Rehema has returned to living with her mother. We are still at home in Eugene. Our journey to bring our family together is back to the stages of mystery and waiting, which has been emotional, but things could have been much worse.
When I last wrote, we were not sure what would happen to Rehema. The following day in Uganda, both birth parents rescinded their support for the adoption, and the same day the orphanage workers returned Rehema to her mother in her village. The social worker in charge of the village was alerted to the situation and would keep an eye out for the child, and we were to be told if anything new developed. At this point, we have heard nothing, and no news is fairly good news, meaning that Rehema's mother is now taking care of her and she has not needed to relinquish her again. I am choosing to assume that something changed in the family situation -- perhaps the extended family became willing to help the mother care for the child, or simply that the disabled mother was able to care for a healthy, walking toddler in a way she was not able to do for an infant.
The best place for a child is with her own family, in her own culture. Rehema is blessed that she is able to return to the place where she was born and first loved. I continue to pray for her and her mother every day, that she has love and enough to eat. For her, the year away from her family in the orphanage must be a confusing change, but perhaps that time gave her physical strength or her extended family a different perspective in a way that will improve the rest of her life. Or perhaps we became connected in this distant way, and Rehema is held up by prayers in a way she wouldn't have been otherwise.
We want to adopt a child who has no other options for life and growth. At this point, Rehema clearly has other options -- living with her mother, or possibly even her father's relatives who took an interest in her. Her place is not in our family, and we still have room in our home and our hearts for a child who is all out of options.
*Could the situation have turned out differently? Is there something the agency did wrong or could have done better?*
Of course, we will never know the answer to the first question. It is a mystery to us why the family was supportive of her being in the orphanage for an entire year and then changed their minds; it could be that some outside event that we will never know about changed the situation. Could the agency have been more proactive about staying in touch with the family or doing some of the paperwork earlier, and would that have made a difference? We won't ever really know that, either; in fact, they might have been in contact with the family on a regular basis (we do know workers were in the village several times). However, if something did change that now the mother wants to and can take care of her daughter, I'm glad that she had the chance to make that decision and she wasn't locked into a relinquishment that she later regretted. Perhaps it could have gone a little more smoothly for all of us -- including Rehema -- if they had been working on the case and found out a few weeks earlier, but again, we don't know exactly what happened and if there were extenuating circumstances at exactly that time. At any rate, it would have only been a few weeks' difference, since they couldn't start until they had our paperwork in hand.
I think that it is positive that the orphanage returned the girl to her home as soon as they heard that she was wanted there, and did not put pressure on the mother to place her child for adoption after all. That should be the parents' decision, and it is not our business or the agency's business why they change their minds; there is a local social worker, who presumably is looking out for the needs of the mother and children. Bigger questions of whether the mother was receiving negative pressure from her relatives or the rest of the village, need to be addressed in a grander format.... such as making sure that girls and women have access to education, and the ability to earn and save money to take care of themselves.
I also think that it is positive that the agency contacted us immediately to let us know what was going on, and continued to be open and honest about the difficulties as well as the successes that they are having. The good news is that there are children from the orphanage coming home to American families -- and far more cases are proceeding smoothly than having upsets like ours. From what I can tell, they are taking the difficulties seriously and being proactive about addressing them. The director of the agency here in Oregon is in Uganda right now, trying to figure out exactly what the situation is and what the next steps should be. It seems like many of the problems stem from the difficulty in communication and cultural expectations, and hopefully he will be able to clarify some of those issues in person.
*Is this situation unfair or unreasonable for us?*
It has been emotionally harrowing, but I don't think it is out of the range of normal. We knew going into this that Uganda's adoption program has a lot of variation in it, and that the placement is not guaranteed until the court date. This is not a long-established Hague country with a specific procedure that always happens. We also knew that this agency had a brand-new program, that the director in-country was well-meaning but not experienced with international adoption. These are the risks that we took and that we knew about going into the program, and the reasons that we chose this country and the program are still valid, and worthwhile despite the risks. It is sad for us that we became emotionally attached to a placement that fell through, but we knew that it was a possibility.
And now we all keep going. Our family is waiting for a new match -- with a child who truly has no other options for life and growth. Rehema and her mother and getting to know each other again and moving forward with their lives. The agency and orphanage workers are still trying to help children who have no safety net in a way that is honest and ethical. There are still many women and children in Uganda who don't have clean drinking water or access to education or medical care, and hopefully through the years we will be able to do some small part to support other families, so that other children will have more options in their own beautiful country.
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