Millville woman's agonizing wait for adoption ends with happy homecoming
On the threshold to the dining room, standing out against the country home decor, is a Christmas tree with recently opened presents underneath.
Tommi Lynn Sawyer's goal when she boarded a flight back to the United States in October without her legally adopted daughter was to get Anabelle home before Christmas.
She couldn't, and for five months the decorations stayed up.
After all that time, it was a simple
e-mail upholding visa approvals by the State Department, sent by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, that brought Sawyer's child home Wednesday.
Anabelle Sawyer celebrated the holidays she missed, nearly nine months after she was first abandoned at a Vietnamese orphanage.
Anabelle was preoccupied by the silver bracelet on her wrist as her mother discussed the heartaches and headaches of fighting a battle against the U.S. government with children's lives at stake. Anabelle pulled the bracelet off her wrist, held it up and laughed.
The adoption process seemed almost like a battle of wills, Sawyer said, as though government bodies were waiting her out, waiting for her to crack.
"But she's my daughter," Sawyer said. "And I wasn't giving up."
In all, 12 families were issued visa approvals after five months of fighting the original Notice of Intent to Deny, or NOIDs, issued in Vietnam. One family is still awaiting approval, but Sawyer doesn't think it will be long before they receive one, too.
"We all felt like we jumped over every single hurdle. We would do whatever they wanted to bring our children home," she said. "If it meant going to court, I'd go to court. If it meant going further, I'd go further."
But in the end, the actual visa approval process, as Sawyer describes it, seemingly was as easy as waiting in line for a new driver's license at the Motor Vehicle Commission.
On Monday at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, Sawyer stepped up to the window, paid $400, signed two documents and was given a stamp, indicating that Anabelle's visa was official.
There were no protests, no investigations, no hearings, no epic showdown or final confrontation. In the end, it was only a stamp she needed to bring her daughter home.
Sawyer's attorney, Washington, D.C.-based, Lynda Zengerle fought for 12 families in 2001-02 who faced similar difficulties. In a matter of months, she said, they brought their children home. This time the process took longer, but the results were the same. Ultimately, she said, it's a question of doing what's right.
"I think these families were put through a lot for not a lot of good reasons," she said. "I'm still puzzled as to why this had to happen. I still haven't gotten any good explanations."
The issue began in October.
After being declared the legal adoptive mother of Anabelle, Sawyer was issued a NOID, which claimed that there were inconsistencies in the reports of some of the Vietnamese officials responsible for putting the child up for adoption.
She was then forced to leave her baby behind when she returned to the United States.
In November, changes in policy were introduced that require investigations into adoptions to be carried out before prospective parents arrive in Vietnam. This spares people the emotions of having to leave a child to whom they have become attached, Saucier said.
"The change now allows us to determine whether the child identified in the adoption petition does qualify as an orphan," he said. "That was the issue all along."
Zengerle contends that the blanket issuance of NOIDs was the result of a fight between the U.S. and Vietnamese governments over adoption procedures. In this case, she said, the children were merely caught in the middle.
But Sawyer, and the rest of the parents, did not succumb to the pressure.
"Vietnam is a cautionary tale," she said. "The parents, effectively, were told they should give up. In the end it might have been a test of wills."
The legal battle has cost Sawyer, a single 25-year-old, nearly every cent she has worked to accumulate. But even with about $30,000 in legal fees to contend with, she said it's the best investment she has ever made.
Along the way, she has made some allies. There's U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer from California, who actively campaigned on behalf of Sawyer and the other families, and there were other politicians who lent their support to the cause.
She's willing to join with others fighting the same cause now, too.
A Web site, www.bringourchildrenhome.org, was designed to help shed some light on the issues adoptive parents of Vietnamese children currently face. And she's actively involved in the cause, she said.
Sawyer said she watched over a Web cam as her baby first started to crawl and eat cereal - precious moments she said she unfairly lost.
Her goal is to help inform others who find themselves in the same situation.
"I never knew I could love and miss someone so much," she said.
To e-mail Edward Van Embden at The Press: