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I never heard anything impressive on his site at all....read more...

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I work at the HSUS, and I’ve also worked at several animal shelters. Shelters do great work – ad...read more...

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Mr. Whittemore’s wild ride-When the Whittemore family of Stanford decided to adopt Riche, a Haitian girl put up for adoption by her impoverished mother, it was a family decision. When Eddie and Nicole Whittemore traveled with their two sons to the Port-au-Prince orphanage where Riche lived last November, they didn’t know the process would end in a wild bus ride, brandished weapons and meeting actor Sean Penn.

Whittemore traveled to Haiti shortly after the devastating earthquake last month when Haitian authorities agreed to expedite foreign adoptions. Riche was part of a group of 51 orphans whose adoptions the Haitian government had approved, but for some reason, the group was not allowed to leave the country on a commercial airline.

Day after day, Whittemore and several other adults spent eight hours a day at the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince as the State Department worked with the military to get the orphans out on a military flight. “We’d spend eight hours waiting for news on a two hour flight,” Whittemore said.

Finally, at the end of a long day, embassy workers said they were to depart that night.

“They led us through the hallways and rooms to the back of the embassy where we were met by four armed Secret Service agents,” Whittemore said; one agent for each of the buses that would take them to the airport.

What they weren’t told at the time was the Haitian government had grown tired of the long delays in the process and had sent a group of National Police officers to take the orphans back. After being hustled on to the buses and a wild ride through the streets of the Haitian capitol, the group was driven on to the tarmac of the Port-au-Prince airport and immediately surrounded by “a platoon of Marines armed to the teeth,” Whittemore said.

A 747 jet landed shortly thereafter and taxied straight to the waiting group. Whittemore said, that as a military refueler topped off the jet, the Marines pushed portable steps up to the plane and the door was pushed open by Sean Penn. One of the Marines yelled at Penn to “get inside” and the group boarded the plane for the two hour flight to Miami.

Whittemore said that the Hollywood star and his family spent time with each of the families on the way back to the U.S., and at one point, when someone thanked him, Penn said, “You’re the one that saved their lives.”

Though Riche is now safely ensconced in the Whittemore’s Stanford home, there was still some trouble when the group got to Miami. The children were separated from their adoptive parent and quarantined, and Whittemore said he was asked at least five times if he was adopting her for immoral purposes. It was probably Whittemore’s easy going demeanor that allowed him to keep his cool, especially having gone without sleep for 45 hours, but he pressed through with the paper and was soon on his way home with Riche to help her start a new life.

‘Too poor, too white, too Kentucky’ to adopt-Compared to Eddie Whittemore’s adventures in Haiti, Curtis and Meredith Hannah’s adoption of Hensley, an Ethiopian boy who turned one last Sunday, was smooth sailing. That is, if you consider looking out your hotel window and thinking, “Hey, I’m on PBS,” smooth. That was Curtis Hannah’s impression his first morning in the Horn of Africa.

“The airport looked like any other airport, the taxi was a taxi, and the hotel was a hotel,” Hannah said, but when they awoke their first morning in Ethiopia and pushed open their curtains, the sight of slums stretched out in all directions drove the reality of where they were home.

The Hannah’s journey toward adoption wasn’t always smooth. Meredith Hannah said that starting in 2008 they had originally tried to adopt an African-American baby in the United States and were told they were, “Too white, too poor, and too Kentucky to adopt a black baby.”

Meredith who works for an adoption assistance agency in Danville was all too aware of the challenges of adopting domestically, so the couple turned their attention to overseas adoption. Hannah said that international and domestic adoption needs are exactly opposite. In the U.S. there are families waiting in line for babies, and overseas there are children waiting in line for parents.

The Hannahs began the legal proceedings in Ethiopia to adopt Hensley in August of 2009 and had him home by Jan. 1.

While the situation in Haiti was pure chaos, with most facilities lying in ruins, the Hannahs encountered an orderly and professional adoption process in Ethiopia. At the orphanage where Hensley lived, there were four children living to a room, and each room had its own full time nanny.

Curtis Hannah said, “The orphanage was fabulous. The rooms were clean, and the ‘mommies’ were phenomenal. The facility, run by Celebrate Children International, provided the Hannahs with a car and driver who took them wherever they needed to go, including the three hour trip to meet Hensley’s birth mother. They also provided a translator for the visit so the couple could chat with Hensley’s biological mother.

Saturday, the Hannahs hosted a birthday party for Hensley at the Dix River Country Club to celebrate his first birthday, and as their son dug into a cupcake, the Hannahs discussed future plans which include returning to Ethiopia to make good use of their adoption dossier that hasn’t expired. Meredith Hannah and her mother will be going to Ethiopia in April and hope to be bringing home another child; this time, a five-month old girl.

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