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Urgency and caution in adopting Haitian orphans: "An ethical, professional, compassionate process"

Alicia Swaringen of Eugene, Oregon, received heart-swelling news the morning after the deadly January 12 earthquake in Haiti: Sthainder, the four-year-old boy she planned to adopt, was safe. And then it hit her.

The adoption paperwork, amassed over three painstaking years, was in Haiti’s Ministry of Interior, now rubble and dust. What, she wondered, would become of the affectionate boy she yearned to bring to Oregon?