Some numbers are lucky, some numbers are not. Some numbers are happy, some numbers are sad. And some numbers are just plain depressing, which is perhaps why all I've managed for a headline on this post is 2,305.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is likely to be the number of Russian orphans who began new lives as American citizens this year.

Let me put this in context for you: In 1999, when I adopted my older son from Russia, 4,348 Russian orphans were adopted. In 2005, when my little guy came home, he was one of 4,639 Russian children adopted by U.S. families that year. This year's total--which the U.S. State Department notes is preliminary--will be less than half of the 5,865 Russian orphans adopted in 2004, the high water mark for Russian adoptions.

We have, perhaps, all known that this was going to be a bad year for Russian adoptions. Exits were slow even before the last of the American adoption agencies saw their accreditations expire this spring. Seventeen agencies have now been re-accredited, but there are some 40 more still waiting for that all-important certificate. Those that have gotten theirs already are moving things along, but there is a lot of lost time, and lost ground, to make up.

Here, if you are inclined to make fever charts or bar charts, are the statistics on IR-3 immigrant visas issued in Moscow to orphans adopted abroad since 1990, which is the earliest year that the State Department has on its Web page tracking these things.

1990: 0
1991: 0
1992: 324
1993: 746
1994: 1,530
1995: 1,896
1996: 2,454
1997: 3,816
1998: 4,491
1999: 4,348
2000: 4,269
2001: 4,279
2002: 4,939
2003: 5,209
2004: 5,865
2005: 4,639
2006: 3,706
2007*: 2,305

(*=preliminary)

Will we ever again see the high achieved in 2004? I don't know. Even when all the waiting agencies are re-accredited, I don’t know if they will be able to match a group that was nearly 6,000 children.

I'll leave you with this thought, which has probably occurred to you already: Think, in this holiday season, and throughout the year, of the Russian orphans who have not been able to find forever families and find a way to improve their lives.

Image credit: cohdra at Morguefile.com