Yes, I'm still alive

Life has been a little extra crazy lately with a mad hunt for a new job, watching my old one expire and not finding anything capable of earning the same (or preferably) more than the barely-scraping-by amount that I earn now. I start a new job, nonetheless, on Monday. I will be writing and editing for an area adoption agency. They don't do adoptions through Vietnam yet, but if all goes well with the agreement between the two countries, adoptions will continue and the agency will start doing VNese adoptions.

There are always a lot of differing opinions when it comes to adoptions: pro, con and everything in between. I'd like to think that in an ideal world it wouldn't be about fees, gender or age. In an ideal world, parents could afford to take care of their children, mothers wouldn't die at birth and there certainly wouldn't be any corruption. But we don't live in an ideal world, by far, and things are a bit messed up. Not just with adoption in Vietnam, but throughout the world. It's just that in Vietnam, it's on the chopping block.

For some time the two countries (US and Vietnam) have been working on the agreement to allow international adoptions. The current agreement expires soon, leaving hundreds (thousands?) of families in limbo. There's no promise that it will be renewed in some form or another; the State Dept. did say it won't be renewed in its current form. But the when and what's have not been defined.

I've been following the story as it unfolds, but not being an adoptive parent (despite wishing I could be mother to several kids in Tam Ky), I am unfamiliar with the lingo, the requirements, etc. But there's a great blog out there for families to keep track of what is happening. Check out Voices for Adoption Integrity. It's informative and the bloggers seem to truly have the interests of the children in mind. It's an important issue and one that won't go away. Even if they close down the adoptions between the countries yet again.