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Kathy's Leah Pictures
Leah's orphanage Charity program
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In March of 2001 a single friend of mine thought she would like to pursue adoption. I
was so excited for her and immediatly dug into internet researh to help. I found an
international adoption website that although it didn't cover the country she was interested
in it was so thorough in the steps you needed to take to get approval to bring a child to
our country. I read it thoroughly as if I was the one adopting. Then I made my big goof,
I looked at the photo listing and there she was. A small toddler with a cleft lip and palate.
Her hair had a reddish tinge to it. Not much but enough to interest me, a redhead.
Her posture of self conscienciousness tinge with something defiant in one so young touched my heart.
I inquired about her without telling my husband and was soooo relieved to hear there were three
families lined up to look at her. Surely one of them would take her.
I was shocked to get a call a few days later that she was available, would we look at her video?
Yikes, I had to quickly call my husband and confess. He agreed to look at it with me. I honestly
didn't think anything would come of it, we had no money. Adoption wasn't cheap.
The video arrived and we sat down together to view it. I have to honestly tell you cleft lip and
palate birth defects are not pretty. But you could tell she was so loved. The director of the
orphanage came to play with Leah on the tape. She held her tiny body high and sang to her and
twisted her in the palm of her hand and Leah laughed and we laughed with her. Her laughter
was what we fell in love with. It was infectious and fell like water on our hearts.
We told the agency on April 10th we wanted her for our daughter. We refinanced our house,
got a grant from "A Child Waits" for part of our fees, began and finished ALL of our paperwork
and stood in front of the judge being granted our baby girl less than 4 months later on Aug 8th 2001.
Through all of this we were incredibly naive. We had never researched adoption. We had no idea
why a Russian woman would not want their baby or if they had no choice. We just plain didn't
know a thing other than we wanted this baby girl to be ours. We changed Leah's name from
Tatiana to Leah Tatiana. We didn't know they called her Tanuska which is an endearment
meaning something like little Tanya. To this day when I think of Russia I often call
her Tanuska without even thinking.
When we got to Russia we were told, you are lucky, the birth mother cared for herself
and didn't drink or do drugs, she is a smart woman, you are so lucky. We didn't know
what to make of the comments. If she was so smart, why did we have her baby? Then
we found out there was no medical care for birth defects. We were beginning to get
the picture. Maybe she wanted this baby but out of love couldn't keep her because of her birth defect.
The day of our court our translator told us they had visited the birth mother one
last time to make sure she couldn't care for the child we wanted to adopt. Our
translator told us she had given birth to another baby just the month before and
the baby boy was healthy and well. I was stunned and sad because it confirmed
what I already suspected, that she wanted her baby but couldn't keep her because
of the birth defect.
We got the relinquishment letter and the birth mother had included personal
information about both herself and the birth father. I knew she wanted to
be found some day.
A few years later someone mentioned www.russianfamilysearch.com on the
vladadopt listserv. I contacted Mary. Through several emails I became
very comfortable. I sensed a real desire to help others connect. We got
our estimate of how much it would be to make contact using Alex and Natasha,
both Russian people Mary knows and trusts. I really liked the upfront estimate
we got, the clear and matter of fact estimate of how many days each search would
take (we had two kids to search for birth parents for), the verification of
address up front. It was just done very well. There is no guarantee who you
will find on the other end of the search however. My husband Greg and I
decided we didn't care, our search was a gift to the women who gave birth
to our precious kids who had the misfortune to be born with birth defects.
We wanted to send pictures and letters to tell them their babies are
loved and cherish and beautiful and to thank them for their gift of
life to these children. We wanted to tell them our kids would know as much as
they wanted them to know about them and to leave it up to them to choose.
Natasha hit pay dirt with Leah's birth mother. Wow! is all I can say. Oksana,
her birth mother was overjoyed. She had wanted Leah and has tried to get
information about contacting her adoptive family but was not allowed any
information. Oksana sent precious family photos of both grandmas, Leah's
bio brother and her father and many other family photos. She sounds like
a wonderful woman. I feel like we have added to our family. I don't know
for sure how the relationship will develop but I am so grateful to Mary,
Alex and Natasha from Russian Family Search for making any sort of relationship possible.
Kathy Harvey
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