Lessons in Adoption Part 5

Posted On August 7, 2018

We had a long journey home after that last trip to Russia. We were not allowed to go back and see the child after court. We had to fight through flight delays, missed connection flights, and redirected flights. We finally arrived back in Memphis. I’ll be honest, I had no desire to see anybody but my two girls. I knew when we came home that there would be a lot of questions that I could not answer. I wondered what people were thinking. I just knew that people were thinking that I was the biggest idiot they had ever met. I knew they were wondering why I didn’t just lie. Just lie, get the child home and then raise him how you want. That’s easy, right? I asked myself that same question even though I knew the answer.

If you remember in Part 3, I mentioned that I spent hours at the courthouse waiting our turn and praying for God to give the words to say. I prayed that nothing would come out of my mouth that wasn’t from Him. He answered that prayer. He did exactly as I asked. Did I get the outcome that I so desperately desired? Not even close. I was not interested in the eternal well being of that judge, prosecutor, interpreter, or anybody else in that courtroom. I wanted my son. Pure and simple. Was I selfish? Probably so, but I’m just being honest.

I questioned myself a lot the following months. I had a lot of long talks with my wife and parents. I could tell people were uncomfortable around us for a while not knowing what to say. I kept calling our agency asking for any help they could provide. I asked them to contact the judge and try to explain. I requested that they allow me to write a letter and have it delivered to the judge. They wanted no part of us. They removed our agency contact person from our case. The last time I spoke with her, we were both in tears. I could tell from her tone and the things she said, that we were not the most popular family in the agency’s eyes. I believe she legitimately felt bad for us and that the agency was not fulfilling their duties to us. The agency wanted us to drop everything and change countries. They wanted to remove us from any dealings with the Russian government. We were just about to give into their request until I received a phone call.

One day at work I received a phone call. I recognized the number on the phone being from our adoption agency. I was excited thinking they had an update on our situation. What I didn’t expect was who was on the other end of the phone call. It was the owner of the adoption agency. I had never spoken with her. We always had to go through our contact person assigned to us. The resulting phone call was something I can hardly describe. You would think the lady would have been sympathetic to our situation. That was hardly the case. She began to berate me on how my wife and I were basically messing up everyone else’s adoptions. I was told how selfish I was. I was told that we need to get over it. She informed me that she had lost her father and it was a waste of time to be sad because it didn’t change anything. He was still dead. I can’t begin to explain how upset I was. I held my tongue because at that time, I felt that we still needed her. I just took the chewing out and told her I would let them know in a couple days what my wife and I were going to do.

In the meantime, Marcia and I are still fighting through the shock and depression of the things we had gone through. My cousin, Gina, called me one day just to talk. We went back and forth discussing feelings and emotions and then Gina said something that surprised me. She made the remark that what we were going through to her was like losing a child in death. I was surprised to hear her say it. I had been feeling it and had said the same thing to Marcia, but I had never said it to anyone else. Marcia and I had experienced a mis-carriage a few years ago. The feelings I felt were very similar. Gina had lost a baby years ago also. She knew what we were feeling. It really helped a lot for someone outside our situation to be able to relate. I had never compared it to losing a child to anyone because that is such a sensitive topic for people. You never know how people will respond. The conversation was so unexpected but so needed and I am thankful to this day that she called.

After a few months, I received another unexpected call. This time it was from Victoria at New Beginnings Adoption Services. Victoria is a social worker who was responsible for completing the home study portions of our adoption paperwork. She explained that she wasn’t sure whether she should call us due to our circumstances but that she wanted to let us know that New Beginnings was staring a new adoption program in Poland. She was very aware of how our Russian adoption had ended. She said it was no pressure but just wanted us to be aware that they had started it.

Marcia and I were unsure how to take the information at first. We felt that by going with New Beginnings and the Poland program, we were giving up and turning our backs on a little boy in Russia. It was a very hard decision and not one that we were taking lightly.