6 maart

De dag dat we afscheid moeten nemen van het geboorteland van Lorgens. Het geeft ons een dubbel gevoel. We halen een kind weg uit zijn eigen land, cultuur, geur, kleur en gewoontes. Dat voelt wreed. Het andere gevoel is, gelukkig we halen Lorgens weg uit een omgeving waar hij relatief weinig kansen heeft om een bestaan op te bouwen die niet per definitie gepaard zal gaan met honger, strijd om te blijven bestaan, dreiging op straat en wantrouwen.

Om kort na 9.00 uur stond Franck al voor de deur. Veel te vroeg! Hij zal nog een vrachtje gecharterd hebben en had gehoopt dat wij al klaar zouden staan. Niets was minder waar. We moesten nog een deel inpakken en de rekeningen betalen. Dus uiteindelijk vertrokken we na afscheid te hebben genomen van Niels en Marianne, om kort na 9.30 uur naar het vliegveld. Het vliegtuig zou rond 13.00 vertrekken dus we hadden nog ruim de tijd om rond te hangen op dat vliegveld.

Een vlot vertrek naar Miami en een goede vlucht. Beide jongens waren van verveling in slaap gevallen gedurende de twee uur durende vlucht.

De planning was dat we ongeveer 4 uur wachttijd zouden hebben op vliegveld Miami voordat we verder konden. Die tijd hadden we ook wel nodig zeg! De douanecontrole was verschrikkelijk. Helaas geen voordeel omdat we kinderen bij ons hadden. Nee nu was het een nádeel dat we kinderen bij ons hadden. Hoe hou je dat volk een beetje in toom tijdens de file? Mijn God wat een drama. Aan alles komt een eind dus aan deze sessie ook. Eerst even een frisse neus gehaald en toen lekker eten op het vliegveld. Zo verstreek de tijd langzaam maar zeker naar het tijdstip van vertrek. Mooi het was 19.15 uur we mochten gaan boarden.

Caring for vulnerable children

Caring for very sick children

UK

£20,000

From refurbishing children’s bedrooms and a medical treatment room, to purchasing specialist equipment and supporting annual running costs, the Halcrow Foundation has helped St Martin’s children hospice in Yorkshire over a number of years.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2009

No Special Treatment

When we adopted Annalea in 2008, Armenian requirements for adoption stated that the adoptive family have some Armenian heritage on at least one side of the family. This was fair, I thought, considering how few children are available for adoption in this small country.

About a year ago, this rule went by the wayside. The claim is that Hague rules require this to prevent discrimination. Now anyone of any ethnicity can adopt here. I think that is a good change, with one exception. Armenians do not get preference.

I have some questions about this.

February 27, 2010

The single adoptive mum

Seven years ago, desperate for a baby, Jane Clarke went to India

Jane Clarke with her adopted daughter Maya

Penny Wark

Get a womb: Gay couples outsource Indian mothers

By Saritha Rai - GlobalPost

Published: February 26, 2010 09:55 ET

BANGALORE, India — In a building smack in the middle of chaotic Hyderabad, an hour’s flight from Bangalore, 29-year-old American Brad Fister recently got acquainted with the delirious joy of first-time parenthood.

Fister and his partner Michael Griebe, who own a computer business in Kentucky, contracted a womb from an Indian surrogate mother thousands of miles away in Hyderabad. Their daughter Ashton, conceived in a laboratory out of Fister’s sperm and an anonymous donor’s egg, was born in mid-February.

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Trafficking in Samoa/petition to sign From: Karen Moline

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Re: Digest Number 3298 - Teens/Tweens From: kgustafesq@aol.com

German twins' father makes desperate plea

27 Feb 2010, 1528 hrs IST

Time has almost run out for Jan Balaz to get his surrogate twin son Leonard and Nikolas Balaz back with him to Germany, with Balaz's visa expiring in a matter of days. Speaking to your channel Balaz says he's been told that he will not receive an extension.

Meanwhile, apparently unconcerned and notwithstanding the tense visa situation, the Indian judicial system continues to plod along at its usual pace, with the next hearing scheduled in the Supreme Court on March 16. Aggravating the situation is the snail's pace of Indian bureaucracy - although admittedly there is no legal guideline on the subject of citizenship (by birth) of surrogate children, the executive has been unwilling to resolve the matter of the twins by making a one-time exception on humanitarian grounds as it is reluctant to set a precedent.

The children were born in 2008 to a surrogate mother in Gujarat, but biologically descended from German parents. The Ministry of External Affairs, through the Regional Passport Office, initially granted a passport to the twins under the 'tatkal' scheme but later issued a notice withdrawing the passports.

Published: February 27, 2010

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Op-Ed Contributor

Hillary Clinton and the Mother Teresa Home for Infant Children

By Dr. Paul Kengor

Payments to Ethiopia soared before local adoption agency collapsed

February 27, 2010

BY BRIAN CALDWELL, RECORD STAFF

CAMBRIDGE — Money going to an orphanage in Ethiopia allegedly soared in the year before an international adoption agency in Cambridge went bankrupt last summer.

The collapse of Imagine Adoption in July stunned more than 400 families hoping to adopt children and triggered a criminal fraud investigation.

German surrogate twins: Government to relax adoption norms

New Delhi, Feb 25

The government Thursday told the Supreme Court that it is willing to waive some of the restrictions in adopting children born through surrogacy to help a German couple adopt their twin sons born to an Indian surrogate mother in 2008.

A bench of Justice A.K. Ganguly and Justice R.M. Lodha then asked the government to file an affidavit stating its intention to waive the stipulations to help German national Jan Balaaz and his wife. The twins have been in India since their birth due to immigration problems.

Appearing for Balaaz and his wife, advocate Kamini Jaiswal told the bench that Germany treats childbirth through surrogacy as illegal and has "flatly said that it will not do anything" to help the couple.