My husband and I (John Heineman and I am Holly Hubbard) have discussed for a few years now the possibility of adoption. We believed, if and when the time was right that we would know. How we would know we weren’t sure, we believed we would get some sort of "sign".
I teach parenting classes and work with abusive families. After teaching a class at our church in the spring of 1999 a parent by the name of Jane approached me after class on the last night. She was hesitant but finally said "for some reason I feel a need to tell you about my daughter . . ." and she went on to tell me she and her husband adopted a little girl from China three years earlier. She told me about the experience and thought perhaps I would be interested in adoption also. Now she did not know this but I had seen her and her husband in church with their baby and watched them with the child as she was growing up. They were a family in love and I always wanted to talk to them as it was obvious this was an adopted child.
These Caucasian parents with an Asian baby were "noticeable". We belong to a Catholic church so there are a lot of people and most of the people you never really get to talk to at church. Anyway, I thanked her and said I would think about this. In 24 hours my husband and I talked and made a decision to adopt! We knew it might be difficult. We were in our late 40’s and had multiple previous marriages/divorces between us (John and I were high school sweethearts reunited 25 years later to fall in love again and marry). It took us a few months to research and figure out that we could adopt internationally and we eventually teamed up with an agency in Texas. From September to January 1999 we filled out papers and generally did all the hundred and one things we had to do in order to send a dossier to China. By January 28, 2000 our dossier was registered in China and the long wait to get a referral began.
In March I located a magazine on the internet called Rainbow Kids and saw a "kids available for adoption" section that had pictures of toddler Asian girls which was our preference. I contacted an agency who was listed in this section and I was excited to learn that we could adopt in just a couple of months from the country of Kazakhstan if we were "paper-ready", and we could pick our own child by video! We expressed to the agency our desire for a gentle child and the very first video we received a few days later was the perfect child! We immediately started working on completing the process necessary to travel to Kazakhstan as soon as possible. In April we accepted this referred child and we were on the way to Kazakhstan on July 2.
The trip to Kazakhstan was a long one. It took approximately 20 hours after leaving our hometown of Atlanta and a stop in Frankfurt before arriving in Almaty, Kazakhstan. We were met by a wonderful mother/daughter team from "Amrex" and they were the interpreter and facilitator for our adoption. Additionally we were greeted by our driver Sasha who was a gem! So, ~ Yelena (mother), Natasha (daughter) and Sasha were our lifelines in Kazakhstan for the next three weeks. We were tired but excited about our arrival into a country we had not even heard of three months earlier! We were to visit the orphanage twice a day for two hours each time to spend time with "Noelle" (Alma was her given name). We went to the orphanage on July 24th for the first time. Our hearts were pounding. Upon entering the orphanage we noticed two other American couples visiting babies out on the grounds. We were asked into the Director’s office and within minutes Noelle was carried into us. She was shy and refused to come to us until twenty minutes later and with the bribery of lots of cookies. She cried a little and was withdrawn and obviously insecure. She wouldn’t have eye contact at all with John but at least I was able to touch her, smell her and kiss her cheek. We tried not to cry. Everyday we went to the orphanage and Noelle would cry for the first five minutes after she was brought to us. By the fourth day John was frustrated so he just went over and picked her up because until then she wanted nothing to do with him. This went on for eleven days. We would bring gifts, toys and snacks. We would walk and talk and play with her. The bonding had begun but it was a very slow process. Finally on the twelfth day she stopped crying! She wanted us! It was fantastic.
All the while our interpreter stayed close by. The Kazakh caretakers would scold us occasionally for giving Noelle "treats" but generally they tried to help us. On the fifteenth day we went to court and the process was complete. We brought cakes to the orphanage and picked up our daughter to come back to the hotel with us. During the next five days we processed her passport, visa, etc.
We had difficulty getting information about adoptions in Kazakhstan (only 100 or so adoptions ever occurred before ours) so we decided to spend our free time between visits to the orphanage to research hotels, orphanages, shopping, etc. for future travelers. Providing information back to the states via e-mail also kept us busy in the evening. We also had time to go to Central Park, an amusement park, the mountains, the zoo, a circus and many drives through the city visiting historical sites. We even went to the hospital Noelle was born at but were unable to find out the time of day she was born. We videotaped everything. Hopefully we will be able to post much of this information on the internet for other prospective adopters.
It was also very difficult to adjust to the intense heat (100+ every day and no air conditioning anywhere) and there were no cold drinks available. The food was much different than ours and we did not care for a lot of it. I guess we are not very good "international" travelers but all-in-all the trip went well. The exception to this would be that while we were there Kazakhstan decided to stop all adoptions until they reviewed some policies. Kazakhstan people are very much against foreigners adopting their children. Unemployment is at 50% and they can’t afford to adopt these children but they don’t want the children to leave the county either. The political battle was difficult to be in the middle of but most people were kind and respectful of us.
We left Kazakhstan for Moscow on July 24th, Noelle had a physical (healthy!) and completed her travel papers at the U.S. Embassy. We arrived home on July 26th. It was a great day!
Since then Noelle has adjusted very well. She is speaking English "baby talk" instead of Russian and she wants to be hugged, held and loved all the time.