If you read the mainstream press, you'd come away with the idea that Russia has shut its doors to adoption. As I've said before, it hasn't, and if you want proof you need look no further than the posts and blogs about the referrals, trips and court dates that prospective parents are getting right now. Yes, right now.

Before you jump to the conclusion that something nefarious is going on, remember this: While the accreditations of adoption agencies... more

I wrote this morning about the surprise visit of a senior Russian adoption official, Alina Levitskaya. But I wanted to come back to some of the other points made by Ms. Levitskaya in her meeting with The National Council for Adoption because I think they can help us form a clearer picture of what is, and isn't happening in Russian adoptions right now.

According to NCFA staffer Lee Allen, Ms. Levitskaya said that adoptions of Russian children by Russian families are increasing.... more

I don’t know if your adoption agency has alerted you to this, but there was a very important Russian visitor in the United States two weeks ago: Alina Levitskaya.

Ms. Levitskaya's official title is Director of the Department of Youth Policy, Upbringing and Social Protection of Children of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science. Which means she is in the inner circle as the Ministry of Education rounds up Russian government input on the re-accreditation of foreign adoption agencies.

According to The National Council for Adoption, which... more

I've been chuckling my way through a thread that began on the Russia Adoption forum last week: "Am I the only one out there who is 45 PLUS in age...," the poster asked, "and have a 5 year old child???"

Get in line sister, get in line. I'm doing some writing now for a college and I keep dropping broad hints about getting them to offer senior citizen discounts. I'll need them by the time I get to my tuition-paying years.

But with... more

Boris Yeltsin, the first president of the Russian Federation and the man who dissolved the Soviet Union, died today in Moscow at 76. News sources say Yeltsin died of a heart attack. He had a long history of heart trouble, which contributed to his early retirement from the presidency in 1999.

Yeltsin was born in Sverdlovsk and joined the Communist Party in 1961. He had an up and down career within the party, gaining points for demolishing the house in Sverdlovsk in which Russia's last tsar had been killed but losing them--and... more

I put up this post the other day to dispel the notion that the Russian government has, somehow, acted deliberately to shut down adoptions. But I realized, in re-reading the item, that I didn't explain what is, and isn't, possible to do for a Russian adoption right now. So here goes:

1) Can I start a Russian adoption now? In a word: Yes. All the early paperwork takes place on our side of the globe, not Russia. So, spend some time ... more

OK, I figured I'd start with the most straightforward headline I could write and work out from there. Especially now that the smoke and steam has stopped pouring from my ears.

On Wednesday, I was up in Connecticut doing interviews for another project I am working on, and I picked up a copy of USA Today. "Russia curtails American adoptions" blared a front-page headline. What followed was a day of misery for many adoptive parents that could have been avoided by more informed reporting and a better choice of subject and verb in that headline.

Let's start with the title. The headline on... more

There's a great idea floating around on some of the Russian adoption blogs, and if you haven't seen it yet, I want to bring it to your attention: A call for prayer on Sunday, April 15, that Russia will begin to issue re-accreditations.

In case you are new to the world of Russian adoption, Moscow has, since 2004, been thrashing out new rules. Things seem to move forward, then stop and another requirement gets added to the list. The changes are, as I... more

March comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb and, this year, will end without the re-accreditation of adoption agencies working in Russia.

As many of you already know, last Thursday, March 22, Russia's Ministry of Education, which oversees the adoption process for both foreign and domestic adoptions, asked all foreign adoption agencies for additional paperwork. I've spent the last week trying to get some clarity on what happened, and I'm now ready to pass it on.

Many, many of us had hoped that March 30 would be the day on which the 55... more

Nothing. Zero. Zip. Nichego. Nichto.

I clicked hopefully on the Web site of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow late last night. What I wanted to see was confirmation of a whisper campaign that's been circulating on some Russian adoption blogs lately that March 20 would be accreditation day. The day that all the agencies that have trudged so patiently through the paper morass created by Russia's ongoing revisions to its adoption procedures would be rewarded with their... more