Chapter
Three:
Summer 1999: Some Hints and Clues
“All
along there were incidents and accidents
There
were hints and allegations”
-
Paul Simon
Although Denise did offer to help us redo the home study, it took a real effort
on our parts to get the home study redone on agency letterhead. I had to contact Family
Focus down in Little Neck and have the home study re-done to BBAS’ specifications.
This would cost us an extra $450. Our INS
I-600A application was completed on June 9, but the redone homestudy didn’t
cross our mailbox until June 20.
So, I stayed on the Internet looking for support on various websites. FRUA, Fertilethoughts
and adoption.com being my favorites.
I found so much useful information about adopting from Russia, from the
paperwork, INS and travel and health and medical conditions, it was a blessing
to me — and everyone else adopting. Truly,
the Internet was beginning to unite adoptive parents in ways we hadn’t dreamed
of before.
Little did I know that Denise patrolled the Internet like a bee, as do many
other agencies’ personnel. I had
failed to take in one bit of advice: just because it’s on the Internet
doesn’t mean that people are all sincere.
But I would learn very quickly.
On June 15 I responded to a post asking about EAC on the adoption.com
bulletin board.
The
poster was asking about EAC and its process. I chimed in “The director of my agency lost $8,000 to
EAC. I wouldn’t recommend them.”
Here
I was quoting something without knowledge or fact that it was indeed truthful
information; why would my agency director have lied to me about such a thing?
Immediately I received the following email from Denise:
Elizabeth:
I
was advised by several people, including my atty. that you posted on board
about me losing money to EAC. The
problem is, because we are still in litigation I cannot publicly announce
this to the world. I hope you
understand. If anyone e-mails
you about this response you cannot tell them it was me or the agency.
I could lose the litigation and I seriously need my money back.
I hope you understand and I know you did it in all good intentions.
If
you can please ask the board to remove that remark.
If you want to post that you know of someone who lost $$ or something
like that that would be OK. Sorry.
I
hope that I did not upset you.
Denise
Unfortunately, the person who posted, a “Mark” had already
emailed me
privately and told me point-blank that he didn’t know how somebody could have
lost that kind of money to EAC; he had received their literature and found that
all funds, save for $600 were indeed refundable.
I don’t know how true that is, but it should have sent some signals to
me.
I emailed Denise back saying how ashamed I was. I also
emailed the board director of the adoption.com boards to have my
post removed; I said to him that my agency’s director was ready to skewer me
— and I didn’t blame her for that. I
forwarded on to Denise my note to the board director and his response that the
post had indeed come down.
In response, Denise sent me the following email on June 16:
Thank you not a
problem. I really should not have said anything? It was my fault I try to be vague and at times I get so
bitter.
All
is fine, really! Thank you!
Denise
She is right. She
shouldn’t have said anything.
We
printed these exchanges out and when the stuff hit the fan in early 2000, we
contacted Medina County Court of Common Pleas and asked them if there were any
court cases pending or completed with respect to European Adoption Consultants,
Margaret Cole, Denise Hubbard, Mr. Hubbard or Building Blocks Adoption Agency.
The answer was a no. Same answer when we contacted the courts in
neighboring Cuyahoga County, where EAC is based.
We found that odd, even at that time. So, on a whim I called EAC myself in March 2000 and spoke to a woman
there asking about attorneys.
She
asked why. I stated what Denise had told me from those emails and our
conversation. The woman stuttered:
“That is not true. There is no
such litigation pending with EAC. Why
is an agency telling you this?”
I
explained the situation. She went
on, “I will have Margaret Cole [EAC's founder and director] contact you.” Margaret Cole never contacted us, but we
mailed her the above emails much later, after our experience with BBAS was
behind us.
In the
ensuing years, we thought Margaret Cole and EAC had ignored what we had sent
them – and what we state here. We were wrong.
In May
2004, we received a startling email from an EAC employee who had been given our
URL by almost-clients of BBAS. These people nearly signed on for a Guatemalan
adoption, but were dissuaded from using the agency when they were contacted by a
BBAS burned Guatemalan client. They went with EAC instead. They explained to
their EAC caseworker why they were not using BBAS, and sent along a link to this
website.
The EAC
employee emailed us on May 19, 2004 when she received the URL. We were delighted
to hear from her (by this point, of course, we had gotten
the real story of Emily’s adoption). She shed light on a few issues, and boy, did we feel
vindicated.
Never in a million
years could I imagine anyone doing the things Denise Hubbard appears to
have done. (It is funny to see how the "story" of EAC plays out through
your research proving that EAC had nothing to do with her ...trust me, we
looked through all of our oldest files when we first heard about this
claim in 1999 to find her or her family and we never did! I always
wondered where she came up with the story though...now I know!)
Daniel
emailed the woman back. In her response she filled in the blanks about EAC and
how they felt about BBAS and Denise’s disinformation tactics:
I stayed up until 1am reading your sight and only read probably 10%. (I
actually gave your home page to Margaret Cole yesterday and she was
shocked!) It is amazing to see how people will take advantage of others
during a time when adoptive parents desire a child so very badly. In my 7
years at EAC, I have heard horrible stories of bad experiences with
agencies (and I am sure they may be some out there about EAC), but NEVER
has anything come close to your story or the information you have on the
site.
We had heard the "Denise/EAC" story in 1999 through the grapevine (Denise
seems to enjoy the re-telling of this story because we have heard it
several times since). We searched through all of our past clients using
various spellings of her name. We never came up with anything (and anyone
who has paid fees, MUST have a file due to licensing. We never found
anything and just chalked it up to one of the "Attack EAC" days. It is
really funny to hear how the whole story actually plays out and how we
were never a part of it but in order to cover over her part in the whole
thing, she threw us in cause it would make a great story and deter people
from signing up with us. Interesting marketing tactics.
Again, you all have done a very great thing by informing others so that
they can make a decision based on the FACTS!
We were
elated to read this after all these years of speculation.
***
Returning to 1999, while waiting for our
updated homestudy, we received an exciting message from Denise, that she had a
possible referral for the baby boy in the Vladivostok region of Russia. She asked if we minded traveling to Vladivostok, and that we
could “travel with other BB families.”
My response was we would travel to
hell and back to adopt our child. No
more prophetic words were ever written by me.
Unfortunately, we were unable to do anything about the referral because of the
homestudy. Family Focus had yet to
finish our update, even though our INS approval had arrived. We lost out on the baby boy from Vladivostok.
Later on, in a BBAS Electronic Newsletter from later on that
summer, we were to read about the “A B C Families” who were all traveling to
adopt children from Vladivostok.
I
still remember their names — the Axe, the Bailey and the Conrad families. One of them adopted a
baby boy. The homestudy delay cost
us a referral, $450 and more than Denise Hubbard or ourselves would ever have
anticipated.
While on the Internet, I was very vocal in my support of BBAS and
their programs – blissfully. I
hadn’t learned the advice I now give: don’t tout your agency until after
your child is safe and sound at home.
On July 11, I received the following email inquiring about BBAS from a
Susan and Rob Corrigan. They later
became a great source of help and of information for us as
the relationship with BBAS became unbearable. It all began thus:
Hi,
we are gathering information for an international adoption.
We are seriously considering Building Blocks for a Russian or
Bulgarian adoption. We would
very much appreciate your opinion regarding this matter.
Thanks, Sue and Rob Corrigan.
Of course we sent them a glowing
recommendation, talking of how helpful and informative
Denise was; how prompt and caring she was in her responses to her clients; how
she really cared about the kids and didn’t do the bribery thing in Russia. My response and a few other glowing responses are what prompted Sue and
Rob to go with BBAS.
Dear
Elizabeth and Daniel, thanks for the thoughtful and informative response.
We have sent money to all that have asked so far…and are excited to
have finally made a decision and a commitment.
We have been researching for about 1.5 years … and glad to be moving in
a really positive direction. It is
a lot of work to sort thru all the agencies and felt very comfortable about BBAS.
I needed a bit more confirmation that BBAS was as good as it seemed.
Your response really helped….I will keep your phone number just in case
– I really appreciate your help. And
if you would like – let us know how things go – it’s a wonderful time for
you! Best wishes, Sue and Rob
We were to definitely let the Corrigan family know how
things were going to go. Today I
cringe when I read the above email, for little did I know then I had set them
up for a nasty ride on the BBAS adoption option train.
That summer I was also acquainted with two other BBAS
clients online: a couple from Long Island named Christy and John Romano who were
still waiting for their INS approval, and another couple named Ashley and John
Ellington who had been instrumental in getting together a formula drive for some
of the orphanages in Russia.
We
were all in the “waiting stage” and all of us were happy that we had chosen
BBAS. The Romanos sang Denise’s praises and told me that they were going to be
in BBAS Moscow program which Denise said was opening up. They hoped to see us at the newly-founded BBAS annual picnic to be held
in July.
We and the Ellingtons would continue to correspond for a
while. It was through them we would find out more of what happened in Perm in
early 2000.
In June 1999 the “BBAS Electronic Newsletter”
informed us BBAS clients about BBAS new Bulgarian adoption program.
A Bulgarian adoption, the newsletter said, could be “completed in three
to four months” and would not require that much of a paperwork change.
They had many waiting children from Bulgaria to be placed — all over a
year old, per Bulgaria’s adoption laws.
Two
trips would be required — one to view the child and another to pick the child
up. Contact the office if
interested.
This same newsletter informed the clients that Cindy
Courtright, the woman who I had spoken with on the telephone with the
“testosterone household” was now writing the newsletters for Denise and
working with her. She did a
wonderful job in writing the newsletters and adding a personal touch for us
waiting families and keeping us informed about which families were adopting
which children and from what countries. Through
this newsletter, clients were informed that Wendy Stamper was also involved in
the agency and would be helping Denise out with the paperwork end of things for
clients.
I continued on with my re-learning Russian with the help
(yes, this is a commercial plug here)
of The Rosetta Stone language program. It
was an excellent CD-ROM program for the computer and I learned a lot from it.
In fact, I learned more by studying Russian with the help of that one computer
program than I did in four years of college and living in Moscow for the summer
of 1990.
On top of that, I took the time out to familiarize myself
once again with Russian grammar and how the written language worked. This was one of the smartest things I did waiting for Cyril. Learning his country’s native language all over again was one way of
“connecting” to the child who would be ours.
We were informed via email on July 19 that our dossier was now in Perm, Russia.
I emailed everybody and anybody about this we were so excited.
A family friend even mailed us a map of where Perm was located in Russia
– right near the Ural Mountains and not so far away from
Yekaterinburg.
It was like we were
hitting our third trimester and could feel the baby finally kicking us from the
inside. Our son — whoever he may
be.
Before
we went over to Russia, one of Dan’s hiking buddies said the name Perm
reminded him of something, but he couldn’t put his finger on what.
It was
only afterwards, when the worst had happened, that he did remember. And it was
another sad addition to the foreshadowings we have documented elsewhere.
He
recalled reading in a
book by John McPhee about how, one day in the late 19th century, a British
zoologist had climbed high in the Urals to the east of the city and found in the
rocks above treeline fossils previously unknown to science.
From
this he and other scientists deduced the occurrence of the Permian Extinction,
the largest ever in history. Something we
should have taken note of, one in a list of many bad omens about Cyril’s
adoption and its horrible outcome.
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