What to Say, What to Say

Really, what can I say. I sit here with a pit in my stomach, a heavy heart, and every now and then, a bit of a need to run and vomit. Unless you have been living under a rock, you know what I'm talking about. Every day this situation with adoptions in Vietnam seems to get dirtier, messier and more likely to crash and burn entirely. I am beginning to doubt and try to accept that my child may not be coming from Vietnam. I hope that neither myself nor any of my blogging friends have referrals when and if this program is halted yet again.

I have so much I'd like to say about the current situation, but I think there are so many who have already said what I'm thinking, probably better than I can. Thank you to people like Nicki, Christina, Rachel, Laurie, Kelly, S, Sarah and Jena (and I'm sure I'm leaving out many of you!) who working so hard to enlighten and challenge people to learn about what is going on. I hope that you will not let the attacks and criticism hold you back from continuing to speak about what so many of us are thinking.

I strongly recommend everybody read this Ethica article on NOID's.

And if you don't already, please save this link to the Embassy in your favorites. This site and the VVAI site have become practically my home pages (thanks to the VVAI site for creating that list of agencies by province - I finally just copied it into word on both of my computers, I refer to it so often!). Why save the Embassy page? It's the place to go for the list of licensed agencies, the circulars and decrees, official statements, and oh - look - there's an email address at the bottom if you happen to want to email them support of their work in cleaning up the program (hint, hint).

I wasn't following this program in the days leading up to the shutdown, but I have to wonder how similar it was to what we're seeing now. I do hope that the current investigations and process changes can be the kick that's needed to get things back on track. I hope that with all the discussion, that even just a few people who didn't know or didn't believe will make different choices. To paraphrase an Oprah-ism, when you know better, you do better.

I don't believe everything I read on the internet, and I don't jump on bandwagons. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know I've been frustrated by the ethics and corruption in this program for months. People always want "concrete proof" of things, which is difficult to obtain in these kinds of situations (which the Ethica article addresses). When I see something that seems off to me, I research, read, learn, ponder, evaluate. Everybody needs to ascertain for themselves what they consider ethical, moral and legal and I know my position won't mesh with everyone else's. I worked in the marketing field for eight years. What does that matter? A couple of things. First, I know all too well how the man behind the curtain operates, how the spin is put on to lead the consumer to believe exactly what you want them to believe - so I think I can do a pretty good job of looking beyond the website and marketing materials of agency propaganda to see what else is going on. Second, notice I said worked as in past tense. I walked away from an industry where I was fairly successful to make far less money. Why? Mostly because I decided that the bigger paycheck wasn't worth it to me if I had to set aside my values. Of course there are opportunities to do marketing for worthwhile companies/groups/industries - if I ever delve back into marketing again it will only be for something I can fully stand behind. I make far less money now and my job doesn't utilize my degree or work experience in the least, but I'm content and not compromising who I am. At the end of the day that is important to me, and I follow that same track to the Nth degree in this hope to adopt.

I hope that someday I will be a parent, it's what I've dreamed of all of my life. I'm glad that I do have a concurrent path with my agency that they've allowed me pursue, due to the challenges of our VN program, because not everybody has that kind of option. I'm still hopeful that I will be traveling to Vietnam, I've spent over a year working specifically toward that goal. But if the only way to do it is through practices that I consider unethical, I am ready and willing to walk away.

So bravo to those of you who have your eyes open and are willing to continue to challenge and educate others.