Chapter Five
Enter
Cyril
“When there’s a
shadow near, reach for the sun
When there is love
in you, go for the one
And for the
promises, there is the sky
And for the heavens
are those who fly”
- Enya
On Sept. 25, Denise called to tell us that our referral for our baby boy was in
her hands for Russia. We were so
excited — even more excited than we had been over Anguel’s video.
This, after all, was the moment we had been working up to since January ... the
moment when your theoretical adoption becomes an actual child.
Heck, we hadn’t even decided on a name for our son — but “Christian”
came to us. Denise said the
baby’s name was Kirill Konstaninovich Petrov and his birthday was April 4,
1999 — Easter Sunday.
She told
us that the video and medicals were on their way, but that the baby looked a bit
starved and his stomach was extended from “malnutrition.”
She also said that there was another baby bundled together on his video,
a baby girl who looked exactly like him.
The
only way that they could tell the babies apart was by their genitalia.
And, the paperwork that the children had was exactly the same, except for
their birthdays, names and mother’s names.
Same medicals, same conditions, same diagnosis.
Two days later the video arrived . We
were so excited! In two days I would be making my preliminary trip to Bulgaria
to see Anguel, as per Bulgarian law, and now we had our baby’s video in our
hands.
Two at once!
What a week.
So, that night, after work, with a trembling hand, we put Cyril’s
video into the VCR, not sure of what we would find. Images of starving Ethiopian babies had filled my head after hearing
Denise mention his distended stomach. I cautioned Daniel about what Denise had
shown me, and what to expect.
We need not have worried. What a beautiful little soul he was
on that video. It was in black and white (due, we later learned, to improperly
accounting for the difference in European and American formats by whoever copied
it)
Such a beautiful tiny, happy baby! The video showed him being undressed — he wasn’t wearing
any diapers, him holding himself up, staring quizzically at the camera, smiling
at his caregiver who stroked him gently on his bare behind, telling him sweet
words in Russian. His stomach was
hardly distended — maybe a bit, but not as we had feared.
He had no butt and he was pretty lean.
The camera did a close up on his face, and we began to look for signs of FAS.
He stared into the camera, and we could see those beautiful blue eyes
that I never could have given a child.
He
was grabby and exploring, and when he smiled, it reached deep into me.
Tears welled up in my eyes and I began to cry at the joy I was feeling.
We watched the video again and again.
Daniel turned to me and said, “You know, I could imagine him as a
hockey player!” I said, “Well,
he could be a great dancer as well — or perhaps a musician — or ... or
whatever he wants to be!”
We then
discussed what to name him. Since
“Kirill” meant “Cyril” in Russian, and was the name of the famous saint
who had given the world the Cyrillic alphabet, we felt the name fit him: Cyril
Christian Case.
Once again,
choosing a name had been quite easy for us. Both boys had come with one already.
Excitedly, I emailed Denise and told her how beautiful the
baby was and that she had really set us up for something more alarming than the
gorgeous baby we had just viewed.
The next day we attempted to send the video and medicals out
to Dr. Aronson to review, but alas, she was out of her office for a week. We then contacted Dr. Andrew
Adesman, a close associate of Dr. Aronson who also worked out on Long Island.
However, he charged $50 more than Dr. Aronson, so Cyril’s video and
medicals cost us $250 to get reviewed.
Once again, Daniel would end up being the person to discuss
the video with the doctor, for I was leaving the next day for Bulgaria to see
Anguel.
My trip to Bulgaria, in some ways, would have the most
significance only after we returned from Russia — and Anguel is what saved us
from becoming completely unhinged in the year to follow.
It took all weekend and then some for him to call back, but
on Tuesday Daniel spoke with Dr. Adesman, about Cyril’s medicals and video,
shortly before leaving to pick me up.
There had been more to review with Cyril’s video than
Anguel’s. Dr. Adesman was a bit disturbed by the medicals, citing “yellow
flags,” particularly the sonogram diagnoses of internal organ problems and
brain damage.
Despite the dubious skills of Russian sonogram technicians, the
pathologies noted were obvious and not likely to be mistakes of an undertrained
reviewer. Nor, he added, was it normal for an infant to receive three sonograms
in less than a year with such unsubtle diagnoses of some problems in the
kidneys.
When Dan had called the previous day to ask what the status of the review was,
in fact, he had assumed that we were planning to turn him down based on the
medicals. That assumption shocked Daniel at first, but Dr. Adesman admitted that
at that point he hadn’t seen the video.
When he did, he said, the baby was very much redeemed by his
video, although he cautioned us, “it is still a bit of a gamble.” We decided to gamble and accept the referral based on that assumption,
although, as per Dr. Adesman’s suggestion, we asked for a copy of the original
sonogram although we were not likely to get it.
We did this verbally.
The next day before I left for work, I sent Denise an email
titled “Back and Rested” I asked her about Cyril’s medicals and Cyril. I
mentioned the fact that Anguel was a go. I
also said that I would be express-mailing her the videotape of referrals that
Mr. Kamenov, the Bulgarian facilitator, had given me prior to my leaving Sofia. I didn’t want other PAPs to go through the agonizing wait
for a child — famous last thoughts before our own wait began in earnest.
I really thought I was doing a good thing for my fellow BBAS clients.
The response Denise sent us is the biggest lie of the many
she told us about Cyril. Here it is
in full, in response to “Back and Rested:”
Thank
you, yes the parents are very excited! Patiently
waiting. BTW, did you get medicals for me too! Thanks
Congrats
on Anguel. What will his name be?
Kirill,
OK the medicals for all the kids from Izhevsk are the SAME! What
does that tell you? Also Izhevsk/Perm
regions is known to have very elaborate medicals.
The judge requires the medicals to have all info possible conditions
the children could ever have and wants the parents to know these kids are very
very bad and we are doing them a favor by taking them.
That is the BOTTOM line! Am
I worried? No! I have seen so
many videos and medical that look nothing a like!
Should you worry? Well that is up to you. Food, love and some medical attention will do him well.
We will never know if he will be a 100% kid.
Not even with our own. I
say if you are into gambling, he is a good one.
I have seen kids who have been really behind and they shoot up fine. So I guess I am saying, I would take any of these kids
knowing that anything could happen.
Gosh,
Hope that all made sense.
Denise
Later
on, she would choke on those words.
That Friday, Oct. 8, Denise called us on the telephone and she and Daniel
discussed the baby’s video and medicals, particularly some of the issues Dr.
Adesman had raised. Denise respectfully dismissed him as being “a little
overcautious,” and made it seem that she was on familiar terms with him
personally, which we now seriously doubt.
She downplayed the significance of
Cyril’s three sonograms, telling Daniel that Emily, her daughter, had had
three CAT scans. “Why?” she
said, “I don’t know, but Emily is fine!”
She also said that the “doubled collecting complex” in
his right kidney was actually quite “normal” for a male infant his age and
that he would grow out of it. She
made mention of the fact that one of her sons had had something similar when he
was born. “If he had all these things, he’d be a goob.”
Even at
the time, it struck us that she was making these complicated medical judgements
— based on a medical terminology and classification system with substantial
differences from that used in the U.S., yet — with such nonchalance.
Now,
we’ll grant her the experience of raising three boys, adopting one daughter
and placing a number of children from Russia in American homes. That’s still
no substitute for the long years in medical school, internship and residency
that pediatricians like Adesman and Aronson have endured so they may
reliably speak on these matters.
So what
credentials can she point to? Our relationship with her never reached the point
where we could have asked her about this, and we doubt she would have been
either truthful or forthcoming, but we were able to find out some details of her
background (such as it is) in this area much later on our own.
She claims, in documents filed with the state of
Ohio, to have studied nursing for a few semesters at Cuyahoga Community
College.
We were able to confirm the attendance there but not the major. In any
event she did not earn a degree, much less certification as a registered nurse.
She
also worked for four years in the early 1990s at Medina General Hospital, as a
"unit coordinator” in a clerical and administrative capacity, per earlier
studies and business aspirations in that area (also without a degree).
You can
pick up some things that way, but as any health professional can tell you,
there’s no substitute for good old practical experience with patients. Which
we doubt she had.
Nevertheless, whenever any medical questions would come up, with our adoption or
any other, Denise Hubbard was Mrs. Instant Expertise.
Another thing stands out about this conversation and
relates to Denise’s continuous storytelling about the children she was referring.
On his medicals, the following information was given about Cyril’s
biological mother: “Mother: 22 years, was register psychiatrist, 3rd
pregnancy, undesirable.”
Now, Daniel and I both knew that a 22-year–old woman was not
a “register psychiatrist,” not even with Russian psychiatric professional standards as
lax as they may have been.
We also knew that
“3rd pregnancy” meant that a few of Cyril’s siblings hadn’t
made it to fruition. Denise jumped
on this “psychiatrist” thing right away.
What she told me was that the woman may have been being
treated for some sort of mental illness. Sometimes,
Denise said, they just put that in the medicals to get the child adopted.
She wove a strange tale, which I did believe at the time, stating that
“sometimes, over there, when a woman screams when she is in labor, they will
label her as psychotic or depressed.” She
went on, “it could be for anything, but she was most likely being treated for
an illness or she just didn’t act the right way when she gave birth.”
Now I take no great pride in knowing that another woman in
this world had to give up her child and be labeled as such. What we were later to find out about Cyril’s biological mother later
made us very suspect about what was really happening in Perm, Russia at the time
— and what wasn’t being told to families adopting in that region.
We did say yes to Cyril, and in order to get things moving
for his final adoption, all of our consent forms had to be signed and sent to
one Dennis Gorontsaev, Denise’s Russian facilitator living in the United
States, care of a woman named “Elena” in Chagrin Falls, another Cleveland
suburb (where, in fact, Daniel had once lived for a few months with some family
friends of ours when he was still working in Ohio and I had moved back to New
York).
Later we learned it was Mr. Gorontsaev who held all the strings and spoke directly with all the
contacts in Russia, in both the Perm/Izhevsk regions and more importantly, in
the Volgograd region. We had never
heard of him before and previous to accepting and faxing our notarized consent
to him, Denise had never mentioned him.
Later on, we were to find out that their relationship was not
the best and Dennis Gorontsaev was a big pain in Denise Hubbard’s side (and,
apparently, vice versa), costing her some business in Russia and many referrals
to clients in the United States.
In continuing on her vein of having us adopt Cyril and
pushing us through the rest of the paperwork maze, Denise sent us the following
email on Oct. 17. Once again, we
have bold faced and italicized the salient points:
The
docs I need for the Russian adoption are the license and the two medical
reports. As for court dates, I believe they will try and get your
adoption done by Dec. If not,
they will in Feb. I will know
more hopefully by the end of next week. I
truly believe that you should get Kirill as soon as they say, you do not want
to risk losing him.
I
will be in D.C. on Mon-Wed. I
will check on Fri. about court dates! Will
let you know. Have a great week!
Denise
Actually, February would have been great for traveling, so we
didn’t want to push too hard and hope for the December date.
We were confident that things were going to work out well for us in
Russia.
At the
end of the month, we had our families over to our house. We showed them Cyril’s video and hit them with the news about
Anguel’s adoption.
My mother broke down in tears. She thought we had lost our minds.
She
said to me “Do you know what you are getting into?
Do you really think you are going to be happy with these two boys?
You’re going to be overwhelmed!”
It was quite the emotional day for all involved, seeing as we had never
told our families about Anguel. All
I did was pop the video of him into the VCR after Cyril and let it roll.
By the way, we don’t recommend doing this to your families. We were just too afraid of what they would think and say if
we told them we were doing two at the same time — from two different
countries.
In the end, however,
everybody would be thankful for Anguel’s arrival and would be anticipating him
just as badly as we would soon be.
Then
the paperwork madness began again in earnest. All for Bulgaria
— the INS, copies of New
York State’s adoption laws, all needed to have notarized, certified and
authenticated and all sorts of other things — much worse than what we had
needed for Russia.
It was also more
expensive. At that time, Bulgarian
documents had to be notarized, certified and then authenticated by the state. After they were authenticated, they were sent to Washington, DC to the
State Department and for $5 a document, were reauthenticated by the federal
government.
Then they were sent on to the Bulgarian embassy for another round of
authentication — $14 a document. Russia’s
documents had only cost $10 for apostilling. This round of documents was much, much more expensive, contrary to what
Denise had previously indicated.