Chapter
Twenty-Eight
No Closure
It is here that our Russian and Bulgarian adoption travails overlap. This can become confusing.
For clarity’s sake, this chapter will focus on the continuing back-and-forth between ourselves and BBAS with regard to obtaining Cyril’s autopsy report and death certificate. These events took place from from December 1999 through February 2000. Other events, to be dealt with in the next few chapters, were also taking place during the same time.
We told others what had happened. We told the
Whitwells what had happened. We told Sue and Rob Corrigan what had happened.
We told Lori Homeyer what had happened.
They were all sad and shocked.
For a while, we attempted to keep things on an even keel with respect to the refund. We first told BBAS we did not want to discuss the refund until Anguel was home. We believed it wouldn’t be too much longer.
I spoke with Denise on the telephone, right after her return from Bulgaria in December. She said she didn’t know how much the refund was going to be, but that in order to get it, we were going to have to sign a release for it.
This didn’t sound good, but we played it cool.
I asked her if we could get the $5,000 tax credit for Cyril, and she said go for it (although we hadn’t quite met the IRS’s standards of a successful adoption as Cyril had never come to the U.S.).
She then went off on a tangent about how healthy Anguel was and what size clothing he was going to be wearing — “A 2T! He’ll easily fit into a 2T!” she gushed. It didn’t make me feel any better to know what size he was wearing.
During this same time, Daniel was also speaking to Wendy Stamper about the autopsy report. Wendy was more honest than Denise, or at least too naïve to lie, and for that we gave her a little credit.
We believed we were in a precarious position with respect to Anguel’s adoption. We tried at first to play along with Denise and BBAS rules. Denise told me in the same conversation that a “traveling family” had told Valerie Kamenov, the Bulgarian facilitator, about Cyril.
Again, how stupid did she think we were? The only “traveling family” that we had been in contact with since coming home were Sue and Rob Corrigan, but they hadn’t known anything prior to their traveling to Bulgaria. And why would a traveling family say this to Valeri Kamenov about us?
Then Wendy, in another conversation with Daniel a few days later, told him Denise had informed the Bulgarian reps of what happened to us in Russia, during her Christmas trip, so that they might make things run more smoothly for us over there.
Why the reps in Bulgaria had been informed of anything, I had no clue. I had thought it had been agreed upon between BBAS and us that the Bulgarian adoption and Russian adoption were entirely separate issues.
Why had Denise bothered telling us this lie?
What purpose did this serve?
Wendy also informed Daniel the BBAS offices were going to be moving in the
near future. What she didn’t let on about this
was that Denise and her husband had purchased some land and were going to
be building a new home that spring.
The last thing we were going to pursue was our refund. As I said, I had been speaking regularly with Linda Wright.
Linda decided to adopt from Guatemala. She was going to take the refund route for she needed the money for that adoption. She said to me “You know, I got back from Russia and I just had all this — stuff! The car seat, crib, a nursery and I still want to be a mother to a baby girl.”
I understood completely. She
also said that this time around, it was health that mattered.
Linda researched Guatemalan adoption agencies far more carefully than she Russian agencies. She shopped around during January, and used every bit of business acumen she had obtained from all her years in the business world for her Guatemalan adoption. All her pertinent documents were changed and her I-600A now stated “Guatemala City.”
During her research, and speaking with many people at various agencies, she found that the adoption industry was cutthroat.
Agencies she spoke to told her off-the-record
that it was a very dog-eat-dog business and referrals were often “stolen”
between facilitators and attorneys.
She contacted an attorney named Clifford Phillips who ran a
foster care home in Guatemala called Casa
Quivira, a place where newborn babies who had been
relinquished by their biological mothers would find a warm crib and attentive
caregivers. It was well-staffed,
clean and the babies were fed, clothed and given adequate love and attention.
After hearing of Linda’s ordeal in Perm, Mr. Phillips suggested that she take a trip down to Antigua, Guatemala, to see Casa Quivira for herself.
She agreed, and on Feb. 13, she and a friend boarded a plane for the sun-soaked beaches of Guatemala.
Mr.
Phillips made all the arrangements. On
Feb. 14, upon her arrival at Casa Quivira, Linda was presented with the baby
girl who would ultimately become her daughter.
The baby presented to her was on target developmentally, healthy, vivacious and had a winning smile — even at four months of age.
After the paperwork was fully completed (including the DNA test that the Guatemalan government requires for all adoptions, in order to confirm that the woman presented as the child’s birthmother really is), Linda traveled again to Guatemala in May, and on May 16, she returned to the United States with her new daughter.
Quick,
painless and relatively easy.
The one conversation with Denise I had during this time period was interesting . Linda Wright and I decided we would not inform the agency of our continuing correspondence, playing ignorant of one another’s motives.
If Denise believed Linda and I did not speak, she was truly a fool. However, Linda
needed the BBAS refund in order to complete her Guatemalan
adoption. She wanted money back.
When I spoke to Denise this particular day, I decided to play dumb. This resulted in another misrepresentation.
I asked Denise ignorantly, “Hey, how is Linda Wright doing?” Denise kept rolling pleasantly along. “Linda
is great! As a matter of fact,
she’s adopting from our Bulgarian program!”
If I hadn’t have known Linda was pursuing a Guatemalan adoption, I might have actually believed Denise.
I rolled my eyes and played along with a smile on my face. To hear Denise saying Linda would still work with BBAS for the adoption of a Bulgarian child was amusing.
Linda
wanted an infant, not a toddler! And
she would sooner have gone back to Russia than to ever have dealt with
Denise Hubbard again.
In early February, we received the following “tax refund information” from
BBAS to give to our accountant, signed by Sandy A. Harding, Office Manager. Note the “Being refunded per IACS” and the “Waived” Bulgarian
adoption application fee.