A Labor of Love

I have been overwhelmed these last two weeks by the effort and dedication of the people we have met who pour their lives into the orphans of this country to give these children a chance in life they would not otherwise have. I have also felt very blessed that both of our daughters have been touched in such a significant way by some of the biggest-hearted people I have ever met.

We have not had the opportunity to experience the conditions of a regular Bulgarian orphanage, and for that I am most thankful. Maggie has given us a pretty good picture of what they are like, and it isn't a pretty picture. The regular orphanages are typically divided into three types. The first orphanage is for children from birth through age 2 and for children with significant medical special needs. These orphanages are staffed mostly by medical personnel and are set up like a hospital more than anything else. The second type is for children ages 3-7. A child will be transferred into this home on his third birthday and out on his eighth. From here, they will go to the last type of orphanage for children ages 8-18. On their 18th birthday, they are out on their own.

Most of these places are huge. Shumen is a city roughly the size of Macon, GA. The orphanage where Cici spent her first two years is a facility about the size of the average Atlanta high school. It probably houses 500 or so children under the age of three. Children are typically placed in groups of ten, and these 10 children will share a room and a caregiver, and will do everything as a group. Even in the best conditions, these orphanages are woefully understaffed. This forces the caregivers into an assembly line type of management scheme just to be able to meet the minimum needs for life. Especially in the first two tiers of the system, children will typically spend most of their time in their beds (cribs - even for the seven year olds) for containment purposes. They will subsist mainly or exclusively on a liquid diet in a bottle or sippy cup to allow for efficient distribution and consumption with little or no mess. They also typically wear diapers just to avoid the chaos of 10 children all having to go to the bathroom at different times. Consider how much time is spent while raising a child just in helping them make the transition from a bottle to baby food to solid food, and finally to the point where they can feed themselves. Then add in the hours required for potty training, bathing, oral hygiene, and teaching them to talk, count, say their abc's and all of the other things required to raise a normal, healthy child. All these poor care givers are able to do is feed, change diapers, clean, and manage a tight regimen, and they barely have the time to accomplish that. There is no time available for individual attention, teaching, nurturing, comforting, and doing all of the other things a parent is able to do as part of daily life. The care givers by and large are good people, there just aren't enough of them. The problem then is that these children are subjected to testing using the same standards as their more fortunate peers and they can't measure up. They fail the knowledge tests simply because they haven't been taught but they may be stuck with a label of moderate to severe mental delay. This becomes part of the official record, and it scares off prospective parents who interpret the term along the lines of mental incompetence and very low IQ, when in fact the children often have excellent capacity to learn, just no opportunity. The same thing may happen with physical assessments. A six year old child who can't walk is understandably disturbing to a prospective parent, but the truth may be as simple as the fact that the child can't walk because she has never spent any time exercising outside of her crib. There is nothing wrong with the child that s couple of months of good nutrition, exercise, and opportunity can't fix. Finally, medical "problems" are often overstated so the orphanage can claim a child has special needs just because the label entitles the orphanage to receive more funding for that child than otherwise. Again, however, these inaccurate and detrimental labels get carried forward in the child's information for prospective parents and often render the child unadoptable.

To combat the growing problem, Bulgaria is starting to experiment with some alternative methods. One is the Center For Family Type Accommodation facilities like the one where Emily lives. These centers replace the second tier orphanage with a small, focused environment. They significantly decrease the facility overhead costs by downsizing to only 10 in a facility. They can then afford to increase staffing so that they can provide the individual nurturing and training required to place the children on a more even footing with their peers who are being raised in traditional homes. This allows for the removal of the negative labels and provides a much more accurate and attractive picture for prospective parents and significantly increases adoptability. I won't dwell on the Center in Lom since I have discussed it previously other than to reiterate our appreciation for the dedication and hard work the staff puts into raising those children and for the loving and nurturing environment they are able to provide.

An even better program is being piloted here in Shumen, the professional foster parent program. Professional foster parents are given specific training on the development and care of previously institutionalized children, then they are licensed and actually paid a salary to serve as a professional foster parent. In return, they take a child into their home and raise him as their own. This provides the best possible environment for helping these children develop fully and properly so as to avoid or remove negative labels. The interesting aspect of the program is that it focuses specifically on making a child adoptable and getting them placed as quickly as possible with an adoptive family. According to the law, the foster parents are not supposed to adopt their foster children; they are simply preparing them for someone else.  As a note, however, there have been some cases where the foster family has become so closely attached to the child that they request to proceed with an adoption anyway.  There have even been rare cases where a foster family has made this decision after an international referral has been made.  In these cases, the child's needs are considered the highest priority and preference has been given to the foster family since the child would remain in an environment that has already been established and the situation would maintain the emotional bonds that have already been formed.

Daren and Yordanka have dedicated the current season of their lives to loving and nurturing foster children in preparation for being adopted by someone else. It is one of the most selfless things I have ever seen. They get a salary for their work, but it isn't much. They are certainly not in it for the money. They have worked with three children so far. Their first was Brian. They took him in as an 18 month old and raised him for a year and a half. Cici came to live with them as a two year old, and they will have cared for her about a year and a half as well by the time we get back to pick her up. They also did short term care for a newborn who needed a place to live for about a month. I didn't hear the whole story, but something about her parents house catching on fire about the time she was born, and they needed someone to keep her until they could make repairs. The Dukovs were the ninth professional foster family registered in Shumen, and Yordanka is the current chairperson for the Bulgarian National Association of Foster Parents. They are very involved in making the program a success, and they organize social events and support groups for the local foster community. They currently have about 135 families in Shumen.

There are also adoption agencies like Family National Association here in Bulgaria that are absolutely critical to making both national and international adoptions a reality. They also have some wonderful people working with them. For example, Maggie serves as a translator and family facilitator, and has been invaluable to us. She has also spent time working with battered women and children. We asked her if she could go to any other country in the world, where would she go and why. Her immediate answer was India, and the poorer and more rural the area, the better. She wants to go there to help people in need, and envisions that as a place where she could make the most difference. Her second choice was the horn of Africa for the same reasons. She has a "Mother Theresa" heart. It has been so wonderful to get to meet and work with this caliber of people in our adoption journey.

We had a very nice visit with Cici today, and she and Carolyn had some special time to connect today. One of the advantages of the foster program is the intimate knowledge of the child that the parents can pass on. So while I have gotten more play time with Cici, she has been asking questions and taking notes like crazy. Today she got a little play time at lunch, then spent some time this evening braiding her hair and then establishing herself as Cici's official back scratcher. She loves having her back scratched as much as Carolyn does.

We took everybody out for lunch today and Cici was all dressed up for the occasion. On the way to lunch we went to the photo studio and had her official visa photos made. During the evening, Yordanka served a wonderful tea with a little help from Cici. Overall, another wonderful day!