How Maria Got Escorted Home

(With some help from the Cases)

As the summer months progressed, other pressures were mounting in the Blevinses’ lives.

    The recession was beginning to grow, and Gary was worried about his job.

    One of Gary and Dorothy’s biological daughters broke her arm; another one was ill with an eye infection. Dorothy herself would be hospitalized for a few days in July due to dehydration, brought about by a kidney infection.

    The worst would occur on Sept. 5 when a deranged neighbor did something horrible and unspeakable in front of one of their daughters.

    Then the events of 9/11 would seal it for them: they were not traveling to Bulgaria. Not if they had any say in the matter.

    Thankfully Gary had not been laid off from where he worked; however, others had, and some of his coworkers were also affected by reserve and National Guard activations as the Afghan campaign began.

    With so few people who could take up the slack, there wasn’t much time Gary could take off, maybe barely enough, and what if there were complications that required he stay longer? (One BBAS client did, after all, take two months over there concluding her adoption. We don’t know the full story, nor has she shared it with us).

    Remember, too, that Dorothy is seriously anxious about flying, and has rarely been able to do it without Gary. With those fears heightened even more so in the wake of the hijackings, she would not fly anywhere without him. Certainly not internationally, with a freshly-adopted child in tow.

    Gary and Dorothy began to give serious consideration to having Maria escorted home from Bulgaria. All of the above and some other issues convinced them that this was the thing for them to do.  

    They had noticed it on BBAS’s website under “Bulgaria: Escorts Occasionally Available” and in their contract it states in the second paragraph: “THE ADOPTIVE PARENT(S) will travel to the foreign country (unless escort is specified) at the time and place indicated by BUILDING BLOCKS.” 

    Bulgaria does allow escorts, and although it is not done often, it can be arranged.

    When they had first signed up with BBAS, they had asked about escorts, but Denise talked them out of it. She told them that if the child was escorted, it would drag the process out and that the person doing the escort would have to be approved by the Bulgarian government.

    Then on June 19, I received the following message from Dorothy, which threw even me. “We are going to get the ball rolling on escort for Maria. Like I said before, WE ARE NOT GOING BACK!! Denise talked Gary out of this before but we are not going to back down.”

     I responded to this, “I caution you escort may be impossible …I don’t know of ANYBODY who has had their child escorted, but I am not omniscient.”  

    And that was what I believed to be true — but I was about to learn otherwise!

    Dorothy had been actively looking into the matter, watching what other parents had to relate on the Topica Bulgaria list. There actually were posters who described having their children escorted home. 

    “Escort is NOT impossible!” Dorothy informed me. She mentioned the names of three families who had their children escorted home, and all three had positive things to say about the experience — not being tired after the trip and a good bonding period right afterwards.

    Dorothy gave Denise a call on June 21 to ask about this and other things. Denise wasn’t in and she left a message. 

    But instead of calling Dorothy back directly or, heaven forbid, emailing her, Denise turned around and emailed Gary the following:

Gary:

Dorothy called with a request to use an escort to bring Maria home.  First I must say I am in shock.  It will be hard for Maria, she really needs the person taking her from the orphanage to be the person who is with her always for a better adjustment.  Second, I need time to check with the rep on this, I have never done this before.

Usually immigration would like the parents or at least one to p/u the child.

Thank you I will respond later.

    Dorothy felt like Denise was running to Gary to “tell on” her. Instead of Gary calling Denise after this, Dorothy called her the next day to get some answers.  Denise spoke with her and claimed that it had been late the previous evening when she received the message.   

    But, of course she didn’t respond to Dorothy because Gary had told her to send all messages through him. She reiterated the story about Maria being attached to her caregiver, so Dorothy asked why the caregiver, Annie, couldn’t escort Maria herself.   

    Denise countered she would have to get in touch with Valeri Kamenov and ask him about Annie escorting Maria. They, of course, would pay Annie’s salary, her airfare and visa. Escort was something Denise had never arranged before, but it sure looked good hinting at it on her website and contract.

    After this, Dorothy bit the bullet and posted publicly to the Topica list about escorts:

I have a question about escort service:

1.  For those of you who chose to have your child escorted instead of making the return trip what was the adjustment for the child?  Do you feel that the adjustment was harder or worse because of using this option?  We are told that are child is very attached to her caregiver and that it would be too traumatic to have someone other then a parent to pick her up.  I, of course, think that it will be traumatic no matter who removes her from the orphanage.  My husband would have been the one to make the return trip and this is not going to allow him any time upon returning home with her (on top of the 100 other reasons that an escort would make more sense!)

2.  If your attorney was not the one to escort your child who did you use?  We have the name of a service but I would like other options to decide if this is best for our child and our family.

We initially were told that since our daughter is special needs (we don't even know the extent of the needs at this point as I feel that they change monthly) that our adoption would only take 6 months.  We last saw her in September and she was 25 months and I honestly don't think she would even remember us at this point.  What are your thoughts or opinions?

    Dorothy told me afterwards: “I am NOT backing down on this one! It has nothing to do with the fact or how much we love Maria or how good of parents we would be for her!  This is about what is right for our family and the fact that she is NOT IN CONTROL of our lives!”

    Denise delayed getting back to them about the escort, but during that time the Blevinses were put in contact with a few humanitarian escort services and heard of other people that could do escorting. 

    One man, living in and running an adoption agency in Bulgaria, said he could escort Maria for $1,500 plus airfare! A little too dear for their tastes.

     Another man, a school teacher,  said he could do it, but that the escort and pick up would have to be worked out around his school’s schedule.  Since it was then mid-July and Maria didn’t even have a valid pick up date, it soon became unfeasible for the man to help them.

    In the meantime, the fun with Maria’s paperwork and court case was just beginning. On July 6 they received an email from Denise saying that they had a court date that day, but that it had not gone through because the judge did not show up.  

    They were re-scheduled for July 9. However, on that day their case wasn’t heard either — there had been a bomb threat, something that regularly happened in Bulgarian family court in Sofia as some people sought to stall their divorces.

    The bad part: on July 15, the Bulgarian courts would be shut down until Sept. 25 for both vacations and “construction at the courthouse.” But the good part: the judge had agreed to hear their case the next Monday — July 16.

    They ran around like mad people getting their homestudy agency’s license to BBAS so an unknown “traveling family” could take it with them. 

    Now, whatever happened to DHL, FedEx, UPS and the USPS? They too must have been under construction or put under because of bomb threats.

    After the court case, Denise began cozying up to Dorothy once again. 

    Early in June, Dorothy had sent Denise a virus warning. However, it had been a hoax, so she had emailed everybody back telling them to disregard the virus warning.   Denise hadn’t even bothered to open this up when she received it. 

     Later in June, Dorothy found out the virus warning had been a hoax and she also sent Denise the hoax warning as well.  Denise did not respond to these, but had sent it to everybody on the BBAS email list, as was her wont even when we had been on it. When Dorothy pointed out that the email was a hoax, Denise claimed that she had never gotten that email.  

    The date the virus was supposed to have hit was June 1; that date had long since passed when Denise decided to play nicey-nice again.

    Dorothy apologized and as she put it, “the emails flew back and forward and it boiled down to the fact that she considered me a friend! I was laughing …I do not expect to hear from her again and things will go back to normal with her just talking to Gary. She apologized for the miscommunication of recent weeks and for not sending me flowers for being so sick.” 

    Gary, it appears, had used Dorothy’s recent illness as a way to save the communication lines between BBAS and them over the escort issue.

    All that Dorothy was to glean from speaking with Denise was that Denise was going to lean on someone to get Maria’s case moving faster. 

    Dorothy also told Denise that clients should have a way of supporting one another — perhaps BBAS ought to implement its own email group for clients only? Focus on Children, Elina and All God’s Children had their own email groups. Why not BBAS?

    Unfortunately, Denise could give her no answer. She neglected to tell Dorothy that at one time BBAS had done that for its clients, but had to pull the plug when unruly clients came barging in asking questions. 

    She also had neglected to tell Dorothy that she liked to keep clients in the dark and isolated on purpose in order to continue living so well. Those pesky questions those demanding clients ask about the well-being of their waiting children and wanting concrete medical information!

    Denise did infer to Dorothy that too much information for her taste was being passed along from client to client.

    Interesting how people found one another without her knowing, isn’t it? She therefore told Dorothy that it was best that she communicate only via the telephone to cut down on all the rumors and misinformation being spread on the Internet.

    This, of course, didn’t last; Denise or one of her “staff” was constantly online monitoring the email lists and boards out there for any hint that any client was asking too many questions — or God forbid — Daniel and Elizabeth Case trashing out their agency again.

    Dorothy was right, of course; things got back “to normal” later that week.  Denise’s goodwill about continuing to converse with Dorothy lasted a nanosecond.

    Through another family that was also adopting from Buzovgrad, Dorothy found out that Denise would be out of the office until July 18.

    Of course, BBAS hadn’t bothered to tell the Blevinses that! They must have been exempt from this information as they waited word on Maria’s court case.

    It sure sounded familiar to us ...

    By July 16 they were frantic about the outcome of Maria’s courtdate. Surely it didn’t take 12 hours for email to reach Medina from Sofia, Bulgaria. They were at wits end.

    On July 16 Dorothy called BBAS’s offices first thing in the morning and got hold of Debbie Bollinger.

    Debbie confirmed that Denise would be out of the office until Wednesday. She said she hadn’t heard anything about Maria’s courtdate from Denise.

    She told Dorothy that Denise sent all the emails to her for forwarding to the clients. However, she did tell Dorothy that she would email Valeri Kamenov about it.

    They called the office again on Tuesday and again on Wednesday when they hadn’t received word back from Debbie. 

    The first thing Wednesday, when Denise allegedly returned, they got the great news: Maria’s case had been a success and now all they had to wait for was the judge to sign the decree. Time was now of the essence.

    Dorothy emailed Denise right after receiving the good news and also sent along a forward on some information about orphanage directors being jailed and asking how this would affect the judge and his signature. 

            Dorothy:

As I explained to Gary, the adoption of Maria is completed.  Now we must wait the four weeks to get the judges signature.  Not sure if you knew that?

    She ignored Dorothy’s direct question and Dorothy was ticked. 

     Dorothy wrote, “To start out with, I am usually the one that checks Gary’s email and there was NO phone call to him because that would have just taken too much effort on her part …does she think that Gary and I are going to keep any part of the adoption secret from each other?” (well, hey, that might have been standard procedure in the Hubbard household. You just never know).

    Dorothy responded stating that she did not know what Denise was talking about because Gary, in his AOL account, hadn’t received any information from BBAS.

Yes, I emailed Gary already I believe it was Monday. My days are mixed up  from  not being in front of a calendar  Sorry for the delayed message, I was sure the email went through.

The court finished successfully. The Judge will sign in four weeks, but because of the summer vacation it is unknown if the judge will sign in August or wait until Sept when the court opens. Dobrev will go everyday to get the decree signed, but is unsure if the judge will comply. But he will do all he can to get it done.  Once the decree is signed, he will apply for a Birth Cert. This takes 4 weeks  Then the passport can be obtained once the birth cert is completed. We will know a travel date once the passport office tells us when the passport will be completed. We will as always keep you advised  Sorry for the email problem. Sadly I cannot go back and see if it was sent successfully I was on a library computer.

    Denise evaded the escort question again and again. It had been weeks since Gary had first asked her about it and he was getting fed up with the lack of help or response.

    (And just why would Denise, who presumably has at least one computer at her home devoted entirely to her personal and/or business use, have to go to the local library? Perhaps to surf the Internet from a computer that didn’t or couldn’t be traced back to her so easily? And why would she want to do that? Huh?)

    Gary was incensed at the treatment his wife was receiving from Denise. He didn’t like the fact that Denise was playing with her emotions and not being forthcoming and honest about Maria’s court case being a success.

    That Thursday, Gary again called Denise. He wanted answers, not evasions, on the escort issue.

    No answer. He called Friday and got to corner her about the escort. 

    The family was resolved: Maria was going to be escorted home, come hell or high water and this time, he wasn’t going to be swayed by Denise’s bogus arguments about Maria bonding to her caregiver and the importance of having the family pick her up. Seems that when the family needed something, Maria was so badly off.  When they didn’t need anything, she was fine, healthy and doing so well.

    Gary and Denise did not argue as the conversation unfolded. At long last, he brought up the escort question.

    He told her point blank that they wanted Maria escorted home, whether it be Annie, her caregiver, the Kamenovs or anybody they could find qualified to do it.  The escort was right for their family and their situation. This was not for Denise Hubbard to judge or deny.

    But Denise copped an attitude as soon as the escort was brought up. She hit him again about how an escort would not be good for the child, how attached she was to her caregiver. 

    Gary stepped up and cut her off. He’d heard it before and wasn’t going to listen to it again. 

    He buy the bonding agrument — Maria would have the rest of her life to bond with her new family. A week wouldn’t destroy her. 

    Finally, after being rebuked, Denise broke. She told Gary, “I don’t know how to do it.” Well, why put it on your website and in your promotional materials then?

    The only advice she could offer was to contact the American Embassy in Sofia and the INS for information.

    Gary took this as a green light to contact any and all about escorting Maria home. Any and all now meant the Kamenovs would be contacted about it. Especially about having Annie escort Maria. 

    The person who had given them the $1,500 quote for escort did tell them with much-needed information about how Annie could escort Maria home.

    They contacted the Kamenovs about it and received the following response from Valeri through Vladimir:

From: "Vladimir Kamenov"

To: "Dorothy Blevins"

Sent: Monday, July 23, 2001 1:35 PM

Subject: Maria

Dear Garry and Dorothy,
 
I know that you want the best for Maria. I will speak with Dr. Panova this Wednesday and she will consider this with Annie, the girl you are talking about. First  we have to know if Annie can and want to do this. On the other hand in Bulgaria it is difficult for a bulgarian citizen to get a viza for traveling to America. It will be a problem too.   Here in Bulgaria we will consider all the opportunities and I will nswer you soon.   Sincerely, Valeri

    Funny ... at the time, Dr. Panova was being eased out of her position. Perhaps she was still there in some sort of helping capacity? (According to this report, she was indeed kept on unofficially since there was no one qualified to take over for her).

    The Blevinses offered to pay Annie’s salary, her airfare and the costs of her visa.  They offered to put her up in the United States for a few days.  

Vladimir Kamenov wrote:
Dear Dorothy
 
Today I spoke with Dr. Panova about Maria. We were considering the possibility for escorting Maria. Annie doesn't speak English and she will not be able to make the trip. Getting a viza for her will be also very difficult. Dr. Panova thinks that it will be best if you come to take Maria. Now Maria is doing very well and she will have no problems to adjust. Dr. Panova thinks that it will be best for Maria if you come for her and pick her up personally.   We are looking forward to meet you!
Best Regards  Valeri

    What did Dr. Panova really think? Had she ever allowed a child to be escorted from Buzovgrad? Was she even still working at the orphanage in Buzovgrad?

    Maria, along with all the other BBAS Bulgarian children, always seems to be doing so well.

    They neglected to tell families that some BBAS kids weren’t doing so well — but that is another story. “By the way this sounds,” said Dorothy, “they really don’t want to be involved …it sounds like they did not ask Annie.”

    They were on their own again. During the summer, they found out how to get the paperwork done for the escort.

    They found out that the escort would need a power of attorney, a letter explaining why they wanted Maria escorted home, an affidavit of support and their last year’s tax returns.

    They continued to receive positive updates, however, from BBAS families who went to Buzovgrad for their pick up trips.  The families told the Blevins Maria was walking, liked to smile a lot and could stand well. 

    Again, the traveling families supplied her with better information that any of the BBAS “updates” that had been forwarded on. 

From: Debbie @ Building Blocks Adoption
To: Debbie @ Building Blocks Adoption
Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 1:55 PM
Subject: Bulgaria Courts
 
Dear families:
 
The courts in Bulgaria are scheduled to reopen mid-September due to construction. The  projected opening date of Sept 1 has been  pushed back to mid Sept.  At that time the  cases will start to move.  Until then no judges will be working.
 
Sincerely,
Debbie Bollinger
International Coordinator 

    Nice to know about the construction holding things up.

    Why hadn’t this information been sent directly to the Blevinses by Debbie Bollinger? Had they been deleted off of her database?

    When confronted directly about it, Debbie caved. She told them the attorney would be going daily to the courthouse. 

    However, this did not quite fit with what other Bulgarian clients were telling them. Seems they had found out through their agencies that nobody was even allowed in the courthouse during its construction. Therefore, it would have been impossible for BBAS’s attorney Dobrev to go there for for a daily check on the judge’s signature.

    The escort conundrum continued as they bravely found a way to do it. 

    With help from an unexpected source.

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