What if it was Ethiopia?

This morning I got an e-mail from an adoption advocate group saying that Russia announced that it is indeed closing its doors to Americans wishing to adopt. I am not to familiar with Russia's system. I researched in 5 years ago when we first started looking at adoption but much has changed since then.

I met the news of the closure with conflicting emotions. Part of me broke for the families in process who already love a child that they now will not be able to bring home. Part of me was relieved that maybe it could lead to a better process in the future. Maybe Russia would implement the Hague convention. Part of me was angered that Russian officials are acting so hastily and pointing fingers as though American families are taking healthy thriving children and crushing them and then sending them back. Another part of me felt that their feelings are justified by the reprehensible actions of some who have adopted from Russia.

Most of me was just sad, sad that there is no way to stop the suffering of the children involved. No matter which way it goes babies will cry themselves to sleep tonight with no one to rock them. The older kids won’t cry because they have given up hope. They know that crying out will do no good. No one will come. No one cares.

I have several friends who were adopted from Russia as older children. I know some of what goes on. Although my boys are not from Russia two of them spent time in an orphanage. I don't think of their adoptions every day. They are my sons and most days the fact that they are adopted does not cross my mind.

For some reason last night as I tucked Tomi into bed it crossed my mind for the fist time all day. I lay down beside him and he tucked in against me while he sucked his fingers and clung to his little blue bear. Oh how I treasure it when he does that. It took him 9 month to learn how to cuddle me and I do not take it for grated as I do with my biological children.


My mind flooded with what ifs. What if the foolish woman who sent her child back had adopted from Ethiopia. What if she had broken one year earlier? What if Ethiopia called off it's adoption program. What would Tomi's life look like today? Would he even be alive? If he was alive he would be in an orphanage smaller then our house with 30 other children.

I have a picture of him in his orphanage. He sits on the floor in a sea of faces looking up with vacant stares. A few toys are strews here and there but no one plays with them. They just sit there waiting. Nothing ever changes. They grow up and when they are too old they either stay to take care of the younger children or go out into the world. The statistics for children aging out of the system are grim. suicide, prostitution, incarceration, make up almost the sum of them.

The thought of my Tomi sitting on that floor day after day, laying in one of the white cribs lined up in rows night after night brings me to my knees in agony. He was left there when he was three days old. Before he came to us he knew nothing of what it was to be in a family.
He is a fighter; he is one of those kids that rises to the top wherever he is. What would happen to that spirit if he lived out his childhood in an orphanage? Would he give up and stop crying eventually? Would he hold out the longest of all the children just to fall victim to malaria, hiv, or typhoid? I can never know what would have been.

The truth for Russia's orphans is that they are about to find out.