The Bjorks, version 2.0, with Matthew at Lake Harriett in MinneapolisGod reaches into our hearts again
Again, it took a little nudge from God. We were at a Steven Curtis Chapman concert in Baltimore one evening. Steven ripped thru several of his Christian hits, then he talked about the charity he set up to help families interested in international adoption, which he named after one of the three (at last count) Chinese girls he and his wife adopted-- "Shenandoah," or "RosannaDanna" or something like that. He crooned away, as a video clip of his girls played on a huge screen overhead. God spoke to each of us at the same time...
"JAMES. JAMES! JAMES!!!!!!! I sent Jonah to preach to the Ninevites, and all I'm asking you to do is fill out a bunch of forms and take a few long plane trips. Get over yourself and get with it!"
Point well taken. After the concert, Lori and I knew we had to do it again, and we set out right away.
This time around, using the American agency we used when adopting Matthew was not an option. Not only did we feel burned by their visa paperwork error and over $1k in expenses, but they only had Russian operatives/connections in Perm and Yekaterinburg (even worse). There was no way we were going to endure another 10-day waiting period-- especially when we had to leave behind Matthew with his grandparents. If the Perm judges wouldn't waive the waiting period over Matthew's possible Hepatitis history, they wouldn't waive it for anything.
Fortunately, a co-worker at NIH put me in touch with the American agency she used to place her boy about the same time Lori and I obtained custody of Matthew. When I compared notes with her shortly after we brought our respective boys home, it was apparent that her custody trip was a smooth dream compared to ours, most notably because the judges in her region waived the 10-day waiting period.
"JAMES. JAMES! JAMES!!!!!!! I sent Jonah to preach to the Ninevites, and all I'm asking you to do is fill out a bunch of forms and take a few long plane trips. Get over yourself and get with it!"
Point well taken. After the concert, Lori and I knew we had to do it again, and we set out right away.
This time around, using the American agency we used when adopting Matthew was not an option. Not only did we feel burned by their visa paperwork error and over $1k in expenses, but they only had Russian operatives/connections in Perm and Yekaterinburg (even worse). There was no way we were going to endure another 10-day waiting period-- especially when we had to leave behind Matthew with his grandparents. If the Perm judges wouldn't waive the waiting period over Matthew's possible Hepatitis history, they wouldn't waive it for anything.
Fortunately, a co-worker at NIH put me in touch with the American agency she used to place her boy about the same time Lori and I obtained custody of Matthew. When I compared notes with her shortly after we brought our respective boys home, it was apparent that her custody trip was a smooth dream compared to ours, most notably because the judges in her region waived the 10-day waiting period.
It took 23 days in Russia to get this kid (left). No way were we going to leave either leave him behind with our folks for another 19-23 days (taking him with us back to Russia while we adopted kid two was a non-starter).The agency to which she referred us is run by a native Ukranian woman who got her MSW in the states. She is very diligent and concerned about the needs of adoptive parents. Her big upside was that she speaks fluent Russian and frequently converses with pediatricians in the Russian orphanages directly in order to get a good health picture before sending prospective parents overseas. It was really pretty quick to get things rolling initially, since we knew what to do from the first time, such as get pre-approval from BCIS (formerly INS) to naturalize a foreign orphan as first-degree relative, etc. We also got in touch with our Maryland home study agency again.
The paperwork slog
People have asked us: "So, since you've adopted before, they must have made it easier for you this time, huh?"
HAHAHAHA!! Right. If only. The only advantage we've had is the benefit of experience, and the fact that our Maryland agency knocked a couple hundred bucks of our home study since they didn't have to re-type our life histories again. Meanwhile, unbenkownst to us, things turned darker from the Russian point of view since our adventure getting Matthew....
Seems we Americans have a penchant for killing children adopted from Russia, at least compared to adoptive parents from Germany, Spain, and the host of other nations who adopt out of Russia. c.f. http://adoption.about.com/od/adoptionrights/p/russiancases.htm
Most recently, it was one Peggy Hilt from Wake Forest NC who committed murder and made the lives of prospective adoptive parents more difficult due to the July 2005 beating death of her 2-year old daughter Nina, who was adopted from a Siberian baby home. This caused a shutdown of all adoptions from Russia by Americans, re-evaluation and re-accredation of American adoption agencies, and brought into play even more rigorous vetting of would-be parents. Also, Russian orphans now had to be available to locals on a local registry for two months, followed by a national registry for SIX months-- meaning that the youngest tot a foreigner could see would be over 8 months old-- IF it was signed over to the state by the birthmother the day the tot was born. We met Matthew when he was 7 months old. Meeting an infant so young could no longer happen. Also, judges could now only waive the 10-day waiting period if they had documentation describing a compelling medical need to place a child immediately.
This time around, we had to put together a massive portfolio of documents, including for the first time a psychological/psychiatric evaluation. Thankfully, I work for a board-certified psychiatrist, who was able to produce a copy of his medical license, board certification, and letters to attest to my mental soundness, and that of my wife. Others get to pay hundreds to an actual practitioner to do some kind of interview-- as if that is really going to detect or stop an abuser. A determined person is going to shop around for practitioners and will say all the right things during a diagnostic interview anyway, but who really expects logic from governments?
The home study was done fairly quickly, and we brought Janet our social worker back to check on things.
What was the killer was all the additional paperwork. This time around, we not only needed notarized and apostilled letters from our doctor and Matthew's pediatrician, we now needed copies of their Medical Licenses. Now, it was not enough to get a certified, notarized home study recommendation, we also needed a notarized letter from the State of Maryland certifying that our home study social work agency was legit!! It never ended. Considering that our American agency insists couples compile a complete backup set of notarized and apostilled documents to travel with, the costs of document authentication alone for this second adoption was well over $1k.
During the middle of it all, I thanked God that I did not have a full appreciation for all the additional paperwork this time around until I was already well into this process or I would have said "to hell with it" and kept our family at three, and volunteered to be some American kid's "big brother" or something. No joke. I really hate the Russian government for their rigid and foolish regulations and brazen graft, perhaps more than I love the thousands of their children who need homes.
The Waiting Game Part II
We finally got the massive portfolio done by April or so. Again, we felt that we were open to either gender, and stated so on our application to the Russians. We ffigured that since boys are the most unwanted in Russia, that we would be offered a boy again. The only thing we made clear to our American agency was that we would only accept referrals from regions where judges have a history of waiving the 10-day waiting period.
It was in late July that we finally got "the call." Our facilitator told us that one of her contacts, "Andrei," had an infant boy lined up in the Oblast (district) of Orenburg, SE of Moscow not far north of Kazakhstan. Orenburg does not allow communication about details of children to foreigners, so if we wanted to check out this boy, we would have to fly over "blind"-- effectively nullifiying much of the advantage of using our Russian-speaking American agency. However, our American agent assured us that she had a good feeling about this referral because Andrei had never hooked American parents up with an unhealthy child. Since we did not want to go back to Russia when it was cold, we decided to take the plunge and fly over to Orenburg Russia to see this mystery boy. We know only that he was ethnic Russian (not Kazakh) and did not even know his name.
The paperwork slog
People have asked us: "So, since you've adopted before, they must have made it easier for you this time, huh?"
HAHAHAHA!! Right. If only. The only advantage we've had is the benefit of experience, and the fact that our Maryland agency knocked a couple hundred bucks of our home study since they didn't have to re-type our life histories again. Meanwhile, unbenkownst to us, things turned darker from the Russian point of view since our adventure getting Matthew....
Seems we Americans have a penchant for killing children adopted from Russia, at least compared to adoptive parents from Germany, Spain, and the host of other nations who adopt out of Russia. c.f. http://adoption.about.com/od/adoptionrights/p/russiancases.htm
Most recently, it was one Peggy Hilt from Wake Forest NC who committed murder and made the lives of prospective adoptive parents more difficult due to the July 2005 beating death of her 2-year old daughter Nina, who was adopted from a Siberian baby home. This caused a shutdown of all adoptions from Russia by Americans, re-evaluation and re-accredation of American adoption agencies, and brought into play even more rigorous vetting of would-be parents. Also, Russian orphans now had to be available to locals on a local registry for two months, followed by a national registry for SIX months-- meaning that the youngest tot a foreigner could see would be over 8 months old-- IF it was signed over to the state by the birthmother the day the tot was born. We met Matthew when he was 7 months old. Meeting an infant so young could no longer happen. Also, judges could now only waive the 10-day waiting period if they had documentation describing a compelling medical need to place a child immediately.
This time around, we had to put together a massive portfolio of documents, including for the first time a psychological/psychiatric evaluation. Thankfully, I work for a board-certified psychiatrist, who was able to produce a copy of his medical license, board certification, and letters to attest to my mental soundness, and that of my wife. Others get to pay hundreds to an actual practitioner to do some kind of interview-- as if that is really going to detect or stop an abuser. A determined person is going to shop around for practitioners and will say all the right things during a diagnostic interview anyway, but who really expects logic from governments?
The home study was done fairly quickly, and we brought Janet our social worker back to check on things.
What was the killer was all the additional paperwork. This time around, we not only needed notarized and apostilled letters from our doctor and Matthew's pediatrician, we now needed copies of their Medical Licenses. Now, it was not enough to get a certified, notarized home study recommendation, we also needed a notarized letter from the State of Maryland certifying that our home study social work agency was legit!! It never ended. Considering that our American agency insists couples compile a complete backup set of notarized and apostilled documents to travel with, the costs of document authentication alone for this second adoption was well over $1k.
During the middle of it all, I thanked God that I did not have a full appreciation for all the additional paperwork this time around until I was already well into this process or I would have said "to hell with it" and kept our family at three, and volunteered to be some American kid's "big brother" or something. No joke. I really hate the Russian government for their rigid and foolish regulations and brazen graft, perhaps more than I love the thousands of their children who need homes.
The Waiting Game Part II
We finally got the massive portfolio done by April or so. Again, we felt that we were open to either gender, and stated so on our application to the Russians. We ffigured that since boys are the most unwanted in Russia, that we would be offered a boy again. The only thing we made clear to our American agency was that we would only accept referrals from regions where judges have a history of waiving the 10-day waiting period.
It was in late July that we finally got "the call." Our facilitator told us that one of her contacts, "Andrei," had an infant boy lined up in the Oblast (district) of Orenburg, SE of Moscow not far north of Kazakhstan. Orenburg does not allow communication about details of children to foreigners, so if we wanted to check out this boy, we would have to fly over "blind"-- effectively nullifiying much of the advantage of using our Russian-speaking American agency. However, our American agent assured us that she had a good feeling about this referral because Andrei had never hooked American parents up with an unhealthy child. Since we did not want to go back to Russia when it was cold, we decided to take the plunge and fly over to Orenburg Russia to see this mystery boy. We know only that he was ethnic Russian (not Kazakh) and did not even know his name.
