Our Russian Adoption Fiasco

With a little personal networking and the help of a skilled social worker, we joyfully brought our first child home from a neighboring state. Perhaps naively, we wondered at those who bemoaned the potential pitfalls of the adoption system in America.

However, once our first child learned to walk, and we began pursuing a second adoption, our real education began.

After placing "Dear Birthmother" classified ads, posting flyers and spreading the word to anyone who would listen (and many who would not), we began considering foreign adoption. Our local adoption counselor hooked us up with an adoption agency in the American South. This outfit was apparently placing many Russian toddlers with U.S. families.

As current laws still state, Russian children must remain on their own country's adoption registry for at least six months before they become eligible for foreign placement. Prospective American parents may seek to adopt Russian toddlers or young children, but not infants.

Telephoning the international adoption agency, I spoke with the director for more than an hour. She emailed me a photo of an adorable ginger-haired two-year old named Natalia, labeled as awaiting an adoptive family. This wide-eyed waif, standing in front of a row of cribs, captured my mother heart.

I overnighted a certified check to start the application process.

Eagerly, I began assembling our parental portfolio. I paid the fees and filed the forms for original copies of our birth certificates, marriage license, passports and other required items. I made an appointment with the local police department for fingerprinting.

I filled out the paperwork and enlisted a notary public to endorse everything. I ordered apostilles as well, making all our documentations internationally legitimate.

Then we waited.

We understood from the adoption agency, as well as other adoptive parents, that the Russian adoption process could take months.

Every other week, I telephoned the Russian adoption agency director, just to check in. She assured me that Mr. Gennady, her agent in Russia, was pushing our files through the court system as fast as possible.

Twice during the next year, the agency asked us for additional funding, claiming the Russian family court fees were coming due for our case.

Nyet!

Then the bottom fell out of our Russian adoption.

After 16 months of an apparent cat-and-mouse game, the Russian adoption agency director called to tell us that our official document file had been lost in the Russian court system. She said little Natalia (now nearly four) would be adopted by a family from Texas. The Russian adoption professional apologized all over herself, but she said our payments could not be refunded.

In shock, I sat and held the telephone for several minutes, after she disconnected.

But the proverbial plot thickened.

Not two months later, a major television news magazine aired an expose on Russian adoption scams. We saw our Russian adoption agency director on-screen, scrambling for words. We learned that her entire organization was under investigation for defrauding hundreds of prospective adoptive parents.

We watched, as the broadcast showed several other couples, looking at Natalia's photo. We saw Mr. Gennady in handcuffs in California. We were stunned, but perhaps not surprised.

Within a few weeks, our local adoption counselor called with hopeful news. At least half of our Russian adoption deposits would be credited towards another adoption attempt. Our lost documents, however, were irretrievable, along with the time and money it took to procure and certify them.

That was 1994.

Since then, laws have been revised. Standards have been tightened. International adoption agreements have been clarified. In the past five years, American families have adopted more than 14,000 Russian children. That makes Russia the third largest source of American international adoptions, with China and Ethiopia currently leading.

But it still pays to be prudent when choosing an adoption agency for Russia or anywhere in the world. Foreign adoption scams still happen, involving agencies promoting adoption from Russia, Samoa and countless other countries.

Our story had a happy ending. Eventually, we were able to adopt an infant, right in the American Midwest.

Still, I have often wondered about all those other families, who had eagerly anticipated adopting from Russia. Are they still waiting for Natalia? By now, she is almost 20, if she even exists. She may have children of her own.