WKRN, Nashville, Tennessee News, Weather, and Sports |Couple adopts Ethiopian child, worries about future adoptions
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Michelle Madrid-Branch with adopted daughter 11-month-old Eviana from Ethiopia.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – After a long wait, a local couple is now home with their newly adopted Ethiopian child, but they're concerned about the future of foreign adoptions.
Michelle Madrid-Branch and Jeff Branch arrived at Nashville's International Airport late Thursday night with their newly-adopted daughter, 11-month-old Eviana.
Michelle said, "It's been a long journey, at 14 months from beginning to end, to bring Eviana home."
It wasn't the easiest process for the couple to adopt the little girl from an Ethiopian orphanage.
Besides being in a foreign country, there's a lot of red tape.
She said, "International adoption is not necessarily easy. My husband and I like to laugh and say its kind of part of the delivery, the labor pains if you will. It's well worth it."
This isn't the first time the family has adopted. One of Eviana's two brothers is from Russia.
While the Branch family is more than likely complete, recent adoption horror stories nationally and in Tennessee have them concerned about the future of foreign adoptions.
In April, Torry Hansen from Shelbyville flew her adopted son back to Russia alone, saying the boy was violent and had severe "psychopathic" problems.
A Wilson County pediatrician and her husband are accused in the early July death of their four-year-old daughter adopted from China.
Jeff Branch said, "It always seems like it's bad news that takes precedent, right? But the good news is that one baby's out of Ethiopia right now."
He knows of the poverty and challenges on the streets of Ethiopia.
After spending the last few weeks there, going back and forth from Eviana's orphanage, the Branch family is confident that she'll have a better life in America.
They know other American families can also provide good homes to orphans around the world.
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