S-O-S Research

I’ve been married for 15 years to my husband Don. He is a landscape architect and works for an engineering firm.We have two children. Our son Aaron is 14 and is our biological child.  We adopted our daughter, Natalie, from Russia and she’s now 10 and is in 4^th grade.

We adopted Natalie from an orphanage in Russia in February of 2003.  She was 2 ½ at the time.  Her orphanage was in Vyshny Volochek, a city in the Tver region.  The city is about half way between Moscow and St. Petersburg.“

Prospective adoptive parents must first decide if they will adopt domestically or internationally. If internationally, they then must decide on a country. When I asked Kay how she and her husband chose Russia she revealed:

That’s actually a really sad story; it makes me a little bit angry every time I tell it.

One weekend when Aaron was 5, Don and I decided over a glass of wine that it was time to add to our family.  I had a hysterectomy when Aaron was about 2, and we knew that when were ready for number 2 we’d be adopting.

That next Monday morning after we decided to go for it, I went to our local Department of Human Services office to ask for information about how to adopt through the State’s foster-adopt system. The woman behind the counter couldn’t tell me a thing.  She said that she thought another local agency, Lutheran Services in Iowa, handles that, and to try calling them, so I did.  The receptionist at LSI had no idea who to connect me to, but she had me leave someone a message.  No one ever called back.  I tried again, left someone else a voicemail.  Still no call back.

In the meantime, I started to research adoption online, and learned a little about international adoption.  A few months later, I saw a notice in the paper that Children’s Hope was holding an informational meeting in Des Moines, and the rest is history.

Now, of course, if I would have persevered I could have found someone who knew something about how to foster-adopt domestically.  But isn’t it a sad state of affairs that adopting from Russia turned out to be easier?

People often ask me how we chose Russia to adopt from.  Heck, I don’t know!  Children’s Hope offered several international programs, and each country’s processes had its pros and cons, which we compared and contrasted.  In the end, we (figuratively) sort of just closed our eyes and pointed to one!“

I adopted twice from Russia with only two years between each trip, but both trips were very different from each other. I asked Kay to describe her travels to Russia and here is what she said:

We made two trips to Russia.  The first was for one week, and the purpose was to meet Natalie (she was Valentina then), accept her as our referral, and petition the court for a date to adopt her.  We went back about a month later and stayed for two weeks, had our court date, and did all of the other necessary paperwork.  From the research I did for an article for Adoptive Families about a year ago, I understand that Russia’s process is now significantly harder, and the cost is higher.  I hate to think that more babies and kids will grow up in orphanages because of that.

Our adoption agency was Children’s Hope International, and thank God, their in-country staff in Russia was top-notch.  We’d have been lost without them. I can’t tell our best stories publically—they’ll have to stay off the record!  One of my most poignant memories is of what the grocery store in Vyshny Volochech was like. It seemed like with every 100 miles we traveled away from Moscow, we went back in time 100 years.  From Moscow to the city of Tver took us back one century; from Tver to VyshnyVolochech another.  We stopped at this grocery store to buy wine and chocolates for the orphanage director and fruit for the kids (the only decent fruit the store had was lemons!).  They didn’t have a cash register—they used an abacas.  That floored me.  There was girl standing by a small table over against a wall, probably a teenager, and she was clearly intellectually disabled.  I could just imagine her standing there all day every day while her mother worked.  Her life would be so much different if she lived in the US.“

In The Beginnings of International Adoption: Paperwork Galore! I addressed the amount of paperwork required for international adoption and how it sometimes seemed to be a moving target. Kay concurred with my perspective and felt it was probably the most frustrating thing about her adoption experience stating, “So much paperwork, and most of it didn’t really relate to what kind of parents we would be.”

Like many of us who have adopted, Kay’s daughter has special needs. Regarding her daughter’s special needs, Kay shared the following:

We didn’t set out to adopt a child with special needs. The parameters we gave the agency were a 3-4 year old girl with no special needs. It was taking a little longer to receive our referral than expected, and eventually we found out that was because there was no such thing!  But they did have a 2 ½ year old whose identified special need was Hepatitis, which our pediatrician reassured me wasn’t likely to be a big deal.

On my 40^th birthday, we received our referral.  An email arrived with the subject line:  “Meet Valentina!”  Attached was a grainy picture of a little girl dressed in boys clothes, head shaved, socks filthy dirty.  She appeared to be trying to climb down from the hideous couch she’d been plunked down on for the picture.  (That should have been our first clue—the climbing, not the couch!)  Although the sketchy information included in the body of the email admitted that in addition to hepatitis, she had developmental delays, we thought that was to be expected, due to orphanage life.  We decided we wanted to proceed with the process and meet her.

At the orphanage, 3 or 4 smiling “mamas” walked into the big room where we waited, one of them carrying a tiny 2 ½ year old, still sleepy from her afternoon nap.  On cue, she said, “Mama.  Papa,” and she was ours.

I’ll never forget the first time Don held her.  As I watched his face, I could literally see him fall in love with her.  But during that first visit, as we held her, hugged her, and played with her, it became clear to us that she was severely delayed.  She was just learning to walk, at 2 ½, and although she understood spoken language, she didn’t talk.  She had no idea what to do with the book we brought her—she picked it up and rubbed it against her face.  She sat with her lips tightly pursed, fingers fisted and pulled in against her body, as if she was afraid to move or make a sound.  Strange expressions crossed her face when we talked and played with her. It was clear she hadn’t spent much time looking at the human face.

Don and I thought she must be severely intellectually disabled.  Would she ever learn to talk?  To read?  What would it be like for Aaron if we took on a child with such severe problems?  Our conversation about this was very brief.  Don and I agreed—we loved and wanted this child—no matter what.  Whatever her future held, we’d just have to deal.

I think our pediatrician took one look at her and knew she had ADHD.  She immediately referred us for a developmental evaluation through our Area Education Agency, and soon we were involved in speech therapy, occupational therapy, and special education.  She started taking Ritalin when she was five, and in the next couple of years was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder.  We didn’t complete a full psychological evaluation until a little over a year ago, when I could no longer tolerate her outbursts of aggression.  Those tests confirmed ADHD, and added Fetal Alcohol Syndrome to the mix.“

Through the years, Kay has found support from a number of different people and organizations. She explained:

Our pediatrician was our point person for several years, and that early success evaluation that she referred us to through the AEA was our first step into services. When Nat started preschool she had a wonderful teacher who became my lifeline.  Later, I came to rely on our OT (our second one–no longer through AEA).  When Nat was in preschool, I remember dropping her off there more than one morning in tears, and telling various teachers or therapists that I needed help, that I couldn’t do it.  I was desperate for respite services.  I was told over and over that we didn’t qualify for any help.  Eventually, I cried to our OT too, and she said of course there was help available, and that we would qualify, and told me about Iowa’s Children’s Mental Health Waiver, a Medicaid program. We’ve been receiving respite services through the waiver for more than 2 years now, and also benefit greatly from Nat having Medicaid to pick up expenses not covered by our family medical insurance plan.“

Many of us adopting years ago have encountered a myriad of special needs that we were initially unprepared to face. I wrote a post about my experience with international adoption and special needs. I would like to think that parents are better informed today, but there are still many accounts where parents have not been prepared for international adoption and the special needs it often brings. Back in April 2010, Kay herself wrote about Torry Hansen. Hansen adopted a boy from Russia and then sent him back to Russia because she could not handle his behavioral and psychiatric problems. I asked Kay if she thought parents were better prepared today and this is what she said:

I know that a certain number of hours of education are now required before parents adopt, and I hope the info they receive is good info.  But I think prospective parents’ hopes will always cause them to be naïve about what prenatal and early life experiences can do to children.“

With regards to what needs to change, Kay offered the following:

Just plain honesty.  I can’t point fingers to any one person or organization, but before we received our referral, every time I wanted reassurance that we could indeed adopt a child from Russia with no special needs, I found someone to give me that reassurance. I’m going to say something very politically incorrect now: I wouldn’t trade Natalie for any child in the world—we love her with all of our hearts—but I think every adoption from Russia should be considered a special needs adoption.  Like guilty until proven innocent—special needs until proven otherwise!  I would never discourage anyone from adopting from Russian—in fact, just the opposite—I’d like to find homes for every kid in every orphanage!  But I want people to know exactly what they’re getting into before they make the commitment.  I love the book Reasonable People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption: On the Meaning of Family and the Politics of Neurological Difference by Ralph Savarese. Savarese captures the philosophy of life a person needs in order to adopt a child with special needs.“

I asked Kay how she has been changed by parenting Natalie and she shared:

She’s one of the biggest blessings in my life, and one of my hardest challenges. She’s ten now, and on each of her Gotcha Days I’ve thought that if I would have known it would still be so hard a year later, I couldn’t have done it.  This semester we have the best respite schedule ever, and Nat goes to an afterschool program 3 days a week.  Her medications help tremendously, and she’s maturing and learning coping skills.  Just in the last month or so I’ve had these moments of near-bliss when I’ve thought, “Oh my god! I think I’m going to make it through this after all!”  And, of course, she’s helped me achieve my lifelong dream of becoming a writer, by finally giving me something (someone) important to write about!“

Kay provided the following description of what she is currently involved in:

I am a former social worker-turned-former library staffer-turned freelance writer. I quit my nearly perfect part-time job 1 ½ years ago. (I drove a bookmobile. How cool is that?) Now I work from home during the limited hours I can free up from parenting. I contribute regularly to ADDitude magazine and am additudemag.com’s ADHD parenting blogger. I occasionally write for Adoptive Families magazine—a lot less frequently than I used to. My newest venture is contributing to a collaborative blog: a mom’s view of ADHD {everyday life with our ADHD kids}. My main focus at this time is editing a book for DRT Press, which is scheduled for release in September 2011. The title is “Bless Your Heart”. It will include essays written by parents of kids who are “easy to love, but hard to parent” kids with ADHD and other conditions that take the already difficult job of parenting and add to the challenge. In addition, we’ll have experts answer questions that arise from each essay, and bring in other parents’ voices to echo themes that are organic to each piece. We are so, so thrilled that Dr. Ned Hallowell, the guru of the ADHD world, wrote the introduction to the book—and his words were so spot on that they made me cry! This book is not about the children themselves, it is about the parents, and the experiences and feelings that accompany parenting a special needs child.“

I want to thank Kay for her open and honest responses to my questions on adoption. I loved learning about her adoption experience and hope you did too. Please visit Kay on one of her blogs and find out more about parenting a child with ADHD. Thanks, Kay!