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 | Difficult Adoption Leads to Ultimate Joy
by Monica Youngs |
Watching her with her daughter Isabella now, you wouldn’t believe what a difficult process it was for Annie Weber to adopt. In the process of adopting from Guatemala, Weber ran into more than a few challenges.
More than two and a half years ago, Weber decided she was going to adopt. “I knew I wanted to adopt since I was 15,” she claimed. She began the application process with a Chinese adoption agency. When China changed its laws allowing fewer single people to adopt, the agency made adjustments to accommodate the new law. This lead to an extended wait period to adopt from China. While trying to decide what to do, in light of the change, Weber talked to a few other women who had positive experiences adopting from Guatemala through the Adoption Alliance of Denver, Colo. These testimonies helped her decide to change agencies and adopt from Guatemala. Weber completed her application and proceeded with the process a few months later, excited and ready to expand her family with a daughter from Guatemala.
Eager when she received her first referral, Weber accepted the child quickly, without investigating the child’s history or medical record. A short time later, as the adoption was being processed, the little girl, who Weber planned to name Karen, passed away.
“It was devastating,” Weber said.
After she passed away, the agency sent Weber a video of Karen before she died. “I burst into tears,” Weber said. “I was shocked they sent it to me; she looked like she was on her death bed.”
Deeply saddened by the loss of her prospective daughter, Weber automatically said no to receiving new referrals, so she had time to cope with the loss.
Eventually she felt ready to move forward and she received another referral. This time, she was deeply concerned with the health of the child. She had doctors examine the child in Guatemala and after learning the child was not in great health, Weber decided to decline that referral.
With the first referral, Weber said, “I felt abandoned.” And with the second, “I felt like I’d abandoned her.”
The third referral started out more promising. The child was in good health and Weber accepted the referral. The agency started the adoption process. Just a few days after Weber had said yes to the referral, the agency called and told her they had made a mistake, that the little girl had already been adopted. Her frustration grew but she moved forward.
The fourth referral came along similar to the third. Weber accepted, the adoption started to proceed, but then the child’s birthmother decided she wanted to keep her baby. At this point, Weber was frustrated beyond belief, not knowing whether she had made the right decision by adopting from Guatemala. However, still eager to have a child of her own, she continued on.
Hoping to finally adopt a little girl, Weber accepted her fifth referral. The adoption proceeded but was halted once again by more agony. Guatemala closed to international adoption while it attempted to implement the Hague Treaty, which would set up a central adoption authority on all international adoptions. Guatemala has a privatized adoption system, but it attempted to establish the central adoption authority unit required by the Hague Treaty, causing a backlog of adoptions. After all of these difficulties Guatemala decided it was not ready to meet the Hague Treaty requirements. The country then began operating under its former privatized system, but the shutdown caused a backlog that agencies are still trying to work through. Weber found herself caught up in the shut down and the subsequent backlog which left her adoption at a stand still for months.
Prior to Guatemala shutting down for international adoptions, Weber, along with her mother Jackie and a friend Pedro, visited Guatemala to meet Isabella when she was 6 months old. That made the wait feel even longer since she knew the child and was ready to finalize the adoption and bring her home.
Finally in August 2004, Weber received the OK to continue with the adoption process. In the midst of the stand still, the agency and the Guatemalan government lost some of Weber’s documents and others had expired. There was back tracking and more waiting since those documents had to be replaced and renewed.
Finally the adoption was completed and Weber, along with Jackie, Pedro and two other friends, Nancy and Carol, traveled to Guatemala to bring Isabella home to Colorado. Isabella’s foster mother, Lucy, whom she had been with since she was only a few days old, took good care of Isabella. “I can’t say enough about the foster care. She did a fantastic job,” Weber said.
Prior to traveling to Guatemala, Weber was extremely angry at the country and the government for all she had to go through. “I was really mad at Guatemala,” she said. Her perspective changed while she was there though. She credits her new outlook to a Mayan tour guide they had while there. “He made me love Guatemala, he changed my whole perspective,” she said. Now she has a love for the country instead of animosity.
On Sept. 18, Weber and her daughter Isabella arrived home. For most of her first day home, she cried. “Her soul was bleeding,” Weber believed. She will never forget that Isabella started smiling at 5:40 p.m. Weber said, “5:40 is our special time.”
Starting her first week home, Isabella was comfortable and since that first day, she has been constantly happy and full of life. “I feel like I have known her forever,” Weber said. “She’s not work at all, she’s the biggest joy.”
Life for Weber and Isabella is wonderful now, but all the frustrations and heartaches that happened in the process are not forgotten. “Right now it is positive because of her, but otherwise it was awful,” Weber said. There were many obvious times when things went wrong making the journey difficult. Weber added that the communication was hard as well. She had to go through as many as six people to get questions answered and issues figured out.
“Maybe because I am single things were harder,” she said. “I wouldn’t want anyone to go through what I went through.”
Weber has had great support throughout her entire journey. Her family and friends have done all they can to help out and are now enjoying the joy and love that Isabella brings to their lives. Luckily, there was a happy beginning at the end of the long road for Weber.
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