Couple Adopts Twin Boys from Struggling Country
International adoptions offer hope to couples and loving
homes to orphaned children
From: Castle Comments, November 1999 By Elizabeth
Slagel, Public Affairs
After months of discussing and planning adoption, the answer
came for Mark Kessinger and his wife Renee after sitting down
and watching the evening news.
The television screen illuminated with graphic pictures of
overcrowded orphanages, filled with children surrendered by
parents unable to feed them after the economy collapsed last
year in an unstable Russia.
After watching the heart-rendering segments on NBC Nightly
News Mark and Renee decided this was it.
"It just fit. It was like searching for the perfect doctor,"
Mark Kessinger said.
For Kessinger and his wife it was the perfect adoption. They
began the process of the Russian adoption through an approved
American adoption agency after deciding they would like to adopt
biological twins.
"We were told we would wait for years on twins. The social
worker suggested we adopt twins of the heart, which are two
children not related, but have bonded while in the orphanage,"
he said.
The couple attended a seminar on Russian adoption on a Friday
evening and was notified by their caseworker the following Monday
that she had found two infant twin boys.
After their stretch of paperwork was approved, the couple was
notified they would be able to pick the boys up in the overflowing
orphanage in Glazov, Russia.
The
Kessingers watched videotape footage of their twin sons before
actually meeting them. "We studied that videotape so well that
when we finally met the boys my wife already could tell them
apart."
In August, Mark and Renee traveled by flight overseas to Moscow
then on a 700-mile train ride to Glazov to meet their 11-month-old
twins. They had to stay about two weeks to legally adopt the
children. While visiting them in the orphanage, Mark and Renee
were told by workers that they had witnessed their first steps.
"It was a very special time. We were told that the boys might
cry when they saw me because they had never seen a man. Neither
boy cried when Renee and I were there and actually cried when
we left from visitation."
Conditions all across Russia are very sad, Kessinger said.
The orphanage gets 15 cents per day per child. The twins were
living off of potatoes and clabbered milk, he said.
Although the country appeared to be in shambles the legal system
was very much intact, Kessinger said. "I was very impressed.
The Russian laws were very favorable to the children and adoptive
parents."
The Russian government holds newborns for three months to give
the birth mother an opportunity to change her mind or another
relative the chance to adopt the child. After three months the
child becomes property of the state, he said.
The government tries to place the children in a Russian home
before agreeing to an international adoption. No one in Russia
could probably afford to adopt both our boys because the government
will not allow biological twins to be separated, Kessinger said.
If an international adoption occurs the adoptive parents are
encouraged to implement some Russian culture into the child's
life. "My wife and I have been reading up on Russian culture.
We also plan to take the boys to Russia when they become young
men."
Mark and Renee decided to hold onto the boys' Russian names
with an American add on. They call Cason by his American name,
which is Cason Alexey and Sasha David by his Russian name, Sasha.
"I've already nicknamed them Sputnik and Mir," Kessinger said.
Cason and Sasha got a good report at the doctor's office when
in America. Although they were both underweight and slightly
anemic, there were no major problems.
Renee, who is a preschool special needs teacher, is staying
home with the boys until after Thanksgiving when she will return
to work. Her retired parents will care for the twins during
the day.
Mark's wife Renee said adopting the twins is the most rewarding
thing she has ever done. "I think we appreciate having them
more seeing what they came out of." Mark said, "It's been great.
We feel like we made the right decision".
The 14-month-old twins are developing their English vocabulary.
The proud father brags he taught them how to hoot "touch down."
The twins did pick up the Russian words kaka, which means sleepy,
and papa for daddy , he said.
Cason and Sasha live with the couple in their Huntington home
along with Mark's 14-year-old daughter.
The Kessingers are in the process of applying for American
citizenship for Cason and Sasha. They will have duel Russian/U.S.
citizenship until they are eighteen.
Today Russia is the leading country for international adoptions.
The country has over 500,000 children living in Russian orphanages
and over a million homeless in Moscow alone.
