A real reach: Local couples embrace adoptees from overseas

Kimberley McGee

Tuesday, May 8, 2001 | 8:58 a.m.

In May 1998 Zoe Frentress, just hours old, was abandoned at a railway station in a province of southeast China.

For three days the newborn was fed by local elderly women who were fearful of police scrutiny.

Not more than a week old, she was taken to an overcrowded orphanage where a handful of nurses fed and changed the children, who were usually left alone in their cribs or on the floor for hours a day. For nearly a year Zoe waited for a home.

More than 10,000 miles away, in the small town of Round Mountain in central Nevada, Daphne and Richard Frentress were looking for a little girl to adopt.

They chose their daughter, a plump toddler with a shy smile, from a stack of photos they requested from an adoption agency.

On October 19, 1999, they brought Zoe home.

"We call it our 'Gotcha Day," Daphne Frentress, 45, said. "As a family, that day we got her is more important than her birthday, because of what she went through."

Zoe is considered one of the lucky ones.

More than 18,000 children from war-torn, impoverished or overcrowded countries were adopted by U.S. families last year. That is a nearly 10-percent increase since 1999 in inter-country adoption.

Locally, the Las Vegas branch of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Services has approved advanced processing for 18 international adoptions since October. In 1997 only 10 international adoptions were approved by the INS.

"They are increasing," said Kathy Banos, supervisory district adjudications officer for the Las Vegas suboffice of the INS.

John Sprouse, social work supervisor for the state's Division of Child and Family Services, said the availability of healthy babies locally and nationally is low. This could be due to families taking care of unwanted pregnancies privately through adoption or abortion.

Regardless, the list of waiting families is long.

"We are just now looking for families that got on the list for a baby in 1995," Sprouse said.

Baby on board

Many local parents reach the decision to adopt from overseas after much deliberation and soul-searching.

Paula and Steve Smith have been members of the Las Vegas chapter of Families with Children from China/Asia, an adoption support group, since 1999.

Potential parents mull over many questions, Smith said, such as would the child bond with its new parents? What painful past had the child experienced? What would they remember? Would the process be more expensive than a U.S. adoption?

The Smiths' fears resurfaced throughout their adoption ordeal, which began two years ago.

They turned to the FCC/A group to dispel doubts as they endured financial and emotional struggles to adopt a baby girl from China.

Each adoption is unique to the child and parents, but typically an overseas adoption can cost from $15,000-$25,000 depending on the country, Smith said. That is comparable to a U.S. adoption, if not slightly higher.

The prospective parents are scrutinized by their state adoption agency and the INS, as well as the adoptive agencies of the country. The process can take from six to 18 months.

On January 24, 2000, after 15 months of frustration and yearning, the Smiths held their 6-month-old daughter, Kimberly.

"We were worried that she wouldn't bond with us," Smith said. "She was home a month before she started to laugh and smile. But since then she's fine."

The hardest part

Families can wait years for a healthy child in the United States, where waiting lists are long, said Victoria Wellman, an adoption counselor for the state of Nevada.

Orphanages are crowded with available babies in countries such as China, which restricts women to giving birth to just one child in an attempt to control overpopulation, or Russia, which has experienced an influx of unwanted children from poverty-stricken mothers.

"These kids are just stacked up over there," Wellman said.

The longer they stay in the system, the possibility of reactive-attachment disorder rises. The disorder affects children who have had limited physical or emotional contact over a long period of time. Because of this they sometimes find interaction with strangers overwhelming.

"Most of these children have been institutionalized for most of their lives," Wellman said. "Sometimes they are not able to bond easily because they have been neglected for so many years."

Cindy Klein, assistant director for Adopt International in Redwood City, Calif., said a typical concern of new adoptive parents is that the children may have myriad problems that will hinder their ability to love, such as neglect or abuse from caregivers or painful memories of the death of their birth parents.

"I tell them that this child has to go through all the things a newborn does when they are brought into a family," Klein said. "The main thing it needs is trust to enter a family, and it will."

The children are starved for affection, Klein has noticed. They are not adverse to love.

"These children need," Klein said. "These parents are ready to give."

And give they must. It's very important that the parents be prepared to embrace the child's cultural heritage, Klein said. The usual questions from adopted children such as "Where did I come from?" can be a bit more complicated.

Culture continuum

In India in 1995 a 2-year-old boy was left at a welfare office for the day so that his mother could go to work. She never returned.

Across the Atlantic and more than half a continent away, Mindy and Todd Peterson had been told they could not conceive children of their own.

They began to look for children in need of a home. There were many.

A photo of the 2-year-old boy who had been abandoned touched them instantly. The Petersons had found their little boy.

The Las Vegas couple sent photos and letters to the boy, who they named T.J. They began an emotional bond, knowing that the adoption could fall through.

It took two years for the paperwork to clear through the U.S. and India governments.

In 1997 4-year-old T.J. landed at McCarran International Airport. He ran into Mindy Peterson's arms. He called her "Mommy."

The Petersons have since adopted two 3-year-old daughters, Taycie, a Polynesian girl, and Tahni, from Ethiopia.

Each child is made well aware of their individual heritage. T.J., who remembers the orphanage, would like to travel to India when he is older.

"I want to see the orphanage, see my people again," he said.

The Petersons chose names that begin with T for their children so that there would be a connection between them. Even small ties can build a strong bond.

"I like to say I have three T's and a Todd," Mindy Peterson said. "We are a family. We try to make bonds between each child. That they are ours, no matter what."

Peggy and Daniel Knott have studied their two adopted children's native countries so as to form a stronger connection with Lily, 5, from China, and Isaiah, 4, from Cambodia.

Isaiah's mother had died a month before his first birthday in 1998. He was shuffled in Cambodia's disorganized orphanage system while his photo was sent to the United States to be viewed by the Knotts of Las Vegas.

They adored the little boy in the snapshot.

Within eight months Peggy Knott, 43, was on a plane to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, with the pile of certificates she had obtained over the last year to claim her little boy.

Isaiah had become her son in spirit, if not yet in the physical sense.

Knott arrived at the orphanage to find the babies sleeping in hammocks made of mosquito netting. The caregivers slept on the floor beneath the babies.

"He was very complacent," Knott said. "We bonded quickly, though."

She is prepared for the day Isaiah asks her the hard questions, such as where he came from and why.

"I knew nothing when I went over there except that they had the most land mines per capita," Knott said.

She has studied Cambodia's military history and the traditions of her son's native country.

"My children are American, we're their parents," Knott said. "But if you don't understand the country, the situations, they can't know why this happened to them, why they can't live with their (birth) mother."

Moving on

Some of the children retain memories of their experiences before they came to live with their families in America.

In her northwest Las Vegas home, Ruth Rapella prominently displays a framed photo of the orphanage her Chinese-born, 3-year-old daughter, Madeline, lived in for five months as a baby.

"I keep that out for her to see in case she ever wants to talk about it," Rapella said. "She remembers it quite clearly sometimes."

In the photo, Madeline is nearly a year old. She is perched on a wall in front of the entrance to the orphanage where she was taken after her mother died.

Madeline has occasionally looked at the photo and questioned, "Mama?"

Rapella has talked with her daughter about China. She is still shocked her daughter remembers the orphanage, but so far there have been no tears, just a mild curiosity.

"I asked her if she wanted to send pictures, and she really thought about it," Rapella said. "She came over and threw her arms around me and said, 'No. You mommy now.' "

When asked if she ever wants to return to China, Madeline nods her head shyly and looks at her mother.

"She'll know where she came from," Rapella said. "That's their beginnings and it's important not to cut that off from them."

When Madeline returns to her birth country, Rapella said, she will come from a home that exists beyond geographical boundaries.

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