I’ve been putting off writing this post for a while. However, since summer is approaching and we will be seeing a lot of family soon I think it would be best for me explain in some detail why we now give the blanket answer “we have no idea” to the question of WHEN Grant will be coming home. Additionally, I think it’s important that Grant can look back on this one day and understand why it took so long for us to come get him.
International adoption many times ends up being about politics rather than “the best interest of the child", either unintentionally or intentionally. I think everyone saw this a few months ago when Russia suddenly banned Americans from adopting Russian children, a measure that was pure retaliation against an American law that sanctioned Russians for violating human rights.
South Korea enacted a new adoption law in August of 2012, which had a goal of giving birthmothers and adoptees more rights (which is great and important). This new law added an additional step to both domestic and international adoptions- the cases will now be reviewed by the South Korean Family Court before a child can leave the country. Previously, before this new law, the last step for international adoption was the child getting permission to leave the country from the government, called an emigration permit (EP). As soon as the child got their EP approval, the family would be told to prepare to travel to Korea for a 3-5 day trip. Under the old law, we would have been able to get Grant undoubtedly by the end of this year. But now under the new law, after the child gets their EP, their file gets sent to the family court for review (to double check that everything looks good) for this new final step. And this brought everything to a screeching halt since it began in January.
Unfortunately, despite having a year for the Court to figure out how to interpret and implement this court review step they have been having trouble deciding what should be exactly required of us, the foreign parents, under the new law. This has resulted in the first cases still sitting on their desks since January. And no children have left South Korea since last October. This is absolutely tragic. So, what has the Court been doing these last 6 months? Good question, as there is also a serious lack of communication between the Court and the partner adoption agencies in Seoul. For one, they have been going back and forth on whether or not, we, foreign parents should have to appear before them for a 15 minute court hearing where they ask us basic questions. Right now the current mandate is that we do need to appear before them. This sounds easy enough; however, South Korea has a 2 week waiting period after all civil judgments. This means that agencies are now giving the parents the option of having to do two short trips, before and after the waiting period, or do one month-long trip. Understandably, this has many families in tears as the financial implications and logistics of both are far greater than what we signed up for when we all entered the program a long time ago. Cody and I are fortunate that we would be able to take off from work for a month (it will be part of my maternity leave) and since Auden isn’t in elementary school yet it would not be a problem for him to come with us. In fact, we think it could be an awesome opportunity to be in South Korea for a month to learn so much about Grant’s birth country. Hopefully the grandparents could even visit us during our time there. However, we are in the minority and I feel very badly for the families that are now struggling to make the new travel requirements work. We also know that things have been changing so much; we wouldn’t be surprised if things are different by the time we travel, so you can’t take anything too seriously yet.
There has been some progress recently within the Court, the first batch of families all have scheduled court hearings in late May and June. Non-refundable plane tickets are purchased, so the first children to leave the country this year will finally come home at the end of June. So, that is very good news! However, right now the Court is only scheduling 5 international hearings a week, which is only 20 a month. They need to greatly pick up the pace if we want to get Grant by his 2nd birthday next April. The agencies believe the Court will move faster once they get underway, but who knows. This is exactly why when people ask us WHEN Grant is coming home, we simply say “we have no idea.” It’s a new law being implemented by a Court that has never done adoption cases before and it is just now starting to move.
There is another requirement that comes with the new law that is important to mention. That is, before the child gets its EP from the government, the birthmother is being contacted to come to the agency and sign a re-relinquishment paper in front of a judicial representative (to ensure everything was done ethically the first time she relinquished on the day the child was born). Cody and I, along with every other parent waiting believe this is a wonderful additional step, as we would NEVER EVER want to take a child away from a mother who actually wanted to parent. However, this step coming at the very end, of what could be an 18 month waiting period, is very heart-wrenching. The agencies are trying to make the Court understand this and hope to have the birthmothers re-contacted before parents are even matched with a child in the future (which would seem logical), however, for now we have to deal with it the way it is. Although it is very rare, Grant’s birth mother could decide at the end of all this that she wants to parent. Unfortunately, this has made getting his pictures and putting together his care packages bittersweet. And it reinforced our decision to wait to tell Auden about Grant. Ultimately, none of this is in our control…and Cody and I know that if it’s meant to be, it will be. If Grant is supposed to be our son, he will be.
Lastly, I should say that on a Korean domestic level, the new law has backfired terribly on the government. While hoping to give adoptees more rights to finding their birthparents, a requirement makes birthmothers who place their child with an adoption agency have to register the child’s name on their family registry which is public information until the child is adopted. Since sometimes children aren’t adopted the mothers are scared to do this which has resulted in a sharp increase of unwed mothers abandoning their babies (churches, hospitals, etc.) instead of placing them with adoption agencies. Abandoned children aren’t eligible for adoption in South Korea and grow up in orphanages (like the one my best friend took me to when I was visiting her in S. Korea back in 2004). Unfortunately this stems from the social stigma surrounding unwed mothers that is still alive and well in South Korea, they don’t want any records tying them to a baby out of wedlock. The abandonment issue has been in the Korean news a lot and there are talks that the new law may be revised again since the baby abandonment rates have drastically increased since its enactment. Low domestic adoption numbers negatively affect how many international adoptions the South Korean government will allow in a given year, so this definitely is not good for everyone involved.
As you can see, it is not an easy answer as to why it is taking so long to travel to Korea and get Grant. It is complicated, very political and involves a new law and a foreign Court that we are basically at the mercy of. Hopefully, for those interested in a deeper understanding of why we say “we don’t know, it’s political, “ I answered some of your questions. We are not trying to be rude and we appreciate people asking, it’s just hard to answer such a question in one minute or less given the state of affairs right now. So, please keep us in your thoughts and hopefully towards the end of the summer I will be able to report that the Court is processing cases faster and we will have a better idea of when we can travel to get Grant.
