New term - adoption miscarriage

All
thank you for the prayers, thoughts, you name it - I can't express how much it helps.  As two friends have told me today - this is a lot like a miscarriage - I've decided its an adoption miscarriage - just crazy.  I am mourning a child I"ve never met - but so in love with.

anyhow - below is a post from our agency today - they explain it better than I ever could -
Gail

Dear Families~

We have been informed that the government in Southern Ethiopia shut down 15 orphanages in the Awassa area in the last week. Obviously, many agencies, including us, have been affected by this. One of the orphanages is the Awassa location of EnatAlem. We have worked with this location for quite a while and have received many referrals from there. It is difficult to hear that they have been closed. Another orphanage that was shut down was EVADO. This is an orphanage we have also worked with for a long time, although, over the last 6 months or so, our trust level with the director has deteriorated significantly and we did not plan to continue working with this orphanage anyway. 

The effects of the closings are:
1- The children in these orphanages have been moved to a different orphanage. It is so difficult knowing that after they all have already had to make adjustments, at least one time, to the orphanage, they now need to make new adjustments to a new orphanage. We are unsure if these children will be adoptable and if so, how much time it will take to proceed with their adoptions. 

2-We have three families that accepted referrals in the last 3-4 weeks from Awassa EnatAlem. The government required these children be brought back to Awassa and, from the information we have now, they will not be able to proceed with the adoptions. This has been really difficult news for them to hear and, even more so, to understand. That being said, these families responded with graciousness.

3-We will not have a way to ensure that birth families will be able to access post adoption reports of children that have been adopted through these orphanages. The procedure is to send four reports to Ethiopia (for government, AAI-ET office, orphanage, & birth parent). When the reports arrive at our office in Ethiopia, one is submitted to the government office, one is filed, and the other two are sent to the orphanage. The birth parent then has the opportunity to come to the orphanage to get his/her copy of the report. If the orphanage is closed, we do not have a place to send them. In theory, birth parents could still obtain a report if they had a way to get to Addis to get one, however, it is not realistic to think they would have the means to do this. 

Right now we have very little facts and lots of questions about the "whys" and the "whats" of these shutdowns. We will continue to posts any new information we learn.

One question many of you might have is "What orphanages are we currently working with?" We continue to work with a good amount of orphanages and are excited this. I plan to post a list later today to inform you of the specific names & locations of our current orphanages. 

Please keep the children and families affected by these shutdowns in your thoughts and prayers. 

Thanks,