I had sent an email to the state department in the US to see if they had any advice or could advocate for me. The emails (I sent 1 to each of 2 addresses) both bounced back. This morning I retried 1 of them and it sent successfully! I'm expecting a response to take a while. While trying to be patient and not jump ahead of myself, I kept reading and getting more and more discouraged.
Finally, I decided that it wouldn't hurt to at least try to call the German authorities. Chances are, I thought, they won't even speak English so they'll just be a little annoyed that some person wasted a few minutes of their time, but they wouldn't know who I was. I had to try SOMETHING! (I'm not good at waiting when I feel so desperate!) I had found contact information for about 15 people/departments that all looked like they were equally likely to be the people I needed to seek permission from. I just randomly picked one. After getting transferred to the person who spoke the best English (very good, IMO), I explained my situation and asked if he could help me to get this "permission" I needed. He seemed to understand exactly what I was wanting in terms of adopting, but he said that I had called the larger "State" (aka federal) "Central Authority" and I needed to seek this from the "Central Authority" over our region. *sigh* Apparently the term "Central Authority" doesn't seem to really mean much, because Germany has over 15 of them, he said! He acknowledged how confusing and silly this was, which does help some. At least it isn't just me! Anyways, he also explained that I could try to use a German "adoption agency" which is a misleading term because they are actually more like government entities than agencies, but he was able to lead me to a long list of them along with which countries they were qualified to adopt from. My country was not on any of the lists. AHA!!! Maybe THAT is the problem!! Maybe Germany cannot give permission for this adoption because Germany does not have an agreement with the country I want to adopt from and so those children have no precedent to come here! (This is my own idea, I have no idea if that's really the reason for all the problems or not.) Anyways, he said I should call my local "Central Authority" and see what they said. So, I did.
After much holding and a few transfers, I finally got the person I needed to speak to. She understood my dilemma and at first said it was not possible. It had nothing to do with Hague, she said. She said there is a law in Germany that basically says that if someone is a citizen of 1 country and living in Germany, they are not allowed to bring a child from a 3rd country into Germany. She made it sound like any adoption from ANY country other than US or Germany would be absolutely forbidden! Which is not what I had heard. I had been told if we adopt from a non-Hague country, there are no problems at all. Anyways, I kept asking if there was any way. She went on to say that if we were to use a German adoption agency, this would be no problem, except that Germany does not have an agreement with the country I wish to adopt from. Then she speculated that maybe we could try to use a German agency and just tell the government in the country we wish to adopt from that we are Americans and maybe they would make an exception. Um, no thanks. Sounds like there isn't a chance of that working! I also mentioned that I really want to work with a US agency so that I could communicate with them in English and so they could help navigate the US paperwork and make sure the child would be a US citizen. She said MAYBE we could use a US agency, but have a German Home Study, then maybe it could work? This seemed much more likely. But, I kept pushing because I didn't want the US agency to have to decode a German home study that may not be good enough anyways. I asked if we could use the person suggested to us from our agency. I explained that he lived here in Germany and was recognized by Germany as a diplomatic social worker. She took my name and phone number as well as his name and she said that she and some colleagues would discuss my case and she would call me next week. Oh, how I hope this is a good sign!!! I really hope they will make an exception in this one instance!!!! *crosses fingers* Now to try to remember to just BREATHE!!! I have a feeling this is going to be a very long week!
-V
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