[Archive]

Originally Posted By Carolyn

We adopted our 2-year-old son from Russia in February 2000. I was quite an experience - very costly - but extremely well worth it. I recommend international adoption to anyone who is interested.

[Archive]

Originally Posted By lisa

How is your sons health? What can one expect in the way of challenges with a 2 year old from Russia? I want to adopt and 2 was the age I was hoping to find. My hub is a little apprehensive. How long did it take? Is it costly and did you go to Russia or did they
send him. Please share info Im desperate to learn everything I can. Thanks!

[Archive]

Originally Posted By Carolyn

Our son is very healthy. He's a little small for his age, but otherwise a very typical 3-year-old (he turned 3 on 10/17/00). He's loving, rambunctuous, everything you would expect of a normal American child. We've had him for almost 9 months now and he is great. He looks like us - most people are very surprised when we say he is from Russia - we always hear, well he looks just like you. My husband was very apprehensive at first (we have 3 teenagers from previous marriages), but he asked God to let him know the right thing to do and fortunately God told him there was a child waiting for us in Russia! We had our homestudy done in July 1999 and started paperwork shortly thereafter. Just before Thanksgiving 1999 we had received a video of this precious little boy and immediately fell in love with him. We failed to let the agency know immediately that we wanted him, it was about 2 weeks or so later that we told them YES. Then we waited & waited for travel news. On January 24, 2000, we got the call & left for Pskov, Russia on February 2, 2000. We adopted him on February 7th and returned home with our Jonathan on February 12th. This was before accreditation had to be done, so we were able to do everything in 1 trip. From homestudy to coming home with him took just under 7 months. It was a bit costly though. We spent pretty close to $20,000 including travel and everything. It seems like a lot, but it is worth every penny. We found out a couple of months ago, that our son has a biological younger brother (about 1 year old) now in the same orphanage. The mother has not signed the papers yet, but if she does we will get "dibs" on him. So there is a chance we will do this all over again! Hope this info helps you. Let me know if I can offer any other info. God bless you for wanting to adopt. There are so many children in that huge country who need loving parents. When we were there, I wanted to bring home an armful!

[Archive]

Originally Posted By To Carolyn

What agency did you use and do you plan to use the same one again to adopt the younger brother?

[Archive]

Originally Posted By Carolyn

We used A Loving Choice Adoption Agency in Spartanburg, SC. They are not doing international adoptions any more. I'm not sure which agency we will use if we adopt our son's younger brother. Sorry!

[katefrank]

Hi Carolyn,
I do not know if you are on this site any longer but thought I would try. We adopted our son Anton from Pskov Baby Home in December 1999. I have found it difficult to fins other parents who adpted from the same orphanage about the same time as us. How is your son doing - and I beleive you were going back again?
I have lots of photos and wondered if your son was in some of them??
Kind Regards,
Kate

[Waiting4Skip]

What region did you adopt from?