Ties that bind: Families who adopted children from Russia gather together in Dover

Publication date: 20 July 2009

By LESLIE MODICA

lmodica@fosters.com

Monday, July 20, 2009

EJ Hersom/Staff photographer Isabella Lachut, 3, rests in her mother Heidi's arms Sunday in Dover during a gathering of families who adopted Russian children.

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DOVER — When 7-year-old Jack Karwowski recently explained to his six-year-old brother, Charlie, how they came to live in the United States, the story was simple.

According to Jack, years ago, the boys were "in the tummies" of two women in Russia. When they were born, each of the women said "We can't hold these babies. They belong to Tim and Alisa Karwowski." Then, Tim and Alisa got on a big airplane and traveled to Russia to get the boys and bring them back to the United States, Jack said.

"If that's how he wants to remember it, that's fine with me," Alisa Karwowski said after hearing her oldest son tell the story to his younger brother.

Karwowski, the author of "A Guide to Russian Adoption: Professional Counseling and Personal Insights," was one of dozens of parents who, during a barbecue at her Dover Neck Road home Sunday, told their stories about adopting children from Russia. The event offered a chance for the families to connect with others who had been through a similar experience and share their tales.

But it also served a larger purpose. At the event was Galina Sigaeva, the Director for International Adoption for the region of Saint Petersburg, Russia, who Karwowski calls "The Russian Grandmother." To the families, she was somebody who guided them through every step of the process and helped them navigate Russian international adoption procedures.

Before arriving in the United States, Sigaeva was assigned to file a report to the Ministry of Education in Russia on the state of Russian adoption policy and practice within the United States. By bringing together about 120 people connected by their experience with Russian adoption, Karwowski said she hoped to demonstrate that the children thriving in their new homes.

The less abridged version of the Karwowskis' adoption story involves a lot more emotion — and a lot more paperwork — when told by Alisa Karwowski.

The couple's serious look into adoption began in 2002, after three failed attempts to become pregnant through fertility treatments.

EJ Hersom/Staff photographer Sarah Josephson shoots a basketball Sunday in Dover during a gathering for families who adopted children from Russia.

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But the seed of the idea was planted before the couple even knew they were not going to be able to conceive, when friends who Karwowski knows through her job as a guidance counselor at St. Thomas Aquinas brought their adopted Russian children to an event.

"I thought they were just the most beautiful children in the world," Karwowski said.

When the couple was later considering adoption, they agreed to look internationally and ended up connecting with New Hope Christian Services, an agency that was then located in Concord and helped couples adopt from Russia.

Once the process began, Karwowski said she "set a record" for the fastest adoption process when she completed all paperwork and was on her way to adopt Jack within three months, a feat that took several trips back and forth between Dover and Concord to deliver paperwork.

For others at Sunday's event, the process took longer, but was still shorter than most said they expected, usually ranging between six months and one year. Two couples said they arrived in Russia exactly nine months after starting the paperwork.

Regardless of how long it took, it was a whirlwind, especially for first-time adopters who were learning the process as they went along.

When the Karwowskis traveled to Russia to adopt Jack, they waited for about four hours in a play room in Jack's orphanage to meet the baby. It was there that they met Bill and Michelle Josephson, an Epsom couple adopting their second child, Sarah, from Russia.

Because the couple had already adopted their son, Tyler, from Russia in 1997, the couple went into Sarah's adoption knowing more of what to expect with paperwork, but there was still uncertainty and stress, Michelle Josephson said. For both couples, having another couple from the United States going through the same journey offered the emotional support they needed at the time.

"There's a certain bond you have with people going are going through the same thing as you," Josephson said.

EJ Hersom/Staff photographer Sam DiCicco, 6, kicks a ball held by Alex Karski, 7, Sunday during a gathering in Dover for families who adopted children from Russia.

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During that visit in 2002, and after waiting for hours to see Jack and Sarah, a representative from the orphanage came into the playroom to tell both couples that they would not, after all, be able to see the children that day, Karwowski said.

"So I said, 'No, I'm not leaving,'" Karwowski said. Even after being urged by Sigaeva to leave, Karwowski said she refused until she was finally taken into a large room with about 100 cribs to see her new son. When she walked over to his crib, she said, she realized it was so close to Sarah's that they were actually touching.

"We still talk about how they are the only ones that know what happened in each other's lives for the first few months," Karwowski said, adding that the two children are still close friends today.

Several parents at Sunday's event said the number of children up for adoption in Russia was overwhelming.

According to official statistics released by the Russian Federation Statistics Bureau in 2007, every hundredth child in the country is being raised by the state orphanage system. The 280,000 children in the system are spread among 2,000 shelters, 1,500 state institutions and 1,400 boarding schools.

Although the orphanages attempt to provide the best care possible, it is far different from the foster care system in the United States, Karwowski said.

"Our sons weren't even wearing diapers when we got them," she said. "They were just wrapped in blankets."

That difference from the United States was exactly why the Karwowskis decided to looking internationally for adoption, she said. And it is also exactly why the two countries must maintain an international adoption relationship, she said.

"It makes me very emotional," Karwowski said with tears in her eyes as she observed the event at her home Sunday. "This (international adoption with Russia) has to continue. We have to be the spokespeople for this."

For Karwowski, the journey that brought her two sons to the United States was extraordinary, but its not what she thinks about whens he looks at her children everyday.

"I don't really think about it," she said. "They're my kids, and I wouldn't have it any other way."

Countries: United States of America, Russia