Russian Boy Is Made at Home : Thanks to an Attorney Colleague of His New Mother, Adoption Begun in St. Petersburg Is Final

Attorney Bonnie Hiler has been in Judge Tully H. Seymour’s courtroom many times before to represent parents in adoption hearings.

But on Wednesday, Hiler and her husband, Rodney, walked into the courtroom for a special appearance of their own, a hearing to make final the adoption of an 8-year-old from St. Petersburg, Russia.

Two officials from Russia, including the director of the orphanage where the shy boy known as Yura Sisov once lived, were on hand for the brief hearing. They watched with pleasure as he became the Hiler’s legal child, happy for his new life, for which he has chosen a new name: Christopher Rodney Hiler.

“We are very happy he is in a good family,” said Eleonora Petrukhina, head of a St. Petersburg government education committee that helps process adoptions. “He’s surrounded with love and care.”

The adoption came through the efforts of Bonnie Hiler’s colleague, attorney Ronald L. Stoddart, who has helped more than 35 families throughout the United States adopt children from St. Petersburg.

When Hiler mentioned to Stoddart one day last year that she and her husband were thinking of adopting a boy, his response was immediate: “I’ve got just the one for you.” The Yorba Linda couple adopted their two young daughters, Noelle and Melody, in the United States and had never dreamed of adopting from abroad. But once they saw pictures and a videotape of Christopher, they knew they had found their son.

“It’s really hard for these older kids,” Bonnie Hiler said. “The older they get, the more unadoptable they’re going to become, in Russia or anywhere.”

While her husband stayed home with their two daughters, Bonnie Hiler traveled to St. Petersburg in late October to meet Christopher, finish the Russian part of the adoption and bring him to his new home.

Since then, the second-grader has been learning English and has spent the summer playing with his sisters and learning to swim, his dimpled cheeks tanned by the sun.

Because only Bonnie Hiler went to Russia, it was necessary for the couple to go through a readoption process in California to secure Christopher’s right to someday become a U.S. citizen. Under U.S. immigration law, both parents are required to be in the child’s native land for the adoption process to eliminate the need for a readoption in the United States, Stoddart said.

Thrilled with the finish of the readoption process Wednesday, Christopher and his family and friends, including a girl from his orphanage who is being adopted by a Mission Viejo family, headed for Disneyland.

“This is just wonderful,” Bonnie Hiler said. “The finalization of an adoption is always a special time.”

Christopher never knew his biological parents in Russia. He was born seven weeks prematurely and spent the first 10 months of his life in a hospital. He spent his early years in what is known in St. Petersburg as a “baby house,” an orphanage for children under the age of 4. He later moved to an orphanage for older children, under the care of director Ludmila Baranova, known as “Mom” to most of the 70 children who live there.

Stoddart’s law office has long specialized in domestic adoptions, but it wasn’t until 1992 and the new open relations with the former Soviet Union that he became involved in international adoptions, specifically in St. Petersburg. He started his work in St. Petersburg at the request of International Christian Adoptions.

Petrukhina was the first official he met in St. Petersburg, and she has since helped complete one adoption in 1992, 20 in 1993 (including one child from Kazakhstan) and 15 so far this year, including four sisters now living in California and a brother and two sisters in Connecticut. The children range in age from 5 months to 13 years.

Families typically select children from photographs and videotape, with accompanying medical and social history, Stoddart said. The total cost of adopting a child from Russia is about $15,000 and the process usually takes six to nine months.

Foreign adoptions, however, remain controversial, and many in Russia would rather see the children stay in their native country no matter what, according to Petrukhina and Baranova.

But Petrukhina and Baranova said their opportunity to witness the good lives being led by the adopted children in the United States should help ensure that such adoptions continue. The two women met with more than 20 children from St. Petersburg orphanages during a reunion last weekend in Rolling Hills, and have learned much about the American adoption system.

“The kids need to have a foundation and this foundation is built in the family,” said Petrukhina, speaking through a translator.

Stoddart said he believes many in Russia will become more open to international adoptions with time and trust. He has helped form a nonprofit group, the Night-light Foundation, to help foster relations with Russia and provide humanitarian and other assistance to orphanages and shelters for homeless children in that country.

“The fact that we’re going to be long-term partners in this has helped a lot,” Stoddart said. “It just takes time.”