Nadya - Russian daughter, who we adopted before illegal Russian adoptions
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- Опубліковано 13 бер 2021
- Our beautiful daughter, Nadya and her adoption story. She was adopted from Russia before it became illegal to do so (adopt from Russia). PRAISE GOD we barely made it home with her. It was quite a trip and it's been quite a life. This beautiful child has grown to be a gorgeous, successful young woman in the medical field. We praise God for her every day of our lives.
Nadya was starving when we adopted her. You'll see in this video that she was also very sick. Happy, but sick. This is the story, from start to finish, including a couple of trips to Russia, trying to bring her home. The story began in January, 1999. During our final trip you will see me in men's shirts and sweat pants. We had a carry-on with our luggage because we were warned to bring at least that with all of the most important and essential hygiene items. Praise God for that because some employees at the airport stole our luggage and we had nothing but the clothes on our backs for a 2-week trip. We had to go shopping for some dressy clothes to wear to court and apparently Russians are tiny. It took so long to finally find our sizes. I'm 5'8" and my husband is 6'1". Average for US adults but for Russia, it was like trying to fit a giraffe into a money suit. We washed our clothes in the bath every evening and hung them to dry and my husband did have an extra shirt in his carry-on so I confiscated that to have at least one more change of shirts.
We did finally get our luggage back on the last day when we asked our "handler/translator" to try to get our luggage back and offered her $100. We figured we had nothing to lose. That did the trick. They suddenly produced our luggage! (on month of work in Russia paid, at the time, on average, $15 PER M0NTH!!! And that was for a submarine engineer...our host...the house we were staying in).
For one of the cutest parts, go to 30:30... thanksgiving. Nadya wants to know about the turkey when she's around 5 years old.
Thank you for sharing such an important aspect of your life with us. It was so heartwarming to watch Nadya grow up into a beautiful young lady.
Is anything in life more precious than a child?
My heart ACHES for a baby and even though I’ve raised my 5 to adulthood there’s just something that hurts inside when I think about the incredible gift a new little one would be.
What an incredible joy Nadya must be!
I totally get it! You should've been there when we were unable to afford to take more than one home! AWFUL!
Aww she's so sweet but I can hear all the other poor babies in the background 😭
Yes. It was very very sad to only afford to take home one baby. :(
What a beautiful family you have !!! God Bless you for adopting !!
Thank you so much Poppy! We have a beautiful family now and I am more in love with Nadya than ever. She is a gorgeous woman now and a successful nurse working in an intensive care unit. She is my precious baby girl!! God bless you too!
Love to see how they have grown up
She became a wonderful human as a grown up.
Thank you! She certainly did. I've been asking her for a "grown up" interview and she says she's going to let me do one soon!
@@LisaClarkLive We would love to, I loved her Twitter, her spark of joy, such an inspiration💜 this world will be a better place if my generation looks up to her.
@Ginger Noisette, her twitter? Are you talking about "mynuttykids"? That is a REALLY funny twitter account. I was recording all of the hilarious things my kids said. Mostly it's Piper that's the funny one (younger daughter I got pregnant with THE MOMENT WE RETURNED FROM RUSSIA not to mention after trying for FIVE YEARS... who used to cry because she wasn't adopted too...HAHA... we make adoption a very special thing). But Nadya was funny too.
she is such a doll baby
Thank you so very much!!
Shes absolutely beautiful! Congratulations to you all!
Thank you!
Please can you do a video with her now in 2022?
I will certainly do that! She works odd hours so give me just a week or two to tie her down! ;)
What a beautiful baby, child and adult! How many siblibgs does she have? Do they have similar stories? Would love to see her as an adult!
Thank you so much Anna! I came in last night (she was cooking dinner!) and mentioned an updated interview to her (others have asked too!) So, she's going to find some time to sit down with me asap!
As for her siblings (biological anyway), that I am aware of, she had a brother and sister that were 2 and 3 years older than her. They were in the orphanage too and we did get to see them. We so wanted to bring them home too but they wouldn't let them go without an additional $15,000 per child and we just didn't have that kind of money. HOW SAD IS THAT!!!??? The terrible thing is, people don't much adopt babies after age 2 when there are infants available. So those kids end up in the orphanage until they're 18 and are then set out on the streets with the clothes on their back. They usually end up in prison because they have no way to support themselves and turn to crime to survive. They should've given the children to us FOR NOTHING!!!
So, those kids are now in their mid 20's...no clue what's happened to them. :( ...very sad.
@@LisaClarkLive wow that's such a bummer she must want to meet them one day
@fraggel rock, well, she did mention wanting to see if she could find her biological parents when she was much younger. Her grandmother kept telling her she would take her to Russia. But that was a time when she didn't understand yet, exactly how much we love her and that she is not adopted to us. She's OUR child and as far as we are concerned, by the grace of God, our biological child. These days, we totally forget she's even adopted. So anyway, I told her two things. First, I support whatever she wants to do and second, I would not be going with her because I wasn't done being the only mom in the picture. That was about 15 years ago. I might consider going with her at this point but boy that flight is enough to just about put you down, not to mention how scary Russia tends to be to foreigners who don't know Russian and/or the ways you can be taken from while there. In Russia, Americans can be real targets for stuff like that. They just stick out like sore thumbs... if for nothing less than the fact that they smile. They told us we were clearly American because we smile and boy did we get taken multiple times (stolen from - including all of our luggage for an entire stay).
You said the story began in 1999, "the year before it became illegal to adopt from Russia". But the law prohibiting adoption was passed in 2012.
My bad you're right, it was in 2000 that Putin signed a decree outlawing intermediaries in the adoption process, immobilizing over 150 agencies from the US. ... agencies like ours and it became nearly impossible. It became formally illegal in 2012. Anyway the point being... praise the Lord God that we got her home before any of that happened. It's been 23 years so my memory in everything grows foggy. I've changed that in the description. Thank you for bringing it to my attention!!
@@LisaClarkLive :)
How is she doing today
Hey!! She's doing great!!! A grown woman now! She's a nurse in the intensive care unit of a wonderful Christian hospital!
In Ohio we always use a snow suit
Mr John Carver also adopt 6 wonderful children from Russia.
If it would have become illegal to adopt from Russia while you guys were almost done with yours. What would have happened?
Had it become illegal during the process, we would have lost our child and all of our life savings.. Praise God that didn't happen!!! But we struggled to get her home. She was so sick during our final visit that they tried to admit her to the hospital for an extended stay and the people who got us to where we needed to go stole our luggage and told us they didn't like Americans adopting their children. Literally half of the process you see in the video is happening with only one outfit that we were left with wearing and one we had to purchase to be able to go to court (dressy). What a very sad thing because those that don't get adopted end up in the streets at 18 with nothing more than the clothes on their backs! It's such a very sad thing that it's no longer legal. But I will tell you this, it was one of the most dangerous things we'd ever done. The Russian government made it a very difficult process to complete even while it WAS legal! Nadya is now a 22 year old gorgeous woman who I am so proud of and love so very much. She has become a successful RN.
Why wasn't she ever given a bottle by you or wherever she cane from .. surprised you didn't have a bottle for .. her... how sad... she was starving... ☹..the whole time In the beginning No bottle or water???
We were not allowed to bring ANYTHING into the orphanage. Trust me, we tried and they were terribly offended that we thought our "stuff" could help her more than their "stuff". We had those things waiting for her back at the place were we were staying. But I will tell you this. They DO NOT tell you the kids are starving. That's just something you figure out.
Funny make sure she all warm but no car seat 😂😂
Exactly!! That's not at all a thing in Russia. They didn't even have such a thing!