Adoption Dreams Come True in Russia

Like many parents-to-be, Joan and John Welborn of Oxnard were excited about the arrival of their first child, but terrified about the delivery.

As much as they planned and prepared for the big day, the couple worried there would be complications. As luck would have it, the delivery was smooth and rather painless, although it took longer than most--two and a half weeks, to be exact.

That’s because the Welborns’ daughter, Katya, 2 1/2, came by way of an adoption agency all the way from Russia.

“It was a big ordeal, but she’s an extremely wonderful kid,” said Joan Welborn, 35, an emergency room nurse at St. John’s Regional Medical Center. “It’s all been worth it.”

John Welborn, 37, who also works at St. John’s as a medical technician, said Katya has changed their lives. “I still wake up in the mornings and I say, ‘I can’t believe this is my kid.’ ”

The Welborns are an example of a small but growing number of American couples who are looking to the former Soviet Union to make their adoption dreams come true. Since the collapse of Communism and the shutdown of foreign adoptions from Romania, Russia has emerged as the newest hot spot on the international adoption scene.

Morgan Bates, founder and executive director of Children of Light, a Mill Valley, Calif.-based group that helps arrange foreign adoptions, said that, “until February of this year, there had probably been only 60 adoptions from Russia.”

Adoptions from Russia began in June, 1991, and in recent months “there have probably been 60 per month,” she said.

Bates, whose organization finds Russian children for nine licensed adoption agencies throughout the country, describes the situation as a “mild frenzy.”

“The word is starting to get out and people want to get in before it becomes another Romania,” she said.

In 1991, Americans adopted 2,287 children from Romania, more than from any other country, after seeing media reports of needy children in Romanian orphanages. But that practice ended abruptly in July of that year after widespread reports of black market baby-selling forced the country to halt all foreign adoptions.

As a result, child-finding sources like Children of Light and many adoption agencies were suddenly left empty-handed and prospective adoptive parents were left without children.

About the same time that Romania was shutting its doors, Russia began efforts to loosen its adoption restrictions. Bates said the changes in Russia offered new hope for many of the couples who had been denied Romanian children.

The Welborns were one of those couples.

In 1991, after completing most of the necessary paperwork, they learned Romania had shut down. Next, the Welborns attempted to adopt from Moldavia (now Moldova) but after flying all the way to Bucharest before heading to Moldavia, they learned that because of political unrest, Moldavia too had shut down.

Heartbroken, the couple returned home to Oxnard. But Bates told them not to be discouraged because she was planning a trip to Russia, and hoped to have good news for them in a couple of months.

Two months later, Bates returned with a picture of Katya, whose unwed mother had decided to give her up for adoption.

After seeing the picture and reading the girl’s history, the Welborns decided to give foreign adoption another shot. Once the couple’s Immigration and Naturalization Service paperwork had been renewed, John Welborn was on a plane to Moscow. From there he made the 10-hour train trip to Katya’s orphanage in Minsk, where he arrived on Father’s Day last June.

When he walked into the orphanage, Welborn recalled all the kids in the playroom stopped what they were doing, ran over and hugged me and said, ‘Papa. Papa. Up, up,’ ” asking to be picked up.

Katya was the only child who didn’t run to him. Instead, she sat in a corner intently eating a banana. Welborn said it took a couple of days before the two hit it off, but after that they were inseparable.

Within two weeks, Welborn was back on a plane headed for Los Angeles, with his new little daughter in his arms.

Since May, Children of Light has arranged at least 34 other adoptions nationwide, averaging four to six adoptions a month.

Many larger licensed adoption agencies such as Cradle of Hope in Washington have already established resources in Russia. In November of 1991, Cradle of Hope brought its first child from Russia. Since then, they have arranged about 100 adoptions, according to Mary Essley, the agency’s director of social services.

And there is no shortage of children. Officials estimate that in Russia alone there are between 300,000 and 400,000 children living in orphanages.

Unlike Romanian orphans, many of whom had been neglected or mistreated, the children in Russian orphanages tend to be well cared for, Essley said. “Parents are usually surprised at how nice the orphanages in Russia are,” she said. “They are usually very clean and bright and the children are well-fed.”

Still, why would Americans flock to Russia to adopt when there are an estimated 430,000 children in foster homes right here in the United States?

For one thing, the statistics are misleading. Of those 430,000 American foster children, only about 36,000 are actually adoptable, said Mary Beth Seader, vice president of public policy and professional practice for the National Council on Adoption in Washington. In the remaining cases, parents have never officially given up custody of the child, she said.

“It’s difficult to adopt in the United States if you’re not prepared to wait about six years,” Essley said. “There are not as many children that need placement, and the ones that do usually have severe handicaps, have been in some way abused or have been bounced around from one foster home to another.”

International adoption is expensive. Adopting a child from Russia, for example, costs between $10,000 and $15,000, officials at adoption agencies said.

In addition, “adopting internationally requires patience and flexibility,” said Renee Posin, program manager at Adoption Services International in Ventura. The agency has overseen the placement of two Russian children in Ventura County and one in Santa Barbara and is in the planning stages with half a dozen more, Posin said.

International adoption can take anywhere from six months to one year depending on how aggressive the adoptive parents are and what type of a child they are looking for, adoption officials said.

For two of the three Russian children Posin’s agency helped place, one set of parents had been turned away by both Africa and Brazil before trying Russia. In the second case, the parents had gone so far as to buy their plane tickets to Romania before being turned down.

No matter which country a couple is adopting from, most agencies recommend, and in some cases require, post-placement services for the family to help them through the period of adjustment. The Welborns have completed two of four required counseling sessions.

Susan Cox, director of development for Eugene, Ore.-based Holt International, the largest international adoption agency in the country, said that although Russian children “tend to be well cared for, being in an institution is not like being in a family and there are going to be issues to deal with.”

The most important thing is to give priority to the child’s ethnicity, Cox said. “We try and make families understand they are not just adopting a child, but another country and culture as well,” she said.

While adoption of Russian children is definitely on the rise, there is disagreement about the future.

Posin predicts that Russian adoptions will continue to increase but that it will never become the booming market for babies that Romania once was.

“For one thing,” Posin said, “they have learned from Romania’s mistakes. Secondly, abortion in Russia is quite prevalent, so there simply isn’t a huge number of babies available.”

Essley of Cradle of Hope said the future of Russian adoptions is uncertain. “There have already been rumors that they’re going to shut down,” she said. “We just try and take it one day at a time.”

Because of the volatility of the foreign adoption market, the Welborns plan to begin procedures soon to adopt another Russian child.

In the meantime, the couple is savoring the thrill of new parenthood, and Katya is adjusting well. They take her to preschool in the morning and swimming every afternoon.

“People ask if you could love this child as much as your natural child,” John Welborn said.

“There’s no difference, there’s no doubt. I think there’s a stronger tie between us and our daughter, because it took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get through this thing.”