family.

This could have been us.

Back in September, I was talking with Leah Spring about her experience with adopting from Serbia.  She gave me some great contacts with COCI, and told me about a really sweet little boy with Down syndrome who was being fostered in the same home as one of her boys had been.

Then our plans got put on hold.

In the meantime, another family, the Lakes, were moving forward, and apparently they got matched with this very boy.  They are in country right now. They have just taken custody of him from the foster family a few days ago, and will be completing the adoption and coming home with him in the next few weeks.

I have followed many adoption stories, but this one feels particularly "real" to me.

31 for 21: Serbia

Serbia has grown very protective of the information about its orphans in the last few years, due to several scandals involving corrupt adoption facilitators and agencies.  Therefore, there are no photolistings available of Serbian orphans.  This does NOT mean that those orphans do not exist, or that they are receiving adequate care in their own country!  There is progress being made, certainly, as some orphans are moved out of institutions and into foster homes.  But many, many more wait.  At the same time, the removal of the corrupt intermediaries has meant that the costs of a Serbian adoption are far lower than other Eastern European countries.

Here is one family in the middle of an adoption in Serbia.  Having requested a child aged 2-4 years old with Down syndrome, they received the files of 4 children.  Of these, they have chosen one.    We do not have names or faces for the others, but they are there.  How many older children wait, as well?  How many with other conditions?    They are no less real than the Russian, Ukrainian, or Bulgarian children profiled on Reece's Rainbow.  Or the Asian, African or Latin American children, for that matter!

If you are interested in learning more about what's involved, you can check out this site.  This is not an agency -- Serbia has not authorized any agencies to operate under the new laws -- just a private site for sharing information by people who have been there.