China
Guatemala
Russia
Vietnam
Brazil
India
Ethiopia
We decided to
try and start a family a little over three years ago. After six months without
success we went to a fertility specialist. One surgery and several rounds of
hormone therapy later we were beginning to get a little despondent. It was at
that point that we first wrote to a few agencies to get some information on the
possibility of adopting a baby.
We looked at it, but the idea of considering adoption while we continued fertility treatments was like admitting defeat - that we would not be successful in having our own biological child. So we ignored it for about a year. Eventually after many cycles of hormone treatments and their ensuing emotional roller coaster, we decided that enough was enough.
We began thinking of adoption again. From what we read we both quickly decided that we did not like the idea of "open" adoptions which many domestic adoptions are and which allows for continued contact with birthmothers. So it looked like our best option would be an international adoption. When we were looking into it at this early point in our journey, it seemed very abstract and unreal and I am not sure how committed either of us really was. Looking back a lot of this was due to adoption being some kind of "black box". We really didn't have a good idea about what it entailed or how to get started. At about that time we saw an advertisement for an informational meeting to be held by FTIA at a local church. So we reasoned that it couldn't hurt to go and listen. At least it was a place to start. That was March 1998 and that was the day we decided to adopt.
What helped make up our minds? I suspect it was a combination of many things. We met and saw many families with their newly adopted children from China and Russia. No longer was international adoption an abstract, scary process. It now had real parent's faces, real (cute) babies and real stories - that's what awakened our emotions and made us realize that this was what we really wanted to do. We collected up all the information presented at the meeting and poured over it during the weekend. I think it took a couple of days before my wife and I admitted to each other that this was what we both wanted to do. Surprisingly, once we had decided, we felt a tremendous relief and a lot of excitement. We now had a new goal. We decided to try and adopt from Russia, partly because this gave us an option of either a boy or girl, partly so that the child would not have as many racial difficulties to contend with. Mainly, we were swayed to a Russian adoption, because there was an ever so cute Russian baby at the informational meeting! What can we say, it was an emotional thing.
We finally got our dossier together with a lot of help from FTIA at the beginning of August 1998. We received our first referral in September 1998. Unfortunately after an agonizing week, we turned down this referral for a few reasons. In addition our consulting doctor who viewed the video and had some concerns. We just didn't have a good feeling that this was "the child for us". That was one of the hardest decisions in our lives. I know this sounds like we had the very unreal expectation that we would get a guarantee that our child would be healthy. No child biological or adopted comes with a guarantee. But we had decided that given the choice we were not prepared to accept a child that didn't feel right. During this decision we talked to the staff at FTIA, and they were very supportive of our decision - something we were both grateful for as it was hard enough to do. I don't want this part of our journey to sound like we were shopping in a store and comparing one child to another, but we wanted our decision to feel right to us.
In December, we changed to a new Russian coordinator who was being tried by FTIA and immediately we received our second referral - just 2 weeks before Christmas. This time we had vowed to send the video off to be assessed by a doctor before we looked at it. But of course we couldn't wait. After seeing the video the first time we were hooked - we knew this was the baby for us. The following Wednesday the doctor who examined the video called, gave us a very detailed report and expressed concerns that the child was exhibiting symptoms that could be consistent with cerebral palsy. A definitive diagnosis is difficult with this disease and certainly could not be attempted before six months of age. Needless to say we were devastated; it didn't look like this was going to be a joyful Christmas. We sent the video to another doctor for a second opinion. We went to church and prayed for "our baby" - however, by this time we both knew that our hearts were set and that it would be difficult or impossible to refuse this child. The second doctor who had viewed the video called us back at 8:00 pm on Christmas Eve and said that the baby looked great. Maybe Christmas wouldn't be so bad after all. We all decided that it would be best to get a second video when the child was a little older. That video arrived in the middle of January. Both doctors thought everything looked great this time, which was a huge relief, as I do not think that we could have backed out at that point. We accepted our referral for Katya on January 25, 1999. This was an exciting day, but there was much more to come - it was just the beginning of a new phase of our adventure.
At this point we expected to have 4-6 weeks to get ready to go to Russia. We already had our nursery ready with the basics but had held off getting most of the stuff we needed because we didn't want to jinx our quest for a family. We continued in this denial phase until Monday, February 15, when we received a phone call telling us that we had a court date for next week and requesting that we arrive in Moscow by Sunday, February 21, 1999. That was rather a frantic week for us, we arranged flights, visas, bought baby supplies and packed. The tickets and visas arrived Thursday afternoon, and we left for Moscow on Friday evening. We were both very excited, apprehensive and scared, but mostly excited. We did not know what our visit would be like, but we resolved to put our trust in our agency and our Russian coordinators and let them guide us in our adventure.
I don't think either of us remember much of the flight to Moscow as we were both deep in thought about our impending parenthood. We were met at the airport and taken to our hotel in downtown Moscow by a friendly driver from the Russian coordinator. The coordinator had also arranged our flights to Perm for Monday morning, so we had Sunday free to look around Moscow. It was a beautiful crisp winter day, so we visited the Kremlin and Red Square. To our surprise, Moscow shopping centers look very much like American malls - same stores, teenagers roaming around, food courts etc. In fact, Moscow was very different from our expectations. People were friendly and helpful. It was really a good experience.
Early Monday morning we flew to Perm. Our trip on Aeroflot was interesting, but not in the least terrifying. Try reading the airline ticket to find your seat - if you can read Cyrillic! A wonderful translator, named Oksana and our driver met us at the airport. They took us to our hotel, got us settled, and explained the plans for the next few days. The hotel was quite nice. We had a suite with a sitting room, TV with CNBC in English, boiling kettle, refrigerator, sofa and cabinets with dishes and silverware and a nice bedroom and bath. Not bad for $25.00/night. We learned that we were going to the orphanage the following day (Tuesday) and would be bringing our new daughter, Katya back with us. The reason we would be bringing her with us instead of visiting a few times was because it was a 4-hour drive out to the orphanage, which was located about 200 miles north of Perm. YIKES!!! We needed more baby food so we were taken shopping to get some more.
We left early in the morning to travel to Solikamsk to see our new daughter for the very first time and bring her home with us. It was a very emotional trip. All kinds of silly things were going through our heads: Would we make so many mistakes that she wouldn't like us? How would we take care of her? Would she understand us? How could we communicate that we love her and want her? Finally we arrived at the orphanage and although the exterior didn't look great, the inside was clean, warm, and cheery. We were escorted into a large playroom where we met the orphanage director and the minister of education. We were given information about our baby's health, care, and feeding and encouraged to ask any questions about her we wanted. We were very nervous and in a few minutes Katya was brought into the room. We need not have worried as she greeted us with a big smile that went straight to our hearts. We played with her for a while and took lots of pictures. We had tea and shared some chocolates that we had brought. Then we toured the orphanage and the town of Solikamsk while Katya took her 1:00 pm nap (they run a tight ship). We returned to the orphanage and put some new clothes on Katya (or tried to - we got some help from the director) and surprise, surprise - they fit!!! We left some gifts for the orphanage staff and children and said our good-byes. Some of the staff came to say a teary, but happy good-bye to Katya and then we piled in the car and headed back to Perm. We were dropped off at the hotel and left on our own for the night. Time to start being parents and change our first "stinky" diaper.
On Wednesday we did a little sight seeing and souvenir shopping. We visited a beautiful ice-sculpture show in the local park and saw what we could of Perm which was buried in about four feet of snow.
On Thursday, February 25th, we went to our court hearing. Court was a very nerve-racking affair, but we made it through with the help of our wonderful court translator and managed to get the 10-day waiting period waived. On that same day we got our court decision, the adoption decree, new birth certificate, a passport for Katya and our plane tickets for the flight back to Moscow on Friday morning - pretty impressive (I'm sure this could not be done so quickly in the U.S.).
On arriving in Moscow on Friday morning we went straight to the medical clinic to get Katya's medical examination. Then we went to the US embassy to get Katya's visa. We were surprised to find many American families waiting in the waiting room, but I guess we were not the only ones adopting. After being there for about an hour, we had completed our paperwork. The coordinators we used had appointments at both the medical exam and embassy, so we just breezed through this all. Later that day, our translator picked up the completed visa and delivered it to us at our hotel.
Saturday we had free for a little resting, which we needed after the roller coaster we had been on. We arranged to go and do some sightseeing with our Russian coordinator and bought many souvenirs and gifts.
Early Sunday morning we were driven to the international airport in Moscow where we had no problems going through immigration. The trip home went very well, Lufthansa were very accommodating, and Katya slept for 6 hours in a bassinet. We arrived home very tired but very, very happy and proud parents.
Katya has turned out to be a very happy, healthy little girl with a very easygoing temperament. When we look at her now it is hard to imagine all those doubts we had before about whether we would be able to love an adopted child as much as you would your own, one look at her and you think - how could we not?
What would we advise prospective adopters? This is an amazing adventure. View it as such and it is likely that you will have a wonderful time, even when you hit the requisite bumps in the road. You will meet and make many new friends along the way. You will doubt your decisions. Occasional doubts are a natural reaction to this situation - they happen to us all. We think they mean you are giving the right amount of consideration to a very important decision. Talk to people who have adopted, this will help you get a real picture, rather than generate one through your imagination. However, remember that all of us have had very different and unique experiences. It will be a test of your ability to go with the flow. You can't change Russia, you won't get any guarantees about your child, so you may as well sit back, relax and let God and your agency and coordinators do their job. Realize that the videos can be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because you have a few minutes of reality, your child has a face, personality, maybe even a smile. A curse, because you will study every nuance and look for things to be wrong. Having been in the presence of a child at our orphanage who was having a video taken, I now know that its possible that a child who was happy and animated will be terror-stricken at the appearance of people with a camera urging him/her to smile and move about. The video doctors are great assets in trying to evaluate the developmental and medical profile of your referral, but they will only give their opinion. They have very little information to go on. In the end the decision is yours alone. It should be.
Practical recommendations include the following. Pack lightly, bring as few suitcases as possible (Russian cars tend to be small and you will also be bringing a child back). Bring something appropriate to wear for court (a nice dress for women, tie for men). Bring copies of your papers, make copies of your tickets and visas. If you are attempting to get the 10 day waiting period waived, try to bring some documentation (e.g. notarized letter from a doctor) rather than rely on the judge's good will. Don't worry about carrying so much cash, no one bothered us, use your common travel sense and be cautious. Also many hotels have safe deposit boxes.
Most of all remember you are a guest in another country. It is not the U.S.A., but that's the exciting part of your journey. We had a wonderful time, it wasn't entirely smooth, but we relied on FTIA and our Russian coordinators to assist us and cooperated as much as we could. Needless to say, our trip went by much too quickly (eight days), and we experienced only a tiny fragment of Russian life today. However, we made several friends and look forward to returning to Russia for a visit when Katya is older. We think of this adventure every day and thank God that we were fortunate enough to be given the chance to do the best thing we have ever done in our lives. This is a completely selfish thing we have done. People say Katya is the lucky one. But they are wrong we are the luckiest people in the world. It just takes a little courage to get started, and a vision of having a beautiful, happy family to keep you going.
Paul & Pat - Indiana
317-278-1785
