[mdaisyq]

Apparently it was allowed, even though we had signed all of the paperwork with our agency to accept his referral. The Russian family came through his orphanage during a temporary shutdown of adoptions from Russia where the US Consulate stopped issuing exit visas until Russia reorganized the adoption process. Russia (and the US Consulate) reopened and it was then, that the Russian family decided to adopt our son to be.

The surprising thing, in hindsight, is that we were not offered another referral from Russia, but then again, our son was considered a waiting child because he was a little over 1 years old (how times have changed!)

Our agency had never had this happen in Russia before so they were just as surprised as us.