Happiness, Gratitude, Relief

Our little girl, Ilka Elena, adopted at just under six months last July, had her first birthday last week. We didn't have a big party, just immediate family and my parents. I don't suppose a one year old really understands much about birthdays, and gifts were certainly not needed so close to Christmas but we did have a homemade cake with a big red candle.

Sitting in the dining room with the cake, we couldn't help smiling as Ilka kept toddling through, waving as she passed by on her circuits around the first floor of our house. A great imitator, when she saw her brother puffing at the candle, she tried her best to blow it out too. As I watched, my feelings, probably predictably enough, were happiness, gratitude, and relief.

Then I noticed my father who, at 80 and after a prostate cancer scare, lapses easily into the maudlin, crying. "What's the matter Dad?" I said sharply. He gasped out something like "Oh, she's so beautiful, you're so lucky... such good parents... but I feel so sorry - (unintelligible) - the other side! The other side!" There he goes relating everything back to himself again, talking about his death again, I thought, him being on "the other side" dead while we raise the family, I wish he'd stop that. A "knock it off" sort of reply to him flashed through my head, but I quashed it and felt good I did. I swear I've become more serene... well, less snappy... since adopting.

Happiness, gratitude and relief are feelings that find you, sometimes long after, the time that you rightly made some sort of critical decision. The kind that you don't fully appreciate at the time how important it was. In our case, it was the decision to adopt late in 1999. Our son was almost three. More to the point, it had been a full year of grieving since the child after our son, a daughter, died within me when I was 7 1/2 months pregnant. After that, I finally "got over" enough fear (from ignorance or egocentric selfishness, mostly, I've since thought) and condescension ("oh, that's so nice of you to adopt someone else's mistake, but not for me," same reason, I'm ashamed to admit), about adoption to realize it was an answer. We wanted a child to love and become part of our family. It didn't have to be, it couldn't be, (but finally that didn't so important) our immediate genetic derivation.

We wanted a person. OK, we wanted a small baby person, reasonably healthy, and a girl if you please, and quickly! But the important thing was we realized the possibility of bringing any child home was a gift and an opportunity of parenthood, just as our son had been.

We were lucky. We started homestudy and INS application in Dec. '99, completed our dossier, with INS approval, by March, and received the referral. We adopted about a week after sending our dossier to the agency we chose. We traveled the day the baby was eligible to be "met" for foreign adoption, and returned to Russia two weeks later, July 5, to complete the adoption. We met kind and generous people, we did sightseeing, and we brought home a super, lovable, happy infant girl. Nothing was delayed, everything went like clockwork. There's not a day at home since that we haven't been happy with our decision.

And was it just a coincidence that we had a small pink granite marker with the name "Ellen Anne", our first daughter's name, carved on it, when we found out our baby's Russian name was "Elena"?

Learning The Old Fashioned Way

Like anything else that I didn't know much about until personally involved, I've learned a lot. Geography, sure (how many people can point out say, Vladivostock, on a world map now who, before adoption, hadn't a clue? I was one), but more importantly, a sharp perception (and what rock was I living under before?) of the world's iniquities. How lucky I am to live in my rich and safe country! Adopting internationally brought home to me how fortunate I am. My "success" and my comfortable life comes more from chance (that I was born to a family and a place that could steadily offer me opportunity) than from making wise life decisions (certainly some of mine were extremely stupid and irresponsible, particularly in my young adulthood), or my hard work or intelligence.

As many thoughtful people have pointed out, life in Russia can be desperately poor. Even highly educated and extremely hard working people may be paid so little, or not be able to find a job, that they may have trouble feeding a family. I wish we had taken just cash, not gifts bought here, when we went to Russia because I think the money spent would have gone further there for things that were more needed. I've heard from one person that she brought $2,000 cash and bought in Russia what was really needed and wanted. This person commented "greed does not seem to be part of the Russian psyche," as she described the Russians' response when she asked what was needed. I appreciated this opinion, with its practical humanity, and its acknowledgment of a kind and generous spirit in the Russian people.

Bad, Scary Birth Parents

Around that same time, I read someone's response to a question about birth parents, on the Internet. This person cautioned about wicked and greedy relatives (Russians, I can only presume) who would certainly take advantage of you in any way possible, and asserted that horrible and hair raising stories of what happened when adoptive parents tried to contact relatives "were legend." (I believe he meant legion, although legend is probably the accurate characterization.) He ended with "Don't let anyone find out anything! Not even what state you live in!" I appreciated this post only in that it reminded me of what a range there is in people's opinions.

It seems to me that some people look for commonalties, particularly the good, between themselves and others. Conversely some people are convinced certain groups are by definition negatively "other," i.e. totally unlike oneself and thus easy to dislike or fear. The lack of understanding and the turning away from recognizing and looking for commonality between humans underlies, in my opinion (though certainly not an original thought), much of the wars and suffering of humankind. Although such fearful, negative feelings may arise from easy-to-label things such as race, social class, or national origin, there are also a whole range of perceived "other" behaviors which may be feared or pitied. Adoptive parents may be worried with good reason - or assume, with less reason, alleged behaviors such as "alcoholic," "abusive," "the kind of person who would give a child up," "promiscuous" and "irresponsible."

For Me and My Family

What I felt was important, or critical, for me, my family, and our adoptive child was that we: (a) not jump to conclusions or judgment, particularly on the basis of hearsay or assumption; (b) consider our adoptive child's birth parents as persons in many ways like ourselves, not "other;" (c) if possible, thank and reassure, in a private and tactful manner, our child's birth parents; and (d) gather as much information as possible about our child's birth family, and share this with our child in the most positive light possible as she becomes old enough to understand.

Measured and Methodical

I've been employed as a federal law enforcement agent for the past 18 years, so perhaps my approach to life and all its little surprises is a little more measured and methodical than some. I'm not claiming to be smarter, it's more like I know how dumb I can be, have been, if I assume anything can be proved without getting information from everyone and everything involved - to name a few: victims, suspects; witnesses with an interest, and what is their interest or bias? disinterested witnesses (who may be extremely suggestible in their human urge to help you, and it's so hard to get a statement without subtly influencing someone); and mute evidentiary witness like examined documents or fingerprints or videotapes, some of which are thankfully pretty conclusive, and some just pose further questions and doubts.

And that's just dealing with the people and things that were there. When you start getting into hearsay, it's been my experience you'll be led farther from, rather than closer to, the truth, or to an unrecognizably exaggerated or self promoting version (and again, the person you get a story from second or third hand, what motivates them?).

All the foregoing by way of explaining that when we went to Russia I made no judgment regarding the non-fitness of our child's birth parents. In fact, I felt certain I would be meeting no one who actually knew the parents or could actually tell me "the truth" about them or their circumstances. Finally, even if I were absolutely, unequivocally convinced our child's birth parents had done terrible things, I would try to understand why. Time and again, when something at work really "gets" to me (I mostly work fraud, but I have worked assaults, rapes, and child exploitation cases too) I have mentally fallen back on the old expression "Understand everything, forgive everything." Not to say society shouldn't be protected against criminal acts, but every person who acts criminally was once a bright eyed and innocent baby too. What derailed them?

Prior to travelling, I felt sure it was not illegal to seek information on our child's birthparents or to seek to leave information for them. Russian family code, Statute 139, clearly states any illegality of disclosure arises only when "against the wishes of the adoptive parents." Nor did I feel my personal, tactful efforts would in any way be immoral, unwise, or "apt to endanger adoptions for those who follow." I imagine media reports of disrupted adoptions, or people who blow off their agreed upon responsibility to do post placement reports would be a realistic "endangerment" to Russian adoption. But trying to get more information on your child's birth family I don't think even rises to a "so what?" on the radar screen. I also think that if more pregnant women considering relinquishing their child had some sort of real assurance the child would be loved and cared for after adoption, or if they knew of another woman or friend who had received some photos or respectful contact from adoptive parents - there would be more babies available for adoption, not fewer.

Precious Little

In our case, I initially got what I considered precious little information on our baby's origins. Prior to travelling I only knew the mom's age, and that she relinquished the baby, noted to be her "second at term" at birth. I found a bit of information on the geographic area our baby was in, and was oddly pleased that the person who invented the television tube came from our baby's city, and that it was a university city, both of which made me think "intellectuals live there." I also reread the Gulag Archipelago, which suddenly seemed more pertinent and horrifying and found out one of the worst Stalinist prisons had been in the same city.

At the same time, I had read many Internet posts asserting that most Russians consider adoptions best left secret. I also realized I would be meeting only those with a vested interest (i.e. deriving a living from adoption related services) in the adoption "status quo." Nevertheless, I composed and had translated into Russian a list of questions for our coordinator and the orphanage director, hoping for any information: "Who named the baby?" "What are her parents' occupations?" "Their education?" "Their physical description?" etc. When I gave this letter to our coordinator, as we first arrived at the orphanage, she read it with a slight frown and said "no one here really knows that" and mentioned the baby came from a hospital in a slightly distant city, which I knew, but I had hoped someone had written or communicated something to the baby home director. That wasn't the case.

When we returned two weeks later for court, I found out a little more. There were two older siblings, not one, and the parents' names and mother's address was on the documents. The mother was noted as "married, but separated." My heart went out to her even more! The thought of her struggling with supporting a little boy and a little girl, marriage on the rocks, and another little girl being born... what to do? For the sake of the older two children, she gave the new one up, I thought. What a heartbreaking decision! "There, but for the grace of God, go I," crossed my mind, not for the first time. I remembered the pain of giving up our child that died.

No One Will Find Out Who You Are

At the end of our court session, right after they said, with a smile that made me feel vaguely guilty and complicit "No one will be able to find out who you are," I asked our coordinator to ask how we could leave our information for a relative who might inquire. She didn't translate this, I don't think, just told me vaguely "Oh, all that would be done through the agency." (There was no mechanism to do this, as far as I can tell, through the agency or otherwise. I've since written our agency and requested that they facilitate some way to leave information, if desired, at the orphanage. At the least, I wanted them to be aware at least one of their clients - me - wanted this, and that maybe it might even be a positive marketing spin, if the option were available for others of my mind set.)

An Informed Decision?

Studying the court documents later, I also wondered how "informed" our birth mother's decision was when she signed the relinquishment document. Did she have the right to be told when and in which court the adoption would take place? Did she have the right to communicate any thoughts or message? If she technically had any rights, was she encouraged or counseled by anyone about them? The court made a point of saying "no one had called or inquired" of the baby at the baby home, but that was in a different city than the birthplace. Did the mother or any relative even know where the baby was taken?

I can feel people muttering now, "Yeah, well she'd be singing a different tune if the mom showed up and she went home without a baby..." True, I wouldn't have liked it. But if so, I think we would have eventually adopted someone else just as lovable. And, maybe, the mom could have showed up and she would have seen/heard we were decent people and felt reassured and better about giving up such a beautiful baby. My point is that the desire for a smooth adoption and a wonderful baby should not supersede a birthmother's rights, whatever they are, under laws both of Russia and of human decency.

The Golden Rule

I had left a camera, first trip, and requested through our coordinator that the caretakers take pictures of themselves and the baby's routine. On the second trip, the director handed it back to us. I don't think it had ever left her office, and not a picture was taken. I was able to give the young woman who brought Ilka up to us, the day we picked her up after court, a little "thank you" note in Russian. I included a line about being willing to host any caretaker who might visit to the US, and leaving an email address. The young woman read it and seemed happy and startled to the point of tears.
Later, back home, we registered Ilka with the Russian consulate. We dutifully made monthly post-placement reports to our agency and wondered what really became of them. (The Ministry of Education we were in seemed to have tattered and overloaded cardboard file boxes everywhere, including stacked in the bathroom. I wondered at the time if that was where all those apostilled dossier documents came to rest.)

I also, after a few months passed, and thinking through my decision carefully, wrote a letter to Ilka's birth mother. Why? The Golden Rule would be an easy reason. If I were Ilka's mother, I would want to know she was loved and cared for. I would also want to be thanked, and maybe, forgiven and reassured that what I did was not a terrible thing, regardless of what others in her society may have told her.

I felt compassion on a visceral level. Reading books ("The Adoption Reader" by S. Wadia-Ellis and "Waiting to Forget" by Margaret Moorman are both excellent) reinforced this. And, being a big fan of controlled studies and unbiased reports, I looked at Medline abstracts and university based research. Over and over, I read things confirming relinquishment of a child can "often lead to chronic, unrelieved grief" (Medline abstract of study "Postadoptive reactions of the relinquishing mother"). I also read many conclusions along the line of: "When compared to parents in confidential adoptions, those in open adoptions demonstrated higher levels of acknowledgment of the adoption, empathy toward the birthparents and their child, a stronger sense of permanence in the relationship with their child as projected into the future, and less fear the birthmother might try to reclaim her child" (Medline abstract of study "Adoptive family system dynamics").

My Letter

Because I am aware that Russian society's attitude toward adoption is much more secretive than ours, and giving up a child may be seen as shameful, I did not speak of adoption in my letter. I spoke instead of travelling in Russia last summer, and that I heard from a gentleman "our families might be related" and then going into some detail on mine and my husband's work, interests, health, and relatives, many of whom did emigrate from eastern Europe. A stranger intercepting the letter, or even a family member (though I can't believe any family member was unaware of the mom carrying a seven and a half pound baby to term, and staying several days in the hospital after birth) would not be able to tell I was giving information on a relinquished child and her family. What little I said about Ilka was just the year she was born and that she is a "blessing" to us.
My child, who was hers first, was a second reason. I believe information about her heritage is important both for physical and emotional reasons. I want her to be able to fill in that patient form that asks for family medical history in a doctor's office sometime, somewhere, for whatever preventative or diagnostic help that might afford her. I want her to know that the shape of her nose, or her sensitive skin came from her mom's side, or dad's or whatever. I want her to know what her parents' interests and talents are or were, and no amount of scrutiny of her by me will change my wish for her to be able to know that, or the value of that to her.

Maybe she will never want to know anything, and that's ok too, (though I'm sure I'll ruefully think "well, she really is different genetic stock than need-to-know-everything me.") The odds are, though, she will. The reality is most (best estimates seem to be over 80%) of adopted children do eventually search.

But most pertinent now, I want to be able to say, if and when she expresses what I'll see as a very natural and healthy interest in her heritage, including birth relatives, "Honey, I tried. I reached out in every way possible, and I did it right away, before people had time to move away or die or forget. I tried. I recognized what you're asking about is information that is precious and rightfully yours. It was my duty as your loving guardian, and adoptive mother, to seek for you what you were too young to seek yourself, and what would probably disappear if I waited til 'you were old enough to ask.'"

My Decision to Make?

Did I feel that trying to contact our daughter's birth relatives was a "decision that was hers and hers alone to make", something that should wait "until she is old enough to do it herself"? Absolutely not. For those who espouse this oft heard opinion, how do you reconcile it with having adopted the child and removing them from their country of birth? Weren't those important and personal decisions you made for the child? How about deciding what faith, or not, to raise the child in? Bringing the child up in a single parent household instead of a traditional mom and dad one? How about giving the child immunizations, or TB treatment, or not? How about choosing paid caregivers, or having a parent stay at home? Aren't a great many of the decisions we make as parents, without the child's full knowledge or consent, important? We do these things because we love them, because we believe it is in the child's best interest.

To me, facilitating my daughter's knowledge of, and possibly contact with, her birth relatives is the right thing to do. I read of so many troubled adoptions. Our local paper even advertises special summer camps for children with "adoption issues." It may be simplistic to think openness can ward off emotional problems. Yet, I'm convinced my daughter will be helped by knowing real details about her birth, who she looks like, who loved her first. I am not afraid of a birth family reunion. "For most of these adoptees, their self esteem improved and their relationship with their adoptive parents was strengthened as a result of the reunion." (Medline abstract of a study "Reunions between adoptees and birth parents")

I had a Russian friend translate and write my letter out for me longhand, and address an envelope to the name and address from the court documents. Was it the true address? I think so, but I can't really know. I enclosed some color-copied photos of the four of us, a self-addressed international reply coupon, and sent it off registered mail. So far I have heard nothing back. But I hope.

* * * * * *

Ilka is one. The candle was blown out, and my dad was still sniffling. "Aww, dad" I said, "this is a happy occasion." And then he said, more clearly this time "Yes, you're so happy. And I'm happy for you. But I can't stop thinking about the other side. Somewhere on the other side is the other mommy crying on the little girl's birthday. She doesn't know what a beautiful girl she is. If she only knew." I was stunned. God bless him, I thought. "Gee Dad" I said, "I sent a letter and some pictures. I tried."

Postscript: Zhanna

On March 7, 2001, I resent my letter and photos in Russian, using a translator living there. On March 25, 2001, I received a letter and photographs from Ilka's birth mother, Zhanna. We have since exchanged several sets of letters. I have asked if I can speak of our correspondence publicly, in the hope it might encourage others. "Yes" she says, and adds, "I am very thankful such a person as you exists."

Zhanna relinquished her baby only because of the poverty a broken marriage led to. She writes "If I had been able to provide for the child, if I had known that staying with me the child would be fed, dressed, I would never have left her." She writes "I dreamt of earning much money and taking her back from the baby home." But this dream stayed just a dream.

She writes "After I gave birth to her I cried a lot because it was so hard to leave my flesh in the maternity hospital. I just did not want to live." She "had an opportunity to see the baby but somehow I was afraid of it." She was allowed to name the baby, and that was a small comfort to her. She remembers signing the documents, but doesn't remember quite how. "I was in such a queer state, I wrote down what I was told to." She wasn't told the baby was taken to another city after birth, she wasn't told that a court proceeding took place.

Zhanna writes "Before you wrote to me I had not known how Lena felt, but I thought she was alive. I felt terrible being without her, and used to cry. I could not get rid of thoughts of her...I thought she was still in the baby home" (in her home city. In reality the baby was first in a city 60 miles distant, then with us in the United States.) When someone called from her old address and told her there was a letter for her from overseas, she went at ten o'clock at night to get it. She writes "I just could not wait, I wanted to read it and have a look at the pictures, and my hands were shaking when I took the letter."

She thinks the baby looks just like her father, the man she loved and hoped to marry. She says he is a man who is tall and humorous and loves to read books. She tells me she knew his mother well, that they took strolls together with her two children. That his mother used to be an accountant, that she sings very well, that she hoped her son would stay with Zhanna. But it did not happen.

Zhanna tells me she is trained as a tailor, and her brother now studies to be a psychologist. Her parents sound like decent, hard working people, who have taken her and her two children in after her marriage failed. Her mother was hospitalized for a stroke not long ago, though she has recovered now. I am glad for all of our sakes I found Zhanna now.

Zhanna sends me beautiful drawings of birds, insects, flowers. She tells me she draws such things at home for her children, so they may color. She asks so little of me, just the opportunity to write, to receive pictures and news of the little girl.

She tells me her family and her mother especially, send "much love" to the child, and our family. She gives me Lena's paternal grandmother's name and address, and thinks this singing, kind woman would like to correspond with me. She asks for so little, and thanks me again and again for writing.

I tell her that somehow, someway we will all meet. I tell her she can see this little girl as long as she wants. There will be no need to be afraid.

And I thank her, and send much love.