A Horrific Ethiopian Adoption Story that is Sadly Very Common

My husband and I began our second Ethiopian adoption back in 2008. We brought home our beautiful son in 2006. We wanted children so badly and fell in love with the country, the people, and ‘our son.’ We knew our daughter was also ‘waiting’ for us there. Our story causes us heartbreak because of what happened to our child and her family and how selfish and naïve we were in hindsight; we genuinely didn’t know—we hadn’t found the forums— we had heard the Guatemala adoption stories, but that was there. Right? Sadly this reasoning was just not so as we had come to learn.

We started with one of the bigger agencies in Ethiopia to wait for our little one.

We received our referral in September 2008 before our dossier was even complete. We saw a picture of a beautiful, healthy 10-month-old. She sat sitting upright in a chair, looking curiously at the camera. Her cheeks were full; her eyes were bright; it was the face of a well-loved child. She instructed us that if we didn’t turn our dossier in right away, she would give our daughter to someone else. She had to be moved to the orphanage immediately and could only do so with a paper-ready family. We were told that her mother had been raped, and she wished to place the child so she could move on with her life. We moved quickly and got all our paperwork turned in. We were given a court date and January 2, 2009.

By the middle of February, we were exhausted and praying that the adoption would work out. We passed court on February 13, 2009, and prepared to travel to Ethiopia.

We went to Kidane Mihret immediately after leaving our hotel the following day. We stopped at the guest house to drop our things off and pick up the other families. When we arrived, we were greeted by a couple of the sisters who run the orphanage. The head sister asked if we were there for “Feven.” I said “no” and repeated my daughter’s name; all the while, the staff videotaped the interaction with our camcorder. Sister said she did not have a child by that name. She thought we were there for Feven. They began speaking in Amharic and stated they would be right back. I could feel the anger building. I wasn’t sure I would return with my daughter at that moment. They reappeared after what seemed like an eternity with a sweet baby girl in their arms. They called her by the name we knew, and all the distress melted away. It was her, and she was real. She matched the referral picture.

The next few days seemed like a blur, my travel partner and I vowed to get the hell out of Ethiopia ASAP. It was not what I had felt before; the magic was gone, and I was suddenly faced with a horrible reality of what was going on.

“I was in a state of emotional shock.”

Pregnant women at the care center run by the agency roamed the grounds, nursed their children, and cared for others. The director boasted about how she “saved” these women and, in exchange for their children, got their work and housing. When we met our daughter’s mom, we did so only with the translation help of the director.

As the mom began to tell her story, she cried, and I cried along with her.

The director remarked to me, “don’t cry for her.” She was so cold and treated her mother as if she meant nothing. Her mom came back every day requesting to spend time with her daughter. She even offered to take her while we went sightseeing. I said, “no.” I thought she would steal from me…During one visit, in which we had no interpreter, we hadn’t had one since the first night; she looked at me and said in broken English, “I don’t trust her…she promised me transportation money.”

Not understanding what she meant, I must have given her $25.00. She smiled and took it.

The last night in Ethiopia, her mother came again. She planned to stay until we went to the airport.

We began to eat dinner, and she did not join us at the table. I demanded that she eat with us and the director agreed. Toward the end of the dinner, the director said something to her in another language, and she began to cry, stood up, and walked out. I sat there, confused about what had happened.

We boarded the plane back to the United States that night, relieved that we were finally out of what we had dubbed “the Twilight Zone.”

We arrived back in the US on March 8, 2009. I had never felt so happy to touch American soil. A squeezed my daughter tightly, thankful we had made it out, and I vowed never to look back. Our next days at home were overwhelmed with doctor’s appointments, settling in, and sharing pictures with other adoptive parents. About three days after arriving home, my dear little one could not stop vomiting. She was, in my doctor’s words, “the most ill adopted child I saw.”

My newly adopted daughter was admitted to a medical center. They ran tests to check for common infectious diseases. It was on that Saturday we received the most devastating news.

My new Ethiopian adopted child tested positive for HIV antibodies.

That coupled with enlarged nodes on her neck and in her groin, the vomiting, diarrhea, the thrush in her mouth—the doctors feared the worse, that she was HIV positive, and we were horribly unprepared. I called the agency and posted on the agency forum what we faced. I demanded answers. I learned that the mother tested negative three times for the AIDS virus, and the daughter got AIDS from being breastfed by a “wet nurse,” a woman hired by the care center to feed the babies, even though we sent over formula to the orphanage.

Then we were faced with a new blow. Our agency director posted on their agency forum a horrible letter. 

I still read this and feel as though I might vomit. My daughter’s real mother had no food and no money. She was given some money and turned back to the streets. This, from the agency, was a reported “women’s empowerment program.”

We hired a talented Ethiopian man to compile a life book video with the true story of our daughter’s relinquishment. I learned her mother had a relationship with her father, and there was no rape. She even hoped our daughter would meet her father one day.

The biggest blow came, however, when we received a letter from the adoption agency’s attorney accusing us of defamation.

They were threatening to take us to court. I continued to tell the truth. I am terrified. We do not have the money to fight. The agency demanded $75,000 from us for their troubles and their loss of clients.

I still hurt for the other families

I still hurt for my child’s mother.

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Ethiopia to scrap foreign adoption from its Family Law

The photo is a stock image. Source.