Dissolved in Ohio:
Chapter Six
Court Documents and Their Revelations
Finally, the day came when they were able to go to court and face the judge and formally become Natasha’s parents. Along with them were other Amrex families, one being the BBAS couple with their perfectly behaved and well adjusted little boy from another orphanage.
Tatyana Dmitrievya adamantly cautioned each unaccredited, umbrellaing agency family not to utter the name of their agencies to the judge, prosecutor or social worker. It was very important for them to say they had met their children when they first came to Amur, and not received any videos or medical reports from their agency. As far as the court was to know, they were all Beacon House clients.
The judge granted the adoption without a hitch and, in true Amrex Amur fashion, waived everybody’s ten-day waiting period. However, everyone’s time in Russia was going to add up to 21 days, without the ten days waived.
It was only after Natasha was declared theirs that the final bit of wrapping paper fell of the package.
Shortly afterwards the Ponishes received Natasha’s untranslated court adoption documents. They couldn’t read a word, but were told by Tatyana they would get an English translation the next day.
That night, they turned to Christina Zima for help in translating the documents. Christina’s husband was a Russian and she had spent five years living in Russia with him. She was fluent in the language and was able to translate what the documents revealed.
When Christina began to translate the two-page “Court Ruling By Default” as to why Natasha had been released for adoption, the Ponishes learned that nothing they had been led to believe about Natasha’s biological origins was true.
Natasha had been born in a hospital in the City of Svobodny to a 27-year old woman who we will call Stacy. Three days after Natasha was born, Stacy left her baby in the maternity ward and “wrote a statement of relinquishment of her parental rights.”
Stacy left the hospital a few days after Natasha’s birth and the baby remained in the hospital until November 1999, where at 6 months of age she was transferred to the Specialized Dom Rebyonka Orphanage of the City of Blagoveshchensk.
From the moment of Natasha’s birth, Stacy did not come to visit Natasha or take any interest in her well-being. Nor did she petition the local Department of Education to have her rights reinstated as the girl’s mother.
Stacy had another daughter, whom we will call Hope, who was 11 years old. Hope had also been taken from Stacy, and her whereabouts are unknown.
Here is the most startling statement in this document, where it clearly states the kind of lifestyle Stacy was living while pregnant with Natasha:
[Stacy] abused of alcoholic beverages. She was unemployed more than five years. She was drifting and lived an immoral life. She has not taken any interest in her child’s fate or made attempts to take back the child from the hospital and Dom Reb[yonka Orphanage.
But why wasn’t this information clearly stated prior to the court date or on Natasha’s medical sheet? Knowing that Natasha’s mother abused alcohol is an indicator of FAE and even full-blown FAS. And God knows what other substances Stacy was abusing during her pregnancy with Natasha. Or even what STDs she may have had.
Another odd thing about this court ruling is the timeline of Natasha’s life in Russia. She was born in May 1999, placed in the Baby Home in Blagoveshchensk in November 1999 and Stacy’s rights were formally terminated on April 21, 2000 when Natasha was 11 months old.
How is it then, that Natasha had not been placed up for adoption prior to Amrex sending her videotape to BBAS in June 2001? She was two years old; usually a female referral, as soon as they are off the database in Moscow, are available for adoption. September 2000 would have been the six month deadline for the Moscow database. Surely Tatyana know when a little girl’s referral was coming up for adoption. The little girls were easy sellers.
Or, perhaps Natasha’s referral had been viewed already, by different Amrex families through several of their agencies? Maybe she had been viewed by other Americans, and summarily rejected by them. Anything is possible.
Mrs. Ponish would like us to say she strongly believes Amrex and Tatyana conspired to keep Natasha’s birth origins hidden from them, even after they had expressed concerns about her.
Of course, it had been Denise Hubbard’s responsibility to warn her clients about the huge risk of adopting a child with FAS/FAE from Russia. It was her job to warn her clients about these things.
With the Ponishes, she failed miserably.