The Same Lies Over and Over Again

“And the same old chords going over and over

Became a symphony

We could play it again and again

But it sounded good to me

One more time!”

-Frank Zappa

    On March 6, Dorothy and Denise had a telephone conversation.  

    “When I emailed her today, the phone rang not even five minutes after I sent it!”  Dorothy had emailed Denise about Maria’s formula and where they were in the process. She wanted to know if the formula was helping Maria stay fit and gain weight. They hadn’t heard in over a month about where Maria’s documents were — what Ministry and how they were progressing.

    The conversation began cordially. At first Denise made small talk about the weather and Gary’s job. Then she turned the page and went into Dorothy’s email about Maria, “Carol” and the adoption process.

    Then, the “Oh, Didn’t I send This Along?”  charade began. 

    Denise told Dorothy that she had sent an email along “last week” with an update on Maria. Denise told her that Dr. Panova said that Maria was doing well and that the formula was definitely helping her out. Yet Dorothy hadn’t received that email or another very important email about Maria’s dossier.

    Dorothy then casually asked Denise about Carol. 

    Denise denied having ever heard of the woman. She denied having given Carol Dorothy’s email address.

    She told Dorothy she would have contacted her to let her know she was using her name as a reference. When asked how Carol had gotten her email, Denise told Dorothy Carol must have gotten it from “one of the boards” or the Cases or the Corrigans.

    Dorothy asserts: “No one has the AOL address except them. I do not post, so no one would have any idea who I was or that I was using BBAS.”  

    Regarding the Atkinsons’ post on the EEAC Bulgaria list at that time about their travel being delayed to pick their son up from Buzovgrad, Denise told Dorothy that they didn’t like to “advertise” when families were going to pick children up because it was “private.” 

    That’s bogus. Three BBAS clients who adopted from Buzovgrad announced to the Topica and EEAC lists that they were traveling and then later that they had come home with their children.

    After this conversation, Dorothy was in a panic and sent this email on March 6. Unfortunately, she sent it to the Atkinsons and the Corrigans as well.   

    We suspect that Teri Atkinson then forwarded it on to Denise and gave Denise information to use against Dorothy.  What else would you expect from Denise’s little helper Teri?

I just wanted to let you all know that I just heard from Building Blocks.  I sent Denise an email and she called me back.  I asked about someone that contacted me for a reference and she said that she did not know who the lady was, but that she could have gotten my address from one of the boards.  She mentioned a few other places.  Then she said something about someone could have given her my address that I correspond with, since she knows that I correspond with the Case’s and the Corrigan’s. 

I don’t know where or why she knows this, but I want all of you to be aware that she does know that I correspond with them.

    We told Dorothy not to panic — Denise was a carp and a low life form to begin with and such emotional harassment was uncalled for. This was adoption for God’s sake, not the CIA!

    We told Dorothy that we would still hang with her. And we did.

    March 20, 2001, would be the date that Dorothy Blevins would be formally “shut out” of the BBAS family. Information was to be diverted from her to Gary from then on.

    The day before, Gary had finally spoken directly with Denise. 

    Later they would have a telephone conversation which took an interesting turn. He of course wanted to know about his daughter and where things stood in the process.  

    It was then that Denise told him that they had emailed Dorothy an update on Maria.  The bomb fell: Maria’s documents had been signed off in the Ministry of Health on Feb. 23 — nearly a month before.  

    Gary was not pleased.

    Denise told him that they had been sending information to Dorothy’s account.  Hadn’t she been receiving this information?  

    Gary told Denise to change the address that Debbie Bollinger had been sending updates to from Dorothy’s America Online account to his. There would be no more screwups in emails being received.

   Denise did this, and magically the next day, Gary was to receive three emails from BBAS, one from Debbie and two from Denise, with an update from Valeri stating that he had more photos of Maria that he would be sending along.

    Denise’s second email missive came to Gary on his account. There had been a post on the Topica Bulgaria list by another agency’s Bulgarian attorney. The post had to do with a child that the attorney was attempting to help out.  

    He was 17 years old and ready to be phased out of the orphanage system.  The attorney had been brainstorming on how to help him, to bring him to the United States on a sponsorship by a family.

    The Blevinses, interested in the boy’s fate, had emailed the other agency’s attorney. Unfortunately, the attorney lost people’s emails who had contacted her about the boy. She posted to the list the names of the people whose emails she did not have. 

    You guessed it. She mentioned Dorothy Blevins by name.

    Denise asked Gary why they were in contact with another agency’s attorney.  Gary told her about the boy and the ideas that people were coming up with for fundraising to help him out.

    He told Denise that they were being sent the boy’s video. Denise, in her caring capacity as agency director, said that she would be interested as well.

    Gary offered to send her the videotape of the boy when they got it; Denise responded that it would be “cool.”

    They eventually were sent this videotape of the boy, but Denise never again mentioned it or the boy.

   Dorothy was incensed by this email fiasco.  

    “I had called or emailed them every step of the way as we were preparing our other documents …I am the one that is home and who takes care of correspondence and stuff like that,” she said. “He is the one who leaves the house to go to work. I can see and accept one lost or missing email, but more than that I can not see …what is wrong with the telephone? If they didn’t receive a response from us about Maria’s MOH, why didn’t they just call?”

    This was odd, because Dorothy’s email wasn’t having a problem receiving emails when Carol at CapitalOne2001 was Instant Messaging her!

    Indeed, any and all information related to Maria’s adoption was now sent directly to Gary — without incident. Dorothy also had access to Gary’s AOL email address and would check it regularly. 

    Gary, for his part, did not like the tone of Denise’s emails, but he put up with it to bring Maria home.

    The document and paperwork confusion continued throughout April and May.  Since Dorothy was the person home during the day, it would have been better having her as the main recipient of the paperwork update emails. But not for Denise, apparently.

    At the end of April there was confusion about whether two pertinent documents were to be apostilled or authenticated.

    Other agencies had told their clients that as a result of its legislation ratifying the Hague Convention, the Bulgarian government had changed its authentication policy; instead of the arduous and expensive authentication process, documents could now be apostilled at the state level, saving time and money.

    Knowing that two important documents were about to expire, and their passing through the MOJ was a possibility, the Blevinses went about and had these documents apostilled by their state and sent on to BBAS.  

    Gary received an email April 30 from Denise stating that the documents were coming back to them because there had been a mistake — they were apostilled instead of authenticated by their state. 

    He responded that they were following the new ruling by the Bulgarian government about apostilling and wanted to know if this applied to them or not. He also asked when these important documents needed to be back in Bulgaria.

    The documents had been overnighted to Medina on April 25. Why had they been informed of this three business days later?  

    Later that day, Gary received an email stating that the documents could be apostilled, but that they would have to be dated after April 27 — theirs had been dated April 23. 

    They then got the documents re-apostilled for another $20 and the cost of another FedEx to Medina. And they still hadn’t gotten an answer as to when the documents had to be in Bulgaria.

    On May 3 the MOJ requested a new document from Dr. Panova in Buzovgrad — a declaration on Maria’s ethnic background. 

    Things were just starting regarding the “investigations” with the BBAS orphanages, and the alleged faked documents were something the MOJ investigators were focusing on, especially from Burgas.

    The Blevinses were told that they were going to get the declaration from Dr. Panova on either May 4 or 7. They were told that “the attorney,” (Rick Marco?  Mr. Dobrev?) had met with Dr. Panova in Sofia that Friday.  

    From what they had learned from other families, they believed that they were the first family who had been requested to give this information about ethnic backgrounds.

     Here Maria’s ethnicity pops up again.  It was an issue for the Blevinses as time went on and since they had asked previously about Maria’s ethnicity,  they specifically asked that the results of the report be made known to them when the Bulgarians found out.

    BBAS reported that that Maria was progressing well with “no issues.” Gary requested that they be notified when the declaration about Maria’s ethnic background was returned. They were concerned about delays at the MOJ.

     They never received word about what the report’s findings were from Building Blocks.

    Other families continued supplying concrete information about Maria to the Blevinses. One who saw Maria in May stated “Maria looked very happy and healthy, but she was very small for her age ... Maria can stand on her own, but she can only take a few steps with assistance.”

    No mention was made about Maria’s personal caregiver or physical therapy (which the Blevinses’ pediatrician thought would expend too many calories) supposedly being supplied by Denise. 

    Maria was progressing, but not to the extent that Denise had led them to believe through her “updates.”  None of the families, either mentioned seeing Maria’s walker in the room with her.

     “I have come to the conclusion,” Dorothy told us at the time, “that all of the updates that come from Denise I basically need to disregard. The updates that come from the parents that are traveling tell more of the picture and are not over-or-understated anywhere to the degree that Denise’s are.”

    In late May all of the BBAS Buzovgrad families were sent a letter by Denise stating that Dr. Panova had sent a letter for each child’s case asking for the process to be rushed. This was supposedly sent regardless of whether the child was special needs or not.

    On May 24 Denise sent Gary a photo of a cute Maria sitting on the steps at the orphanage. The photo was entitled “Hi Dad!” 

    Five days later, Gary received an update on Maria’s measurements — she had gained four pounds since August. Two days after that, Gary received another photo of Maria from Denise — this one showing her seated with a companion.  

    Gary asked who the little “boy” was with Maria (the child does look like a boy), and Denise’s curt response? — “It is a girl.”

    Perhaps Denise could have come clean and told them the photos were most likely taken by another “traveling family” like they all were.

    Note here that none of these photos or updates were ever sent to Dorothy herself. This hurt her tremendously.

    To rub salt in her wounds, the photos titled “Hi Dad!” were sent on her birthday.  This from an agency whose current PR director still dutifully sends us cards on our birthdays!

    Remember that $680 “adoption loan” for the BBAS translation fee? By June 2001, it had begun to accrue interest. The $680 translation fee was now up to $700.  

    They would not pay that off until August. So much for not worrying about the loan until the adoption was completed.

    On June 6 Gary called Denise to ask how things were going at the MOJ, as they should have received their signature on June 1. Denise could only relay that everything was quiet and that there was no news. 

    Finally, on June 14, Gary received the email they had been hoping for: they had received the MOJ signature, eight months after having first seen Maria.

    On June 30, their homestudy agency’s license expired. Since this was an important document for their court date, their homestudy agency sent them a new copy to have notarized, certified and apostilled.

    They received it on July 2 and overnighted this new apostilled copy to BBAS so it could be sent with “a traveling family.” Denise had been hoping the judge wouldn’t even look at it.

     Dorothy called BBAS Medina offices the next day to make absolutely certain that the FedEx had arrived on time. She went to the trouble of tracking the package on the Internet and, according to FedEx’s website, that package had made it on time to BBAS that morning.

   Well. BBAS pulled a fast one on them. Denise claimed that the FedEx package had not made it to Medina on time, and therefore, it never made it to the “traveling family” to be hand carried to Valeri Kamenov.

    It obviously got to Bulgaria at some point, most likely with a traveling family. Again, why not just have the families FedEx things directly to Mr. Kamenov in Sofia?

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