With all the negative press concerning foreign adoption these days, I feel compelled to share our story of what was our experience with the Paraguayan adoption process.
First steps
I had traveled through
Paraguay in 1970 as a graduate student, and found it charming. We
were on our way to Mendoza, Argentina, and decided to make it in
intermediate stop after visiting Iguaçu Falls. Asunción was
clean and orderly, and the people were uniformly friendly…A
trip to see the Virgin of Caacupe was like moving backward
through centuries. Much like his counterpart in Portugal (Salazar),
Stroessner obviously wasn't impressed with the glories of modern
civilization, and kept life simple for his subjects.
My wife and I adopted our two children in the fall of 1992. Rocío, now 12, and Carlos, now 11, are both healthy, energetic, happy children who know about where the came from and love their American parents. This is not to say that they don't grieve for the part of the their lives that they know little about, their birth parents, but rather that children learn to love their adoptive parents. This is our story:
Starting the process
We went into the adoption process with one basic requirement: that they both be basically healthy. We didn't necessarily want newborn children, and we weren't much concerned with their ages as long as the children were below school age and that the adoption process was legitimate.
We went through the obligatory home study through a local agency but for the proceeding decided to go through an agency in Alabama, Villa Hope, which had good contacts in Latin America. Also, we knew that the director frequently traveled down to her client countries to find out how the adoptions were playing out. We had already learned that there have always been great fluctuations in the rules and regulations concerning foreign adoption. Doors can swing open wide, then slam shut in a heartbeat, particularly when it comes to foreign adoption.
Villa Hope's director fairly quickly suggested one of the children she had been in contact with, Rocío. Her daughter had been urging her to adopt the child, since she was such a little bundle of energy. As for the boy, that choice was a little more difficult. The first suggestion we turned down, since the father was named on the birth certificate, and at that point in time that might mean trouble down the road with the U.S. Immigration Service. The situation was known as "the Romanian rule" at the time. This gives you an idea how adoption situations in one country can affect the process in other countries, totally unrelated to boundaries or adoptive processes in the country you have chosen. This was in May of 1991.
After a couple of months Villa Hope informed us that there was a newborn baby boy available, who turned out to be Carlos. We said yes. We were assigned our attorney at this point. It was now December of 1991.
Now it was time for the waiting period. Because of legal troubles with adoption in Paraguay the process began to drag on and on. The Paraguayan adoption door was swinging open and shut frequently. Villa Hope warned us that there was a chance the whole thing would fall through. The months dragged on.
Finally, in the summer of 1992 Villa Hope called and said to get ready for our first visit to Paraguay, when the initial paperwork would be filed. We would then return home and then pay a second visit as the paperwork was drawing near an end.
The day before we were to leave our Paraguayan attorney called to say that we should not come, that the adoption process had been closed. After waiting so long, now 14 months, we decided to go anyway. We had secured the time away from work, had the house taken care of, and were ready to travel. We called back and said we were coming anyway.
First trip to Paraguay
The flights down were nothing if not long. Over three hours to Miami. Seven hours in the air to São Paulo, then another 2+ hours to Asunción.
We were met at the airport gate by Graciela, the manager of the orphanage, and our two new children. Carlos was a little pale and sweaty, since he was running a temperature of 103 and was in need of the three medicines that Graciela carried with her.
A quick ride in from the airport to the Excelsior Hotel, then a check-in to our $190/night room there. A few final instructions from Graciela. Now we were alone with the kids, one of whom was sick, the other going around the room checking the drawers and responding with "Ípa" to most of our questions, which we later learned meant "Who cares!" in Guaraní. Near-panic set in.
Rocí did like the space and the freedom of movement around the hotel. The staff of the hotel treated her as their pet, and played with her, held her hand, and were generally wonderful to her. She also developed a taste for surubí, the local river fish, which is a delicacy when cooked right and poisonous when not.
Carlos, with his perpetual asthma, had learned to sleep in a "V" position with his forehead pointed toward the bed and his rear end in the air, which gave him better drainage for his nose. He gradually improved to the point where we were pretty sure he was not in danger of dying. A trip to the doctor assured us that he would be OK. He even rolled off the bed at one point and hit his head on the floor and didn't die. We were on a roll...
Since there was no chance of anything happening on our adoption, we decided to return after our 10 days in Asuncion, not knowing what would happen next. Naturally we were pretty attached to the kids, so the exit was difficult. Newspaper articles usually point out this practice of immediate contact with the children as an abuse. For adoptive parents, it seems more like a right.
Back to the United States
Two days after I was back, and at work, I had to fly down to Charlotte, North Carolina, to attend a conference I didn't want to go to. It was a real jolt to be back. Gradually we both settled back into our daily routine, but with a growing sense of anxiety regarding our adoption prospects.
A couple of months passed without a word concerning our case. One day, early in October, I called our attorney's law office. The receptionist said that he was at his country house. I asked for his telephone number there, which she quickly gave to me. I called the house and our attorney picked up the phone on the first ring. He was pretty surprised to get me on the phone. I asked him pointblank how our case was going and when we could expect to return to complete our adoption. He replied "how about next week?" What a shock!
Naturally we were in a full-scale panic. We had no idea how long we would need to be down there, and had to make quick arrangements at work and at home to take care of our affairs while we were gone. But we were darned sure if the time was opportune we were not going to let this one pass us by.
Return to Paraguay
The luggage inspection at the airport in Asunción this time was much rougher. The customs officials suggested that if we were in a hurry we could pay a "quick inspection" fee. We said we were not in a hurry and would wait our turn for our luggage to clear, which it finally did. One of the bags did miraculously develop a slash on the side of it, however, which we later found out at the hotel room when things began to tumble out.
Rocí didn't really remember us, and Carlos, although in much better shape this time, was just too young to relate to us. Rocí did, however, remember the hotel and started running around the place with wild abandon.
This time we were ensconced in the "long-term" wing of the Excelsior with all the other families who were doing the legal limbo. There didn't seem to be much rhyme or reason for the length of their stays. We once asked Raúl, our attorney, about this. He replied that it wasn't a bad thing that we spent some time in the country, so that we could get to know them and they could get to know us.
Our job was basically to sit in our hotel room and wait for the attorney to call. After a few days this gets agonizing. Every two or three days there was something to do, followed by several days of wait, or promises from our attorney that things were moving along nicely. We had traveled to Paraguay with the expectation that we would probably have to return for a final visit, but our attorney kept insisting that we could finish the adoption if only we would trust him. He was right, but there were many days when we wondered if we were completely nuts to stay based on such little evidence of progress.
Two of the adoption processes stand out in our minds. The most harrowing was the official adoption ceremony in front of the judge, granting us legal custody to the children. We had heard that the judge was half-crazy, drove a Harley, hated Americans, you name it. Rocí threw an absolute, screaming fit in the waiting area, which must have been about 95 degrees. We waited almost 3 hours. Moments before the lunch break we were ushered in. The judge proved to be rather businesslike, chatted with us, asked us a few questions about where we came from, then signed our petition for preliminary adoption. It was a long three hours but it hardly lived up to its billing.
The other agonizing process was the psychological exam that each of us had to go through. Lots of Rohrschact tests, visuals, word associations, etc. We went through this in Spanish, but had our interpreter along just in case we mis-spoke. At the end of this day we had no idea what was going to happen next. We had heard of people failing these tests, and hoped that we would not be among their number.
It was about this point that Graciela told us that both mothers had passed their second psychological exam, which meant that we could rest assured that all was well. Of course we had never heard of this second exam, so that sent a small chill down our spines.
There was little left to do except go with the flow. We sat by the swimming pool by day, drinking beer and refreshments, eating whatever was being grilled that day. It was late September, and Asunción was beginning to heat up, to say the least. Snacks at the bar inside in the afternoon. Occasional birthday parties at the orphanage.
About this time our attorney asked for the final half of the adoption fee. He sent a courier by to pick up the check, which was just a standard check drawn against our banking account in the states. It beats carrying around a wad of $100 bills and hoping that they are not stolen! (Peru, early 90's)
Our attorney invited us over for a final celebration of the end of our proceedings. I looked forward to the opportunity to visit him, since I have previously taken a single picture of him that had ended at his forehead. His wife joked that I could catch "the other half of him" on film this time, and should set my aim high! It is also when we learned what Ípa meant!
Visits to the doctor, visits to the police station, visits to the American Consulate all started to accelerate as we were in our last days of our visit, nearing a full month this time.
The last day was agony. I went to pay the huge hotel bill with my VISA card, which the hotel clerk told me had bounced (later I found out that they had put the charge through twice, so if my limit had been twice the bill it would have cleared.) My wife's card worked, however. The exit visa from Paraguay from the police station, the last-minute visit to the Consulate, the wait at the airport while the unofficial exit "fees" were being paid, anticipation of the long flight home.
Back in the U.S.A.
In the São Paulo airport awaiting our connection, the kids were going berserk. At one point they were playing with the rocks in a tree planter, dropping them onto the floor, giggling. An Orthodox Jewish family was seated across from us looking at the whole scene with what looked like complete disgust! Can't those people control their children? Look at ours!
Things didn't get much better in Miami, where the INS treats everyone like refugees. The foreigners coming in were treated far worse than we were, however.
25 hours into our return journey, back in Chicago, we were headed down a tunnel in O'Hare toward our bus. Rocí was still acting up, drawing on her boundless sources of energy. A tall, elegant lady stopped to say to me "What a marvelous child!" while watching Rocí practicing her wind sprints down the tunnel. I growled back, "Yeah, but she's getting by on her looks right now." The woman snapped back "Well, she's doing a fine job of it!" and sauntered off.
We returned home to find that the house-sitter had not been enforcing any potty discipline with the cats, who had been pooping in the living room for so long that we gagged when we came in the front door. I spent a couple of hours scrubbing the floor as part of my welcome home.
Life at home
A number of families in our area who have adopted from Paraguay formed the Paraguayan Culture Class, where we would teach the children a little bit about their homeland, teach them a bit of Spanish, and swap stories between the parents, somewhat group therapy in our case. We hired a Peace Corps worker who had done his turn in Paraguay (whose wife was the only native Paraguayan in our city outside of the children) to teach the children about Paraguay. He shared his films of rural life in Paraguay with us, taught the children the bottle dance, lectured the parents on the historical background of the country, etc.
The club has since split into two groups, along age lines. The membership is static, since very few adoptions from Paraguay have taken place in the last few years.
We are working hard to keep their Latin American cultural roots alive. They spent two days a week with Latin American women for their first two years here. We have taken two family vacations in the last 3 years, once to Ecuador, once to Costa Rica. More are planned. Rocí's Spanish was native-level a couple of times, but has since dropped off considerably. Carlos, because he was adopted at an earlier age, remains more of a linguistic challenge.
Somewhat by accident we established a relationship with Carlos's family. His mother works for one of the private adoption agencies, the one we used. We send presents, exchange letters, call each other from time to time. I won't go into the circumstances, but we know that she is a very brave woman.
Rocí's mother does not want to have contact with us. This has made Rocí somewhat sad. Perhaps in the future conditions will change. Certainly when we eventually return to Paraguay we will attempt to resolve some of her questions.
We sponsor a child through Project for the People of Paraguay, an 11-year-old girl. It helps pay for her dental work, her school supplies, some clothing in winter, a Christmas present, and the occasion medical problem.
I hope that those of you who read our adoption story will be able to read the comic-book style stories of foreign adoption with a greater understanding. In particular, pay close attention to the sources of the information in the story. I, for one, will no longer read anything written by Sabina Astete, who I'm not even sure is a real person. Also, look for holes in the narrative, where things don't seem logical or reasonable. There are usually contradictions between the points of view of the parties involved, and one has to seek the motivation behind the various versions of the story.
There continue to be some horror stories about people who have broken the rules and attempt to basically abduct the child. Those of us who care about international adoption are as appalled by these stories as anyone. There are also stories of governments behaving badly as well (including our own). Knowing what I know now I'm glad we had the resources and the foresight to adopt both children at the same time.
I recently received a nice reply from Steven D Weinstock who has set up a resource web page on Paraguayan adoption and on all web things Paraguay. He wrote me a nice note and provided me with his web site address. I found it very well done. It also has link to PALS, the Paraguayan adoption listserve (forum). Steven informed me that there are some real horror stories out there at present regarding the adoption process in Paraguay since 1996, basically about having the adoption door slammed shut abruptly, and of long stays in-country.
Thanks for reading our story. Click on the following image for a mail link: 
Roger Glass
October 3, 1999