Motherlode Blog: From Russia, Just Barely: Adopted at 16, Days Before the Ban
“You didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, ” Mr. Nauta said about how he felt once the plane’s wheels lifted off from the Moscow airport terminal on Dec. 29. “You just had an enormous sigh of relief. ”
“The number of children that are adopted from Russia is so large this is a problem felt by families everywhere, ” stated Daniel Nehrbass, executive director of the adoption company Nightlight Christian Adoptions. While he did not use the Nautas, his agency since 1994 assisted nearly 1, 000 families adopt children through Russia. The agency had 15 families attempting to adopt from Russia when the ban went in to effect. Only three families were able to adopt.
The actual Nautas’ lives are now mainly consumed with the daily challenges of parenthood: helping Elya, who transforms 18 on Oct. 3, improve her British enough to learn how to drive, and hearing exactly what she wants to do for a career (she is actually talking about becoming a veterinarian. ) They also help the girl with everything that comes with her Russian background, through being taunted by her classmates about the Birkenstock boston Marathon bombings, to her cheers for Russian number skaters during the Winter Olympics.
“She’s Russian, ” Mr. Nauta said. “We’re not trying to remove her nationality. ”
“It had been just stunning, ” Mr. Nauta said. “Her eyes were so sad. We felt therefore drawn to this girl. ”
In August 2011, Mr. Yoder called the Nautas from Russia and said he previously met Elya once again. She asked Mr. Yoder if he would adopt her. He said whilst he could not, he knew a family who might, and reached out to the Nautas. After the Nautas received the blessing of their older children, they chose to adopt. Because Elya was so old, additionally they knew that they had to move quickly.
“This may perhaps be her last opportunity to be adopted, ” Mister. Nauta said.
By 2011, most adoption companies had stopped working on adoptions from St. Petersburg, where Elya was living, because they had demonstrated too difficult. The Nautas quickly learned the reason why: Bureaucrats repeatedly sent back their paperwork citing mistakes. In December 2011, a judge in St. Petersburg halted the Nautas’ adoption entirely until a good adoption treaty was ratified between Russia and also the United States.
“It was a slow death, ” Mister. Nehrbass said of the Russian ban on adoptions from the United States. “We knew that Russia had been trying to slow down adoptions. ”
But the Nautas obtained plenty of positive signs from Russians to move ahead. During their three visits, the Russians they fulfilled praised them for their perseverance and said the only real people hurt by the adoption ban were the kids................
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