Our Adoption Process

Nancy and I came to our decision to adopt in the spring of 2001 and began looking at the adoption agencies in our local area. We attended some information sessions and decided to go with The Family and Children's Agency located in Hartford, CT. We liked their programs, and more importantly, some friends of ours had good experience with them.

Later that summer, after having made our decisions on which agency to use, we began accumulating the information required for the application. We each had to get physicals, six letters of reference, letters from insurance providers, statements of employment from the companies we work for, and some other official documents. There is also quite a bit of financial information that has to be supplied. Perhaps the most difficult item to produce was a biography describing Nancy and I individually and as a couple. This took quite a while to write and involved a lot of "pouring out" of our souls to build this document. Once all the materials were gathered and written, our application was submitted on September 4.

After a short delay, we were assigned a social worker from the Agency and began the "Home Study". The Home Study is not actually a study of your home, but rather an evaluation of you as potential parents and an education as to what it means to be an adoptive parent. There were two one-on-one sessions with our social worker where we went over information provided in our biographies, and a "Crash Course" where we learned more about what we would encounter as adoptive parents and what the child would go through and feel.

We completed the home study in early December and found out almost right away that there would be a child for us from Birobidzhan. As you can imagine, Nancy and I were quite surprised and excited to find out so quickly. It was at this point that Nancy and I learned that two trips would be required due to recent changes in the process in Russia. The next step was to get an invitation from the Ministry of Education in Birobidzhan so that we could get see the child and officially accept the referral. We expected to get a travel date for some time in January, but unfortunately the date we got was for March 7, 2002. The time really seemed to pass slowly!

During our first trip we got to see the Child, Svetlana, who would later become our little Julia Svetlana. We were given a review of Svetlana's medical history and what little was known of her mother. No information was available regarding her father. Needless to say, we fell in love instantly and accepted the referral. Our trip was seven days long and we spent two and a half days in Birobidzhan. It took two days to get there and two days to get home. Its a long way!

Before making our first trip, we were unsure of how long it would be before we were able to return back to bring our child home with us. We had heard times ranging from 5 weeks to four months. Before we left Birobidzhan, we were delighted to learn that our second trip had already been scheduled and we were to come back in about 8 weeks, on May 6 (the day after Julie's first birthday) with a court date of May 8. Leaving town without have Julie with us was difficult, but it was made much easier by knowing how soon we would be coming back.

We returned to Birobidzhan on May 6 and had the court hearing on May 8. Fortunately, the 10 day waiting requirement was waved in favor of getting Julie integrated into our family as quickly as possible.

We arrived back home on May 18, 2002!

All of the travel arrangements were made through All-Ways International. In addition to ticketing and transfers, they also set us up with a translator and driver as well as made arrangements for us to stay with our host family. We were provided a driver and translator during our long layovers in Moscow and this allowed us to see some sights.

Our translator in Birobidzhan, Dennis, was really great. His English was so good, at first we weren't sure he was from Russia! During our second trip, Dennis was also our driver. Having a good translator made us feel very comfortable and made the whole process move more smoothly. Dennis attended Clemson for undergraduate studies and has recently returned to the U.S. to get an advanced degree. We wish him all the luck in the world.

The adoption coordinator in Birobidzhan is a truly amazing person named Tatiana. She has the kind of personality that makes you feel good just to be around her. She is extremely hard working, and coordinates adoptions in addition to her full time job. She is also very educated, qualifying as both a doctor and a lawyer! We were grateful to have someone like her helping us through the process.

Our Stay in Birobidzhan

While we were in Birobidzhan we stayed with a local host family, a wonderful woman named Galina and her mother. They have a very nice apartment in the building in this picture. The inside of the apartment was spotlessly clean and nicely furnished. We had our own bedroom and shared a new and modern bathroom with the family. There was a separate dining and sitting room where we were served meals. Galina did not speak much English, but really went out of her way to make sure we were comfortable and had everything we needed during our stay. She even baked us a cake to help us celebrate the day of the court hearing.

All of our meals were prepared by Galina and consisted of typical Russian dishes. Special attention was paid to the fact that our stomachs were not used to food in Russia, and Galina went to extra effort to make sure everything was nice and fresh. As is typical of Russian hospitality, at nearly every meal we were given much more food than we could eat comfortably. Here are some of the things we ate:

Breakfast usually consisted of two or three items such as a warm rice cereal in milk, Blinchiki (like pancakes) with jam, home made jelly doughnuts, yogurt and hard boiled eggs. Sometimes Galina also served sausages which tasted quite a bit like American hot dogs.

Lunch was the biggest meal of the day and was always some kind of salad, soup, and a main course. Often the soup was chicken based with cabbage, rice, noodles and carrots. A number of times, dill pickles were added to the soup. The main course varied from fried chicken and mashed potatoes, to beef in a red sauce, to cabbage rolls.

Dinner is a smaller meal, but still substantial. Our favorite was pilmini, a kind of dumpling stuffed with meat and served in chicken broth. Other meals included fried potatoes with a fried egg on top, fried chicken with potatoes, cabbage rolls, and beef in a red stew.

Bottled water, tea, and instant coffee were provided with all meals. Bottled water is readily available in stores and we purchased some to keep in our room and to brush our teeth.

The food was heavier and the portions larger than we are used to eating, but everything was delicious.

Tip: There wasn't much fiber in the food, so you may want to bring along a little supplement.

You will find that there is a lot of time to kill in the evenings. The first couple of nights, this wasn't a problem because we were still adjusting to the 15 hour time difference and barely stayed awake through dinner. But, as our schedules adjusted, we had to find ways to pass the time. As I mentioned earlier, one nice relaxing activity is to take a walk along the river. We also brought books and playing cards. Our translator was really great and brought us English videos from the local university, and we watched them on the TV/VCR in our room. If you are going to travel to Russia in this manner, you might want to consider bringing along your own tapes. Before our trip, we were a little hesitant about staying with a host family and unsure about what to expect, but Galina made our stay very comfortable and enjoyable.