This is a continuation of the post that Carol Echternach, the Director of CALFAS (California Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Organization), and an adoptive mother, gave me permission to reprint in response to the 13 Russian-born children's murders at the hands of their adoptive parents.

Part 1 is here.

She continues:

Surprisingly to many most ministeries (MOE's) and regions are very careful to not adopt out children with known serious issues, without full disclosure. Sometimes this means they even err to the negative, by listing a long laundry list of problems they... more

Recently on the Russian adoption group through yahoo (as well as many other adoption lists and chats) there's been a great deal of discussion about why some adoptions fail and who is to be blamed when things like this happen.

At the center of this are the 13 Russian-born children who were murdered by their parents over the past 10 years. These murders, and the subsequent media attention (mostly in Russia, I might add) have been blamed for the current slow-down of adoptions by the Russian MOE as well as tightening restrictions for adoptions from Russia by non-Russians.

It seems like... more

Some seemingly good news from Itar-Tass, although I'm not sure about the math. 7500 + 6900 sure doesn't equal 100,000, but maybe I'm not understanding this correctly. What's a guardianship center, anyway?

Sounds like a euphemism for orphanage to me...and this is timed to coincide with International Children's Day (which was the 1st) so part of me thinks it's a politician's publicity stunt, but maybe I'm being too cynical.

Politicians? Looking for publicity? On the backs of orphanage children and the rising anti-foreign adoption sentiments?

Oh, I'm silly.

Anyway, you can... more

So, yesterday I posted about the Russian database of children available for adoption, and I confessed I spent quite a bit of time torturing myself looking at pictures of little girls. One little girl in particular caught my eye: Margarita, age 3, from Voronezh (where Little J is from). Most of the photos of children in her age group were of babies. I'm assuming that's because they were babies when they entered the system, but little Margarita's picture is of a 3-year old. She has dark hair and... more

The big story this week in regards to Russian adoption is the sentencing of Peggy Hilt, the adoptive mother of a 2-year-old from Irkutsk, Nina Hilt (originally known as Viktoria Bazhenova). Nina's death was officially because of blows to the abdomen, but apparently there was evidence of a number of injuries over time. Her death was not a result of a one-time fit of anger, as I've seen reported. It took a while to kill little Nina.

Peggy Hilt has been sentenced to 25 years. Here's a full article on the subject, from the Raleigh News... more

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting a 3rd grade class at my son's school to talk about adoption from Russia as well as my book, When I Met You. Actually, most of the talk was about When I Met You, as the point of the talk was for me to speak about "the writing process," since that's a big part of the 3rd grade curriculum (and in North Carolina, the BIG writing test is in the... more

In my last post I talked about our trip to visit Ms. K, a Clinical Social Worker with an interest in adopted children. Here’s what Ms. K told us about Little J:

The good news is she didn't think we needed to come back to see her. We really liked her but she was rather pricey and with our crummy insurance the co-pay would be brutal - not to mention her office is an hour from our house.

She also gave us some strategies for dealing with his behaviors. One, the potty-training and oppositional... more

So - FINALLY we have been in to see someone to help us with Little J's behavior. It took about 2 months, one accidentally missed appointment and a kind phone call for Dr. Walters at Duke's International Adoption Clinic to put is in touch with a lovely Clinical Social Worker whom I'll call Ms. K.

The ironic thing is that when we tried to get in to see someone Little J's behavior was at its very worst. I think I started making phone calls the Monday after the weekend that Little J spent practically the entire weekend on the naughty step or in his room (so I wouldn't murder him... more

Things are getting tougher, as everyone caught in the re-accreditation mess of current Russian adoption agencies can testify. Foxnews reports about stricter regulations for adoption from Russia: "Russia seeks to make foreign adoptions tougher"

According to the article, by the end of the year the Russian government hopes to ban all adoptions through "independent" agencies, otherwise known as non-accredited agencies. This is a reaction to the 11 (actually 12) children killed by adoptive parents over the past 10 years - a story that's... more

I remember my arm aching as I carried Little J through the halls of the American Embassy in Moscow. It had been a long time since I'd held a child in my arms...and this one was 20 squirming pounds. I'd been holding him for 4 days straight.

We went in alone, as our translator could not enter with us. The halls were beige, the floors were glossy, and the ceilings were high. We passed a couple of guard stations and the guards looked more serious than they should on such a happy day. I guessed they saw it all the time: happy and not-so-happy. They were bored.

We walked and... more