The Hyres: 

A Family Shattered

    My friend and I stood shivering in the tram taking us along the snow-packed tarmac from our Aeroflot jet to the terminal at Sheremetyevo airport on Jan. 1, 2002.  The flight from JFK had been relaxing and stress-free but long.  Although we took off as New Years Eve festivities were taking place in Times Square, we arrived in Moscow excited. I would be participating in helping another person fulfill their adoption dreams. 

    We were both apprehensive and solemn. My friend had never been out of the country before and Russia was further than she’d ever thought she’d travel for her son. On top of that, she didn’t know what to expect from her adoption journey and was filled with questions about the boy she was to meet for the very first time.

    Our tram was filled with anxious travelers, like ourselves. One couple in particular had drawn my friend’s attention, more so than the Indian woman clothed in a sari, sandals and a light coat on her way back to India.

    My friend leaned over to me and pointed with her head to the a couple leaning against the window in the back.  She said to me, “The woman with the curly hair and brown coat, and the man she’s with – they’re adopting.”

    I hadn’t noticed them, for I was absorbed in trying to recall the Russian language, something I hadn’t looked at in two years. My thoughts and emotions were channeling all my energy into that one purpose. Our fellow travelers were the backdrop. I was back in Moscow and I was grasping this fact. Back in Russia after having vowed I’d never return in my lifetime. Russia wasn’t going to defeat me.

    There I was, two years later, helping a woman with her Russian adoption. Even though Cyril hadn’t made it home, there would be another little boy who would. Lena, our translator in Perm had been right about me. She said I’d return to Russia. She knew the siren’s call that lurked within me. If you’re out there reading this Lena, you had me pegged, even during the worst time of my life.

    My friend was on her first visit to accept the referral of a three-year old boy. Russia wasn’t her first choice as an adoption destination.  She’d had a harrowing experience with Focus On Children (FOC) for both Bulgaria and Kazakhstan.

    She and I became acquainted when she posted a query to the EEAC Bulgaria list in May 2000 asking about adoption agencies to use for Bulgaria.  She was a single woman looking to adopt a young boy within the 2 – 5 years old range.  I responded privately, with a stern warning against using BBAS. I recommended FOC instead, for it was relatively inexpensive and they had a fairly good Bulgarian program.

    By June 2000 she was an FOC client.   After a series of sickly referrals from Bulgaria she switched to their Kazakhstan program and received the referral for a lovely 3 year old boy living in an orphanage in Taldy-Kurgan.  After agency screw ups, lies about paperwork and total agency employee incompetence, my friend left FOC in October 2001.

    When she ended her relationship with FOC after wrangling a measly $1,000 refund out of them, she wrote me an email: “I’m ready to throw in the towel.”

    That wasn’t what I wanted to hear!  And as long as I had breath in my lungs, my friend was going to make some child a marvelous mother.

    At that time, I was corresponding with another woman who told me about a Russian facilitator in NYC.  This woman had worked wonders for adoptive parents who had been burned by agencies. I passed along the woman’s contact information to my friend and told her to start making inquiries. Since she wanted a boy in the 3-5 year old age range, I knew it would be a fast referral from anybody she approached.

    My friend received positive feedback from the people she had contacted about the facilitator in NYC – and their team on the ground in Russia.

    It was a go. My friend sent the woman in NYC her info – INS clearance, homestudy – and in early November 2001 within two days she had a referral for a healthy three-year-old boy, living in a baby home east of the Ural mountains.  He was close to being transferred to the children’s home. His mother had died when he was a year old; he hadn’t been in the orphanage for very long.

    Once she had the video and medicals reviewed by a competent physician, my friend took the huge leap and said yes.  It was now time to travel to meet him.

    To her utter shock and surprise, she was given a travel date around the holidays – literally two weeks after she had accepted.

    Next thing I knew, I was telling her I’d accompany her on her first trip, if and only if it could be done after New Year’s and during my vacation. And, incredibly, the dates clicked and she and I boarded the Aeroflot flight from JFK on Dec. 31.

    When my friend pointed the couple out, I glanced over at them. They stood by the back of the tram, talking with another passenger.  I heard the woman, who was dressed in an obviously American wool coat, her curly hair pulled back from her face, “We’re here for an adoption.”

    Confirmation of their status. My friend’s surmise had been correct. I said to her, “Tell you what. When we get off this thing, let’s ask them what agency they’re using. I’m curious.”

    Finally the tram landed at the terminal. We made our way off and headed up a dimly lit stairwell to where we thought we had to wait in line for customs.

    The line, as it turned out, was the wrong one.  The Russian language was flying about us; Russian words were scrambling about my ears, and I struggled to make sense of them yet again.  I still recalled how to ask questions and how to answer some of them put to me.

    Luckily we stood in front of the couple we had been discussing on the tram. They looked shell-shocked. I took the opportunity to quiz them about their adoption and how they came to be in Moscow.

    I turned to the woman and said “My friend says you guys look like you’re here for an adoption!  She said she saw you guys in the terminal at JFK – she’s here for an adoption herself.”

    That broke the ice.  The woman, her face flushed and strained, said “Yes, as a matter of fact, we’re here for an adoption.”

    Our line wasn’t moving so I decided to ask them more. “Oh, isn’t that great!  That’s what my friend is doing too – she’s on her first visit to meet her new son.  Are you adopting a boy or a girl?”

    Their faces briefly lit up. “We’re going to be adopting a one-year old boy and a year-old girl. We can’t wait. Two at the same time.”

    “Really!  Wow!” I exclaimed. “Which region are the children in?  Do you know which orphanage? We’re on to a place near the Ural mountains.” I named our destination.

    They exchanged worried looks. Not a good sign. Was the region a big secret?

    “We’re not supposed to say where we’re going.  It’s out near the Pacific Ocean, near China, about a ten-hour airplane ride from Moscow.”

    My ears began ringing.  It was an evasive response – not that they themselves were suspicious, but that their agency had told them to say such a stupid thing. Why would they have been instructed to conceal the region they were traveling to?  This was tantalizing.

    “Hmm,” I said, my eyes narrowing.  “Let me guess. You guys are going to Blagoveshchensk in Amur.”

    I’d hit it. A ray of relief crossed the wife’s face as she looked at her husband who also appeared to be relieved.  But their bodies were still tense, as if they were expecting the KGB or the FBI to come crawling out from behind the barricades for even daring to verify this information.

    “Yes!  How did you know?”

    These people’s demeanor and story howled AMREX at me. 

    It was my friend and my turn to exchange looks.  I had told her of Alysha Towell’s adoption adventure and upcoming trip to Russia. Alysha had warned me Amrex and BBAS would probably try to have people travel “in secret.”

    “A lot of people adopt from Blago, especially from the baby home. As a matter of fact, I know somebody traveling very soon, but I don’t know when she’ll be there exactly.  Amur is a big region with a lot of placements.” I never mentioned it was one-trip child placement central for Amrex that year, nor did I tell them Tatyana’s name in Amur.

    It was their turn to quiz us.  The husband asked my friend about her referral and how she came to adopt from Russia.  She gave him the fast rundown. She mentioned the fact that we were traveling on relatively short notice ... at least two weeks.

    Again the husband and wife exchanged a weary glance. “We were told five days ago to get our flight reservations ready and go. It wasn’t enough time. I mean, it’s right after Christmas! So quick! We had to run around like crazy.”

    We nodded our heads, understanding.  We’d done that ourselves with two weeks notice!

    The wife asked my friend, “I hate to ask, but how much money are you carrying on you in cash?  We were told to bring everything in cash – this makes us very uncomfortable – carrying around so much cash on us.  I’ve got $15, 000 strapped to me.” She moved around uncomfortably to prove the point.  This woman was just plain terrified about that money.

    “Eh” I said.  “Don’t worry about the cash.  Everybody who travels to Russia for an adoption is carrying large sums.”

    “But what about customs?  What should we tell them?”

    “That you’re carrying less than $10,000. It’s the game. They all know what we’re doing here, and everybody lies when they adopt in Russia. If you declare that amount of cash, I think you’ll have to pay duty.”

    It was time to ask what I really wanted to know, now that I had them pegged as Amrex fodder. “Which agency are you guys using?”

    Another uncomfortable glance between husband and wife. “A Child’s Waiting out of Akron, Ohio.  It’s our homestudy agency. We can’t tell anybody who our agency is.”

    In January 2002, I didn’t know about A Child’s Waiting.  Three months later when I spoke for the first time with Margaret Ponish, I would. Although I didn’t know then, but it was something I suspected, these people were following TO THE LETTER the email that had been sent out to the BBAS clients.

    “Are you guys from Ohio?”

    “Yes.  We’re from Akron.”

    Building Blocks!  They were just so ... BBAS.  Akron clinched it.  Yet again I didn’t have the heart to say anything further to them about the agency or Amur.  I don’t know why I never gave them my name or took theirs or even told them to look out for Alysha in Blagoveshchensk, but I didn’t.

    By that point, our line had moved up to the registration desk. I asked in my bad Russian where customs was – only to find out that we had been standing in line for the connecting flight to Bombay, India! The woman kindly pointed the way down the stairs and showed us where to go. 

    We all turned and walked down a flight of stairs towards customs.  By the time we got into our places to stand in line, we lost sight of them.  When we cleared customs and went to retrieve our baggage, they had disappeared, presumably picked up by Val or another Amrex Moscow representative.

    After customs we waited for our own guides.  I said to my friend, “That couple was a BBAS family.  I just know it.  Only Denise Hubbard could concoct such stupid, paranoid things for her clients to say in Russia.”

    My friend, her mind whirring with her own anticipation, concurred.

    The remainder of the trip went very well. The little boy was a dream – healthy, developmentally on target. The Baby Home he was in was nothing like DR #2 in Perm.  It took six months for a court date, and in June, I was there to meet them at JFK when they proudly exited from US Customs.

    I didn’t think too much more about that couple from Akron, Ohio in Moscow, but I kept them in the back of my mind.  Ten months later, I’d be kicking myself for not getting their names.

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