Ted Fabian's Foreign Adoption FAQ

Someone wrote and asked:

I noticed that your adoption date was 10/96. I was wondering if this was truly "after" the new laws were in effect or not, and what your experience was with the court systems if it was. How long did you stay in the country? Did you stay in a hotel, or with a family?

They signed the adoption decree for our son on 9/27/96.. and we picked him up in Moscow on 10/2/96.. but all our processing was done under the old laws.. we had filled the original request to adopt on 9/11/96, just under the wire to qualify for the old laws...

we made two trips to Moscow though.. one 9/10-13/96 and the second 9/30-10/5/96.. we stayed at the Moscow Raddison Slvanskaja (sp?).. ie. the site of the murder a few weeks ago of the America businessman by the Russian Mafia...

we have no experiences with the courts in Russia..

another person asked who we dealt with from EAC in Moscow:

Dimitri is our representative in Moscow. I don't know if you worked with him or not

nope.. we worked with a guy named Michael Yurovich, his wife Tanya, and another woman named Olga..

Michael is an EAC employee.. Tanya helps him.. Olga freelances for them and other agencies finding kids...

never met or heard of anyone named Dimitri.

several people asked about traveling and what Debbi and I did to prepare for it, and about EAC and how they are to work with...

Any last minute advise you can offer on traveling, dealing with the courts, where to stay, what to do or not to do while in Russia, dealing with EAC while out of the country, or before travel?? Anything that comes to mind would be greatly appreciated.

sure.. lots of them to numerous to write..

nothing about courts...

re: hotels.. my opinion is to stay in them as opposed to host families.. I believe that you have more leeway and freedom to do what you want when you want it.. try to get into a hotel that speaks English though.. we had friends who ended up in a cheap Russian hotel that had no one there who could understand them..

re: food... I'm a picky eater.. on top of keeping kosher.. so I couldn't eat alot of things.. I found that it was important that I took my own foods.. mostly simply stuff.. granola bars, soup mixes, nuts, juice boxes, etc. etc. we did buy bread and some fruit, and cookies, and Coca Cola in Moscow.. it was fairly easy to find.. restaraunts are expensive.. we spent $40. for breakfast and $60. for lunch.. and the food was subpar at best..

re: water: don't drink it unless it's been boiled.. don't accept ice in your beverages in restaurants..

re: clothing.. pack warm clothes in your carry on bags.. wear your coat.. Debbi packed hers and we lost the luggage for a day and a half.. she was cold.. pack pick up clothing for the child in carry on luggage too.. we were delayed since we had nothing to put him in when our luggage was lost..

re: useless things.. my wife packed several pairs of shoes and drssy stuff figuring we would go out siteseeing and such.. big waste of space.. never wore it or used it..

re: airports... rent those little carts.. they're great for hauling stuff.. and the baby/child can sit on the bags on the cart.. we had 180 lbs of luggage on the second trip... I could never have managed without the carts..

re: pickup/dropoff.. have family or friends pick you up and drop you off coming and going.. and make sure someone is responsible for stocking your refrigerator at home with milk, bread, cheese, etc.. you don't want to come home to rotten food, and have to go out to get it to feed the baby.. it should be there when you get home...

re: cooking.. prepare meals for your family ahead of time and freeze them.. saves time later when you get home with the baby... only need to reheat...

re: EAC.. they tend to be disorganized at times, but our experiences in Russia showed that they knew what to do and when.. and who to deal with.. they were great..

take pictures of the child once you get home too.. you'll need to do a written report with photos for EAC within 30 days of getting home... and then once a month for one year..

Why did you choose EAC?

a couple of reasons..

Has anyone out there worked w/ E.A.C. out of North Royalton Ohio?

we worked with EAC and came home from Russia with a 18 month old boy in October 1996..

Did you accept the first referral?

yep... he was rejected by two other families before EAC offerred him to us..

did you request a boy?

keep in mind that getting a girl from Russia is harder.. China has girls, Russia has mostly boys..

tell me about why you chose to adopt??

I'm 35 and Debbi is 39.. we're married just under three years.. in 1994 we lost a baby a with anacelphaly.. and rather than wait to get pregnant again we opted to adopt.. we talked about it for about 6 monthes, and finally started the process by attending one of EACs seminars on Valentine's Day 1996.. we started the paperwork in March '96.. finished it in early August '96, and got the referral just before Labor Day.. we travelled to Moscow twice during September 96, and have been home since 10/5/96.. now we've been travelling to introduce the baby to the family and to friends..

when we looked at domestic adoptions, they told us it's a seven year wait.. we elected to go international due to a couple of things..

What was the experience with EAC like?

generally good.. they've got a few problems with things like keeping you aware of status.. and they're not the most caring people when it comes to working with you.. and they tend to be a bit disorganized.. but they get the job done... so we really can't complain...

it's hard to describe everything we experienced..

first, with regard to paperwork, you're pretty much expected to be on your own.. the director (Margaret Cole) is clueless to the paperwork.. some of the staff people can help with simple questions, but otherwise, they work from a check list of items.. it's your job to gather those items up and submit them.. some of the things are kind of obscure.. you need everything noterized, certified, and apostilized.. eg. with your birth certificates and marriage licenses, it depends where you were born, and married.. costs vary per state, and the process for getting the copies varies.. EAC was no help in this.. they just said get the documents.. my wife had to do a bunch of the legwork herself to figure out who to contact, and how to get the stuff done to fulfill the checklist..

similar problems with the homestudy and FBI clearances.. our homestudy was done by a different group, NewStart (I think that was the name).. they botched stuff up so badly that we were delayed about a month.. no one at EAC cared or could help, yet they were the ones who recommended the NewStart people..

FBI clearances were sent directly to EAC and to NewStart by the FBI (as we were told to have them done).. however, the checklist at EAC never got updated, and that caused delays.. nothing was recorded as received.. and no one every checked the file..

and the NewStart folks sent letters to our refereances asking for information about us, but they used someone elses names.. ie.. their letter read something like this:

problem is, our references didn't know a Lisa and Tom Jones.. so they never put two and two together and figured out it should have been us.. more delays.. okay, it's hard to pin this one on EAC.. but they did refer us to NewStart..

once in Russia, things went smoothly.. all the papers were in order and when needed, the right officials got bribed and signed off on things in short order..

using the US Embassy experience as an example.. no bribes there.. but the process is convoluted.. the adoptive family needs to show up at 9 AM to be interviewed.. you wait in a line and are taken randomly from the line once you submit your paperwork.. your paperwork needs to be complete before they'll look at it.. we spoke with one family at the hotel dealing with another agency who told us that they waited nine hours at the embassy only to learn that they didn't have the right papers and they had to cable back to the US to the agency to get them.. delays ended up costing them 5 additional days in Moscow while waiting for the papers.. in our case, EAC escorted us while we were in Russia, and sent a rep to wait in the line for us beginning at 7 AM.. they we were first in line.. when the driver brought us there at 8:45 AM, we sat and waited, and were the first interview since our papers were submitted (by the rep) at 9 AM when they began accepting them... we were outta there by 9:20 AM..

similar thing at the Russian passport office.. normal processing time is five working days.. they're closed on Wednesdays.. we submitted forms and such at 6 PM on Tuesday.. the EAC rep bribed (?) the official and we had the passport on Thursday afternoon... one working day!!

etc. etc...

Were they (EAC) responsive to your questions?

yes, if we asked something specific, they'ld try to answer.. but they didn't offer alot of information themselves.. basically, if you asked something, you'ld get a reply though...

Did you feel they kept you informed?

not really.. but we kept bugging them and when push came to shove, they'ld respond..

What was the total cost?

EAC isn't cheap.. including hotel, airfare (two trips for both of us, plus the baby coming home), food, bribes, gifts, document preparation, homestudy, etc. etc. we spent about $31000.00.

Were there any unexpected fees/costs?

sure.. everywhere you turn someone wanted money.. most were known ahead of time though, but they're still hard to swallow..

eg.

in Ohio, each document costs $1. to notorize, $5. to certify, and $8. to apostize.. you need two copies of each document.. documents include

plus more stuff  I'm probably forgetting..

homestudy was $1200.00

airfare was $1900. each for the first trip and $1300 each for the second.. we booked it earlier and got a break.. another $200. to allow the baby to sit on my lap for 10 hours..

hotel was listed as $260/night.. the travel agent got it down to $210/night.. but I argued and got it down to $169/night using a special rate deal for govt. employees.. we were there three nights on the first  trip, and five on the second trip.. it adds up..

gifts/bribes amounted to about $300 or so.. but that's based on shopping at discount houses.. EACs estimated costs were $800.00..

foreign program fee was $13000.00 (basically the money to "buy" the child)..

translation fees were something like $4000 (to translate the docs to Russian)

INS charged to apply for approval too.. I think they wanted $165.

the visas to get into Russia for us were $80 each (four required for 2 people traveling two times)

and the visa to get Alex back to the USA was $200.

we paid $400 for transportaiton expenses within Russia during our two trips.. this went direct to EAC since they provided the drivers...

and so on and so on...

Now for my next question. How do you raise the $20K-$30K? Can you provide a better breakdown of costs??

As to how to raise the money, that's a tough one. If you don't have it initially, I guess you can borrow it, either from family or friends, or from a bank or credit union, or in some cases from your employer..

I don't know if this is representative of costs or not, but here's a rough breakdown of what we spent five monthes ago  (October 1996) under the OLD system (ie. no court hearing)..

and probably a few more things I'm forgetting.. all in all, our costs have been up in the $31000.00 range.. I'm not even including baby furniture or clothing in this.. that's another story.. :)

I believe that costs vary greatly.. the younger the child, and the healthier the child, the higher the foreign program fee is.. also, different agencies provide more services than others.. in our case, we were escourted everywhere we went in Moscow, and all our paperwork was done for us.. eg. at the US Embassy, we spent a total of 18 minutes.. our coordinator went early, stood in line, filled out the papers, got our place in the interview room lined up, and then all we did was show up and be interviewed.. total 18 minutes.. others have horror stories of all day waits and missing or incomplete paperwork.. basically, it's you get (the level of service) you pay for in my opinion.. the other killer cost we encountered was that we needed to make two trips.. that wasn't something we planned on doing originally..

I guess we probably didn't plan on spending $31000+ either.. but once you're in the process, to stop is difficult..

How long did the overall process take?

roughly 6 monthes...

In hindsight, are you glad you used EAC, or do you think another agency might have helped smooth the process?

from talking to others, I think EAC is clearly the best once you get to Russia.. they have an American (from Lorain) living and working there full time.. he coordinates everything for you.. he's on top of things and works hard to make things go smooth.. other agencies leave you on your own..

see the details about the US embassy and Russian passport office above..

Tell me information about Alex, and the trip to pick him up.....

well, it's been a week that Alex has been with us.. it's been rough at times.. but we're trying to adjust to the new demands on us, time-wise, and everything else..

before I say anything else, I do want to thank all of you who have written.. I can't possibly respond individually.. no time for that.. :) as it is, it's now almost 1 AM, and I'm only now catching up on email.. I had over 200 work related messages in a few days since I last logged on.. plus the adoption replies... so please don't feel offended if you don't get a specific reply to your messages, questions, congratulations, etc. etc. etc. etc.

about the trip.. we left on a Monday September 30th, and arrived in Moscow on Tuesday October 1st.. unfortunately, our luggage didn't arrive until late in the afternoon on October 2nd.. so we were delayed right from the start with regard to picking Alex up.. we needed clothes and food for him before we could pick him up, and they were all in our luggage.. oh well..

on the first day (10/1/96) we simply sat around with no clean clothes, and then went to the Russian passport office to apply for the Alex's passport.. we signed a couple of forms, and headed to the Ministry of Education building again where we met the minister (again) who we talked to (and bribed) last time, and she embraced us and offered congratulations.. then back to the hotel to sleep in our already stinky clothes..

the second day (10/2/96) we got up early, showered, and put on our stinky clothes again.. then we went to the orphanage to meet Alex again, and to present the director there with the official decree stating we were his new parents.. back to the hotel by 1 pm or so.. and guess what!!.. luggage!!! so we called the agency folks back and were back on the road to the orphanage by 5 pm.. we got there about 5:40 pm, and they brought Alex out in a towel.. nothing else.. not even a diaper... we dressed him and returned to the hotel.. back in the room by 7 pm.. that night we played with him and gave him a bath..

next day.. (10/3/96) we slept late I think.. and we took an afternoon nap too.. in between, we walked around near the hotel, explored a bit on our own looking for food, bread, fruit, etc.. and eventually returning to the hotel.. in the evening, we met the Russian brother of a coworkers sister-in-law, and another adoptive couple from Cincinnati.. together we went out on the subway, sight seeing and to dinner.. we found an Italian pizza place..

day four (10/4/96) we had an early scheduled interview at the US Embassy to get the visa for Alex to enter the US.. without going into the gory details, we managed to get through that in about two hours thanks to the crafty planning of our agency rep and the fact he stood in line for us from some terribly early hour... the rest of that day, we spent on our own sightseeing and longing at the hotel..

day five (10/5/96) we got the news that the visa had been issued and that the passport had been issued.. we needed to pick them up.. the agency rep got the visa, while I went with his wife to get the passport.. beyond that, we hung around the hotel and taught Alex to walk, run , climb, etc. etc. etc. by this point he was doing all of them.. mostly in the hotel halls and lobby...

day six (10/6/96) we got an early morning call saying our tickets had been changed to return home that day.. so we packed quickly, and tried to contact our friends to explain why we were breaking plans.. we missed some of them (the couple from Cincinnati because their hotel operator kept hanging up on us.. she didn't understand English).. anyway, we got to the airport by noon.. flight was booked solid so much so that it was delayed an hour while they bumped people.. finally in the air and home 15 or 16 hours later..

since then, we've been to the pediatrician here in Cleveland, and Alex has a clean bill of health.. he needs lots of nourishment though.. basically he's got a lot of catching up to do.... and he's doing it in leaps and bounds..

and then a few weeks later..

since people keep asking, I figured I'd write one last update, (yeah right.. we both know they'll keep coming..) about Alex, and finish up the last status information..

without going into alot of details that'll get me in trouble again, we took Alex to the pediatrician for his second visit a week or so ago, and he came through it okay.. he got one shot that he had a reaction to, but he's recovered from that now too.. he gained about a pound and a half in his weight, and grew almost a half an inch.. the doctor was quite pleased.. he's now taught himself to climb up and down steps, and he's mastered getting himself up into one of our swivel recliners and making it spin.. and move importantly, getting down again without hurting himself.. he's running, climbing, and pounding on everything.. he's starting to babble alot more, and seems to understand simple commands like "bring me your shoe" or "come here" or "no, stop that"... he's getting along with Farfelle (our dog) fine too..

Were you satisfied with the agency?

yes.. for the most part...

Did the process proceed as they explained or was it longer and more involved?

the process was very involved.. and it wasn't really explained to us until we were in it.. if we didn't ask, it didn't get explained.. :(

Would you recomend this agency (EAC) to other adoptees?

sure.. as long as you go into it knowing all the pitfalls that are possible..

realize that with any agency, there are a number of things that can go wrong.. my sister has a friend that is working with EAC and has had a minor horror story.. in their case, the over simplified version of their story is that they acceptted a referral, were saddened to learn the child was snapped up by a Russian family, so they were given a second referral which they rejected.. and then a third referral which they accepted.. then while planning to get the third child, the first one popped up again.. the Russian family backed out of the process.. the people here had to decide between number one and number three.. last I heard, they were traveling to Russia to get number one referral... but they were heartbroken about giving up on number three...

on using lawyers/attorneys..

By the way, did you all find the need for an attorney during the process of adoption through EAC?

regarding lawyers.. we had an attorney look over the contracts before we signed them, but he did it informally.. he's a social aquaintance.. his wife is a pediatrician who also viewed the tape and provided an opinion.. she wrote one of our letters of reference too... we "paid" them by taking them to dinner.. no money involved...

beyond that, we didn't use any other legal services beyond those that EAC provided...

regarding the INS office in Cleveland..

Does anyone have experience with the Cleveland, OH INS office? Would like to hear positives (if any, ha, ha) and negatives. Post or e-mail.

we have dealt with the Cleveland INS office and have been very satisfied with their responsiveness and actions.. when the homestudy agency left things out in the homestudy, the INS folks wrote to us about the things that were missing.. my wife called, and spoke directly with the responsible person, and explained the situation.. they vowed to correct their information and quickly re-evaluate the homestudy based on the new information (assuming the homestudy agency sent a written correction).. within two days, they had done so and have sent us our approval..

this is definitely a positive about Cleveland INS office.. they are responsive, caring, and diligent..

about Alex's website and posting his photo on the net...

Before a.russ...etc started I used to read alt.adoption. Among the topics those poor irate adoptees carried on about was the photo listings of adoptees and their last names. This makes me wonder whether you, have received irate email for proudly showing photos of your new children on the web?

hmmm... no one ever said anything pro or con to me.. I put the pictures up on the web just yesterday as a result of a number of people asking for copies of the photos..

I had been maintaining a mailing list of several hundred people with whom I had corresponded about Alex during the whole process.. my message was basically to them since they've been asking for photos.. but since I did it, I figured I'd send to the whole a.parent.russ list too..

one of my coworkers did call yesterday and said something about how he thought it was a novel thing to do.. and that I must be very open minded, but he stressed he wasn't being judgemental.. either pro or con..

your's is the first real question about it...

the other point is that alt.adoption and other newsgroups (in my opinion) tend to be more fluff oriented that a mailing list (like a.parent.russ).. the newsgroups gather the lowest common denomonator amongst the net work users.. a lot of their traffic is filled with the college kids, the wide-eyed new users, and the mail spammers... the mailling list folks are typically more settled in things, and have a deeper interest in the topic (of the list)..

in other words, the newsgroups attract the dregs of humanity, while the elite (?) hang out in mailing lists... :)

anyway, with regard to listing Alex's name and photo.. realistically, what are the odds of his birth mother finding his picture on the net??

in his case, we changed his name legally from the Russian name he was given, and Alex isn't even his new given name.. it's his middle name.. I haven't published his real given name.. ie. the name on his passport and on the adoption papers..

what's more, his mother doesn't know our last name, or that he's even been adopted... and if she does find out, she has no way of tracing us through the agency we used either..

okay, so even if the odds (of his birth parent having net access) are 1 in a million, the odds of them finding my page and then his are even more remote.. I just don't think it's going to happen..