By Clyde L. Stancil, Daily Staff Writer, The Decatur Daily News
Decatur, Alabama, Sunday, April 27, 2003

Zack is their first child as a couple. Pam Randolph, 44, a nurse at Cullman Regional Medical Center, has a daughter named Erica, who is 25.

Greg Randolph, 41, is the Lawrence County coroner and owner of Greg's Ambulance Service. He was childless prior to Zack's arrival.

Their search for a child began in 2001. Why go abroad when television ads promote domestic adoption?

"Because of our ages," Pam Randolph said. "It's harder for older people to adopt at home. We did check on it, and the possibilities didn't sound too good. We talked to people and they said it (domestic adoption) took years; this took months."

Couple: Get advice

It also took more money than they wanted to spend, and the couple advises anyone who is considering international adoption to talk to someone who already has done it.

Initially, the Randolphs sought the assistance of a Mississippi agency, which they said was a costly mistake.

"People need to be very, very careful," Pam Randolph said.

"They had lost their license to adopt domestic children, and the Mississippi Department of Human Resources didn't tell us," Greg Randolph said. "It seems like a lot of Human Resources aren't involved in adoption like they used to be."

The Mississippi agency put them in contact with its affiliate in Lithuania and told the couple that they could adopt two children. The agency sent photographs and histories on two boys, ages 2 and 1, and the Randolphs filled out what they said was enough paperwork to make a Sears catalog. They also sent the Mississippi agency their money.

They grew attached to the boys through 8-by-10 framed photographs. They showed the photos to friends and relatives, and still have them. But after they sent their money to Mississippi, the Randolphs said, the agency stopped communicating with them.

Attorneys seek money

Attorneys are trying to recover their money. The Randolphs allege that the Mississippi group is still operating.

"They had our life history, bank account numbers and everything," Greg Randolph said. "They were drawing money out of our account. We had to go to the bank and change our account numbers."

The experience set the couple's search for a child back by a year.

After doing their homework, they settled on an adoption agency in Birmingham named Villa Hope. They again began the mounds of paperwork, including physical examinations, local, state and federal background checks, FBI fingerprinting and financial history checks.

Preference

Once they completed the paperwork, the couple set out on their first trip abroad in search of a child. They specified two boys ages 6 months to 3 years.

"We didn't want them talking already because it would be hard to learn the language here," Pam Randolph said.

They flew from the United States to Amsterdam and then to Kiev, in Ukraine, where adoption officials gave them a book of photographs filled with children in the specified age group.

"Their laws don't allow you to see them first," Greg Randolph said. "You have to choose when you get there."

Ironically, Zackery wasn't available for adoption until the couple arrived, but they believe that the agency had planned for them to adopt him. Greg Randolph said officials urged them to choose him.

Zackery, who was 2 in March, had been at the orphanage in Odessa since he was 6 months old. A lot of children in Ukrainian orphanages are there because their parents cannot afford to care for them. The Randolphs said Zackery's mother was to return for him in six months, but she didn't return and officials could not find her.

Pam Randolph said Ukraine is full of orphanages. The one in Odessa had 132 children, and the halls were lined with people waiting to adopt on the day she and her husband went to see Zackery.

But many of the children will remain in orphanages because of the local laws. For instance, if a family member comes to visit the child for 10 minutes a year, that child cannot be adopted.

If no one adopts the children by their 16th birthdays, they become adults and the orphanages release them.

Costs

Included in the price to adopt a child in Ukraine are four cartons of cigarettes. Upon their arrival, officials required the Randolphs to present the cigarettes to them in gift bags. They requested two cartons each of Marlboros and Camels.

The couple paid for two children; they returned with one.

"We wanted two but they had changed the process when we got there," Greg Randolph said. "They told us the director wanted a copy of our salary updates."

The document was in their paperwork, but for some reason adoption officials said they would need another certified copy. That would have forced the Randolphs to wait 10 days for the document to arrive and would have required an additional three-week stay and another mound of paperwork.

It costs $26,000 to adopt two unrelated children. A child age 2 or younger costs $13,700, and adopting children ages 3 to 6 costs $11,700. A fee listed as a "world child" fee is $3,800. Other fees include a $150 application fee, a $75 fee for an application for a second child, a $250 placement fee and a $300 dossier fee.

The Randolphs said they spent $4,000 on plane fare.

The couple hope to recover some of the money they paid to adopt the second child, whom they did not receive.

Despite completing all the necessary paperwork before arriving in Ukraine, the Randolphs stayed 24 days.

"A lot of it was downtime," Pam Randolph said. "We would go see Zack for two hours a day."

They initially lived with a host family for five days. Afterward, they spent more time in their hotel room than they wanted to because their translator wasn't interested in touring the city.

When they were out with the translator, it wasn't always so smooth.

"We asked her to order onion rings for us, and the waiter came to the table with a plate of sliced onions," Pam Randolph said.

Once the Randolphs got out, they experienced knee-deep snow, frozen rivers, well-dressed people, immaculate restaurants and restrooms that ranged from modern to a hole in the floor.

But the couple said it was worth it.

"He's brought joy to our lives," Pam Randolph said. "He's friendly with everybody. A stranger can come up, and he'll jump in his arms. He's really getting attached to us."