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I’ve been hoping and waiting for an email from Cambodia for days now, and it finally came last night.
Last week, a couple left Seychelles, making their way to Phnom Penh to pick up their new baby daughter from AOA, the orphanage that cared for my kids before they came home.
Coming up to five years on the suspension by the US government on Cambodian adoptions, it’s even more special an event when a Cambodian child finds a loving family.
Although many nations have continued to allow adoptions from Cambodia, having the US and the UK banning them has reduced the numbers of families able to consider Cam kids greatly, and left so many without a hope of anything more than the streets in their future.
By Cambodian law, children are no longer adoptable after the age of eight-years-old (unless being adopted as part of a sibling group), so five years down the road from suspending adoptions by Americans you can imagine how many thousands of kids have aged out of the system … and out of the orphanages. Pretty tough to imagine having to face making your own way in the world at 8, isn’t it?
I always worry about potential problems when wishing families all the best as they leave Seychelles, bags packed with items for their child and a load of stuff for the children they will be leaving behind. Worrying and adoption go together, even when it’s not my own, and all sorts of contingencies and doubts pop into my mind …
Will they encounter travel delays?
Will their child be healthy when they arrive?
Will the paperwork be complete?
Will the Ministerial appointments all go well?
Will there be an outbreak of bird flu, SARS … whatever … that will hamper the process or inhibit travel?
Will someone meet them at the airport?
Well, now I know that all has gone very well.
We are all fine, Vathana is Magnifique! … gorgeous, smiley… we are very in love with her.
So, they’re all together in Phnom Penh, the process complete, and enjoying a week of getting to know each other and the place a bit.
I have been so envying the trip! Although I’ve been blessed to do this twice, that moment when you meet your child … well … WOW! And I long to be there again … not adopting (well … ) but there at AOA with the children, bringing extra goodies to them all, playing and hugging … and in PP, walking the town, eating at “Friends”, walking along the river, sitting on Shelley’s balcony and watching the boats go by, seeing the sights, smelling the smells!
A stop in Singapore on the way back will involve an appointment with my kids’ pediatrician for a general check-up and whatever inoculations the baby may need that aren’t available here in Seychelles.
On the 19th, they’ll be home, and I can’t wait to meet the new member of their family.
This makes five Cam-born kids in Seychelles now, and I’m so looking forward to next April’s Cambodian New Year. We’re going to have SUCH a party!
How Cool!
How wonderful that another baby from Cambodia is coming to Seychelles!
I think that decisions about which countries we can adopt from should not be made by polliticians in Washington (or useless, immoral, unethical groups like UNICEF). Obviously “politics as usual” is involved in those decisions.
L.