Guatadopt - The New Country Music Sensation

A few years ago, we helped an AP that was caught in the fallout of one of the major adoption scandals. Little did we know for some time, Tammy Cochran was a country music star. If you do some research on her, you'll see this is someone with a huge heart.

Tammy's new album, 30 Something and Single, comes out Tuesday, and we humbly thank her for the thanks she has given us on the CD credits and in this interview: http://www.gactv.com/gac/nw_headlines/article/0,3034,GAC_26063_5943840_,00.html.

For those of you who are newcomers to Guatadopt, hearing about us from Tammy's connection, welcome. If you want to learn about all things associated with Guatemalan adoptions, you've come to the right place. Before going any farther, it is not possible for US citizens to adopt from Guatemala right now. So put that out of your head.

Some time spent on this site and its forums will give you a glimpse into the joys, challenges, experiences, and issues that surround(ed) intercountry adoptions from Guatemala. You will find that adoptive families come from all walks of life and philosophies. You'll find heated debate on any of a number of topics. But within it all is a unified concern for the children througout this world, particularly Guatemala, who deserve permanency in a loving family environment.

Guatemalan adoptions were ideal in many ways. Children received excellent care through private foster homes. My children's "cuidadoras" are now their aunt and third grandmother. They were the true stars of the system. It was also relatively quick. Without getting into the huge stress that is the adoption experience, all other things held constant, it is in a child's best interest to join a family as young as possible. And of course, many of us have some knowledge of the language and culture of Guatemala. It is a wonderful country to visit, full of rich history, and not too far away. Keeping Guatemala a part of our children's lives is not a stretch. For these and other reasons, many families chose to adopt from Guatemala.

I like to repeat what someone once said to me, "At its best, there is no system as good as Guatemala's. At its worst, there are none worse". Unforutnately, money breeds corruption and law enforcement from both countries left much to be desired. Innocent people like Tammy and Shawn were caught in the middle of it. As a result, laws were passed that ended adoptions from Guatemala. There are hopes it will re-open in the future. They are still near 1,000 families attempting to complete adoptions started before the law went into effect in January 2008.

This site was a place where they could turn in confidence. We are not adoption professionals. We didn't process any adoptions. We were just a place where people could go to run their situation by someone with experience. And through that came many strange things. None the least of which, being thanked on a CD.

That's our story...