Russia

GUESTBLOG: The Search for a Birthmother in Russia: Part 4

Submitted by GuestBlogger on Tue, 07/13/2010 - 07:00

Stacey is the adoptive parent of a Russian born child. She successfully completed a birthmother search and has been kind enough to share this information with us at Adoption Under One Roof.

Part 4 - The search for information continues.

One last search came in the way of my daughter's bio maternal aunt. The aunt sent pictures of the maternal grandmother and uncle, who have both since passed away at relatively young ages. The aunt did not want to chat much with the searcher, but sent her regards. Maybe we will meet her when we travel to Russia. My next challenge is to tell my girls in Russia about my daughter's other Mom, my partner. This will not be easy. I wrote this story from my perspective, but my partner has been here from the beginning of the adoption. Our daughter only knows what it is like to have two moms.

GUESTBLOG: The Search for a Birthmother in Russia: Part 3

Submitted by GuestBlogger on Mon, 07/12/2010 - 07:51

Stacey is the adoptive parent of a Russian born child. She successfully completed a birthmother search and has been kind enough to share this information with us at Adoption Under One Roof.

Part 3: What will the older sister tell us?

The searcher videotaped the older sister and provided a report. During the interview the searcher asked my daughter's sister many questions. It was amazing to finally see this information on paper and eventually get to see the video interview. She is an amazing young woman especially after spending the first 19 years of her life in an orphanage. The mystery was starting to unravel. She had tears in her eyes as she had no idea my daughter existed. She was also overjoyed to know she had another sister. I could not help but be joyful, yet my heart sank when I found that the older sister had spent the first part of her life in an institution.

GUESTBLOG: The Search for a Birthmother in Russia: Part 2

Submitted by GuestBlogger on Fri, 07/09/2010 - 08:41

Stacey is the adoptive parent of a Russian born child. She successfully completed a birthmother search and has been kind enough to share this information with us at Adoption Under One Roof.

Part 2: Where do I go to conduct a search?

I reached out to the Russian Sibling Search Group in 2008. It took six months for information to be gathered for our search group and to send the searcher into Siberia. I was a little nervous, as I did not know if the birth-mother was going to answer our letter. I had some nagging questions. Is she married? Does she have a new family? Will she acknowledge my daughter? As these questions persisted, I found myself feeling a lot of love for her and I just could not muster up any judgments of her. After all, she is the woman that gave life to the most precious gift I could have ever received.

GUESTBLOG: The Search for a Birthmother in Russia: Part 1

Submitted by GuestBlogger on Thu, 07/08/2010 - 08:26

Stacey is the adoptive parent of a Russian born child. She successfully completed a birthmother search and has been kind enough to share this information with us at Adoption Under One Roof.

Preface - I have used vague terms and not revealed the folks in Russia that assisted with information. This is a delicate matter and should not be taken lightly for those that wish to search and those that are willing to provide information. Many have criticized Russian adoption for many things, but for me, the Russians that were involved have the best interest of the children at heart. I have received nothing but warmth during the adoption process and my search.

Part 1: To Search or not to Search?

From the moment I found out about my daughter and then met her in Russia I wondered about her history. When I met my daughter she was 8 months old. She ws frail, pale and weak from respiratory illnesses, and judging from her personality was in this condition due to a lack of affection. She weighed 9 pounds at 8 months old. She looked like a little doll and I had no idea she was so under-weight as I was blinded by love. At the conclusion of our first visit, I whispered in her ear, "I love you and I will be back to take you home."

Russia & US Adoption Agreement Hopeful by Mid-June

Submitted by FaithA on Mon, 05/17/2010 - 06:24

Swing set (c) Lynda Bernhardt

Last week, the Associated Press reported that Russia and the United States are moving closer toward working out an agreement so that adoptions can resume. According to an Associated Press article, the hope is that an agreement will be reached by mid-June. It’s a shame that waiting children and families will have wait to another month, but the news could have been another year … or forever.

Russia halted adoptions to the United States last month after an adoptive grandmother put a seven-year-old adoptee named Artyom Savelyev back on a plane to Russia alone, leaving roughly 3,000 hopeful adoptive families in limbo until the two countries can agree upon certain terms. According to this article, Russian officials want more control over the living conditions of Russian adoptees after they move to the United States.

Real Life With an Adopted Russian 8-year-old With FAS

Submitted by JuliaFuller on Sun, 04/25/2010 - 22:42

Many are passing judgment on the family who recently sent their 7-year son with FAS back to Russia after 7-months of parenting him. The papers have indicated that the child’s problems were just too much for the family to bear. Not surprisingly, the media attention has brought several Russian adoption horror stories to the surface. Apparently, alcohol consumption during pregnancy in Russia is a huge problem. According to the press, many children in orphanages are presented to adoption agencies and families as being healthy and on target, but are not. In fact, according to the article cited, most children presented for adoption have FAS. One family in particular, the Harshaws, were interviewed recently by the Virginian Pilot, the local newspaper of Virginia Beach about their 8-year-old Russian born son with severe FAS.

Russia Should do More Than Suspend Adoptions

Submitted by LisaS on Thu, 04/15/2010 - 10:51

Russia has suspended all pending adoptions in response to one American adoptive parent’s decision to send her adopted child back to Russia claiming that he was severely psychologically damaged. This response from Russia was expected and frankly I think it is the right decision at this point. Russia is outraged that no charges have been filed against the mother for “disadopting” her child in this manner. To date, we’ve heard nothing from the mother, who obviously did her homework when it came to finding a way to send her adopted son back to Russia and have someone pick him up when he arrived. The fact that she has not been charged points to a strong possibility that she spoke to a lawyer and found some loop hole that would allow her to “disadopt” her son  without facing any repercussions from the law (to date.)

I agree with Russia’s outrage at this horrendously irresponsible behavior on the part of this adoptive mother but I also think it is high time that Russia addressed two serious issues in their country that are related to this incident:

1.The high number of children born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)in Russia. FAS causes stunted growth, facial deformity, neurological deficits including low IQ, learning disabilities and vision and hearing problems and serious behavioral problems. There are even more children with neurological and behavioral problems that fall under the fetal alcohol syndrome spectrum that do not have the physical features. 

Russia Has Suspended Adoptions by Americans

Submitted by FaithA on Thu, 04/15/2010 - 10:45

Swing set (c) Lynda BernhardtI am deviating from my usual Trauma Thursday format to cover breaking news … Russia has suspended adoptions by Americans pending reaching an agreement on adoption procedures. You can read the fully story here.

The suspension was prompted by adoptive mother Torry Hansen’s decision to return her seven-year-old adopted child Artyom Savelyev to Russia. You can read my blog entry here for the details. In short, this is one big, fat mess for any American who is currently in the process of adopting a child from Russia.

According to the Associated Press article, Russian authorities were “incensed” that the seven-year-old boy was flown back to Russia unsupervised by his adoptive family with nothing but a note explaining why he was being returned to his country of birth. The article goes on to state that the Russian authorities are “outraged” that the United States has not filed charges against Ms. Hansen or her grandmother. Under current laws, the Russian government has no way to prosecute either woman.

Adoptive Grandmother Sent Adopted Child Back to Russia Alone

Submitted by FaithA on Mon, 04/12/2010 - 07:31

Thorny plant (c) Lynda BernhardtIf you have been following the news over the weekend, you have probably heard that a U.S. grandmother sent a seven-year-old adopted child back to Russia alone, which has resulted in the possibility of Russia putting a halt to adoptions with the United States. You can read the full story here.

According to the article, the boy, Artyom Savelyev, was adopted in September by a woman named Torry Hansen, who lives in Tennessee. His adoptive grandmother put him on an airplane with a one-way ticket to Russia with a note saying that “he was violent and had severe psychological problems.” The adoptive family claims that they feared for their safety. Understandably, the Russian government is less than pleased with how this disrupted adoption was handled, and now hundreds of pending adoptions could be put on hold or stopped.

What Were They Thinking?

Submitted by LisaS on Sun, 04/11/2010 - 22:26

The Hansen mother and daughter team will go down in adoption history. If you haven’t heard yet, mother and daughter put a recently adopted child on a plane and sent him back to Russia. He had joined the family in September of 2009 at the age of seven after spending  years in an orphanage. The Hansen women reported that he was violent, dangerous and had problems they could not handle.

Those of us who are involved with adoption are not surprised that this child has problems. Having spent most of his life in an orphanage and then coming to a new country, new language and culture, and new family is bound to be a challenge for anyone, especially a young child. It is how this situation was handled by the mother and grandmother that has us wondering. Did they contact their adoption agency, WACAP, and tell them what was happening? Did they ask anyone for help?