Couple finds 'miracle' in adoption abroad
Updated 11/13/2006 7:11 AM ET
By Greg Farrell, USA TODAY
Angelina Jolie and Madonna may be the most famous Americans to adopt
children overseas, but they're certainly not the first.

Each year, parents in the USA adopt about 20,000 children from around the
world. And though the super-rich appear to be able to swoop into a far-off
land
and scoop up adorable children with ease, for the majority of adoptive
parents, the process is a costly, emotionally wrenching grind.

I know. My wife and I just returned from Russia with a 2-year-old girl. In
just a few short weeks, we've come to learn what other adoptive parents have
been telling us for years: that adoption is an amazing, transforming
experience. It's no less a miracle than having children the old-fashioned
way.

But the road we took to get there was no miracle. It was a 2½-year journey
from the time my wife and I decided to adopt to the day we were given
custody
of our daughter. We spent months filling out an endless marathon of forms
and getting them certified. Then we shipped the paperwork to Russia and
waited
helplessly until our number came up.

And then, when our number did come up, we flew over to meet the little girl
who was randomly chosen to be ours and fell in love with her. We ultimately
decided to adopt her, even after being told by several doctors that she
probably had a severe form of epilepsy.

This adoption story began after my wife, Cathy, and I, after much research,
decided to adopt a child from Russia. The first thing to do was sign up with
an adoption agency. We chose Children's Hope International. After a social
worker visited us and approved us as adoptive parents, we had to prepare a
dossier
of information and notarized legal forms - police background checks, for
example - that would be shipped to Russia.

Paperwork usually can be done in six months or less. But because of our busy
schedules, it took more than a year. Part of the delay was spurred by the
Russian
government, which in 2005 moved the goal posts in international adoptions.

Until then, Russian orphans had to be available for domestic adoption for
three months before they became available to international parents. In 2005,
the
government doubled the timetable, which slowed foreign adoptions in Russia.

Though most Russians have no problem with foreigners adopting some of the
estimated 700,000 orphans in their country, Russia's nationalist party has
decried
the practice. The nationalists point out that since the early '90s, 14
Russian children have been killed by their adoptive parents in the USA.

To address such concerns, the Russian government has put in place stringent
new rules regarding the accreditation of international adoption agencies,
including
Children's Hope. The new process is designed to eliminate the fly-by-night
brokers who spent little time vetting the American parents for whom they
were
working.

By September 2005 we had completed our dossier, and the agency sent it off
to Russia.

The first trip

On May 30, the moment we had been waiting for arrived: The adoption agency
e-mailed us a photo of a little girl, just over 2 years old. We knew
virtually
nothing about her, including her name; all we had was a birth date, some
basic facts about her birth mother and a brief summary of her medical
problems,
one of which was translated as "congenial heart disease."

In late June, we flew to Moscow. From there, we traveled to Tver, a midsize
city about 100 miles northwest of Moscow. The next morning, Tuesday, June
20,
the head of the Children's Hope International's operations in Tver, Alexei
Savichev, came by the hotel to meet us. We learned that our girl, Irina, was
living at a "baby house" about 45 minutes away.

Our job at this first meeting was to try to establish some kind of bond with
Irina. We were also looking for potential health problems. The biggest
concern
for parents adopting in Russia, a nation with high per-capita alcohol
consumption, is fetal alcohol syndrome. Most health problems among orphans
can be
treated with medical care and parental love. But with fetal alcohol
syndrome, the damage cannot be reversed.

At the orphanage, we were ushered into a small reception room with toys and
stuffed animals. A few minutes later, a dark-haired woman in a white lab
coat
entered, carrying Irina. She sat shyly on the woman's lap, clutching two
small stuffed animals and holding them up in front of her eyes, hiding her
face
from us. The caregiver placed her on the floor in a sitting position and
tried to initiate some contact between us, but the little girl wouldn't
budge.

After a few minutes, Cathy told me to get the bubbles out. I dug a plastic
container of soapy mixture out of my wife's bag, removed the wand and began
blowing.
Each time I unleashed a stream of bubbles at Irina, she screamed with
delight.

After about 45 minutes, the caregiver spirited Irina away from us for her
afternoon nap. As she left the room, Cathy and I said "bye-bye" to Irina in
Russian.
In response, she turned back and waved to Cathy. My heart melted.

The next day's visit was much easier. Cathy engaged Irina in various
activities while I took close-up photos of our little girl's face, which we
would send
to Jane Aronson, a pediatrician and adoption specialist in New York we had
hired.

About midway through the session, Cathy was playing with Irina, who was
sitting on the floor. Suddenly, the top half of Irina's body went limp and
folded
straight over to the point where her head almost slammed the floor. Cathy
and I stared at her for a few seconds; then I reached down and returned her
to
an upright position. But Irina started falling backward, so I caught her and
let her down gently. Her eyes were open, staring toward the ceiling.

I was tempted to call for help, but Irina's breathing seemed fine. I lifted
her up and put her on Cathy's lap. Soon she was playing as if nothing had
happened.
Later, a doctor came in. Cathy described Irina's collapse, but the doctor
assured us it must have been a fainting spell. I was satisfied.

In Tver that afternoon, we filled out papers indicating our intention to
adopt Irina. Per Aronson's instructions, we e-mailed pictures we had taken
of Irina,
and Cathy wrote a description of the fainting spell.

On Thursday, we petitioned for a court date on which we could complete our
adoption, then traveled to Moscow in preparation for Friday's flight home.
We
arrived in Moscow in an ebullient mood. Then Cathy checked her e-mail.

A pediatrician in Aronson's office wanted to speak to us as soon as
possible. It was 5 p.m. in Moscow, 9 a.m. in New York. The pediatrician on
the phone,
Melissa Goldstein, told us that what we had witnessed was not a fainting
spell but a seizure.

That in itself wasn't catastrophic, she said, but there was something about
Irina's head that concerned her and Aronson. The way her forehead protruded
in one picture suggested a "dysmorphic" skull shape. That, with evidence of
seizures, suggested Irina could have serious medical problems.

We were devastated. Just a day before, we were in the presence of a darling
little girl who had won us over, and now someone was telling us that Irina
had
serious medical problems. Goldstein reiterated that there was no way to tell
for sure how serious Irina's problems were without a thorough examination.
She gave us the name of a doctor in Moscow.

Before leaving Moscow the next day, we spoke with Vadim Ivanov, the
pediatrician recommended to us. He said he'd try to go to the orphanage to
examine Irina.

During our first week back, we got some good news. Aronson and Goldstein
reviewed a 45-minute video I'd shot of Irina that dispelled any notions they
had
that the girl's physical development was dysmorphic. In retrospect, they
concluded, it was probably just a bad angle on the photos we had e-mailed
from
Russia.

There was still the seizure question. Cathy and I asked Children's Hope to
get Savichev to arrange for Irina to have an EEG. The test showed no signs
of
brainwave abnormality.

But unless Irina were tested for a 24-hour or 48-hour period, it would be
impossible to determine whether she had epilepsy and, if so, how serious her
condition
was. We described Irina's collapse to a number of pediatric neurologists in
New York and Boston. They all agreed that Irina had suffered a seizure, and
one said we'd be better off finding another child rather than running the
risks associated with Irina's condition.

We spent most of July wrestling with whether to proceed with the adoption.

On July 25, Ivanov drove to the orphanage and examined Irina. The next day,
he sent us his assessment: He was unable to find any indication that Irina
had
ever had a seizure. His examination showed no health problems of any kind.
As for her "congenial heart disease," that was simply an over-the-top
diagnosis
of a minor heart issue that would have little effect on her.

The second trip

Elated over the turn of events, we decided to go ahead with the adoption. We
returned to Tver in September for our court date. On Sept. 27, Cathy, Irina
and I flew from Moscow to New York.

Over the next few weeks, we all began to adjust to our new life as a family
of four. At first, our 8-year-old son, Sam, grudgingly accepted Irina, but
by
mid-October, he had shifted comfortably from "only child" status to the
"older brother."

In the first two weeks, Irina's screaming tantrums over trivial matters
unnerved me, but Cathy said such behavior was normal for a 2-year-old
undergoing
such an enormous life change. As time went by, Irina's tantrums became
shorter, and she seemed to revel in her new life with us at our home in the
New
York suburbs.

By late October, we had pretty much forgotten about the seizure that almost
derailed the adoption. And then one night at the dinner table, I removed
Irina's
fork or did something that triggered a tantrum. But instead of screaming,
she protested in a different way: The top half of her body slumped, her head
almost hitting the table. But her eyes remained open.

For Cathy and me, the moment was a revelation. We'd seen this episode
before, but assumed it was a seizure. Now we realized it was simply one of
Irina's
ways of protesting when she didn't get her way.

My wife and I realized what we had just witnessed and how we and a series of
top doctors had transformed a silent temper tantrum into a seizure.

Each day since Irina joined our family, Cathy and I have given thanks for
our blessings. But on that day, after laughing at ourselves and our
compulsive
need to question everything and know even more, our gratitude was even
greater.

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