When the Russian tanks began to cross the border with Ukraine in February, Tracy Blake-Bell realized that she was going to have to leave the European country without having completed the adoption process for Vanya, of 17 years old, and Serogzha, from 14.
But the most distressing thing for this American mother of 48 years was knowing that he was going to have to return to his farm in Maine leaving his children behind in a conflict zone.
“Legally they are not my children, but it feels as if they were . And if there is something that this war has taught me, it is that I will do anything legal, ethical and moral that I can to bring these boys home because of how much I love them”, Tracy tells BBC Mundo.
With the entry of the Russian army into Ukraine on 24 February, American families hoping to adopt children from the European country now do not know how long they will have to wait to hug their children.
“At this point, as Ukraine is fighting for its survival, adoptions are really stagnant. I have 25 families waiting to adopt 39 children”, tells BBC Mundo Daniel Stevens, a social worker who coordinates adoption processes for American families in Ukraine.
Making the decision
Just a few months before the fighting began in the Ukraine, Tracy and her husband Nat had agreed to adopt Vanya and Serogzha.
The boys had spent a couple of short periods living on the family farm in the small town of Leeds, Maine.
Adopting was an idea they had considered since their marriage in 95, and had remained despite the years and the upbringing of two biological children.
“We never took formal steps to adopt, but in the summer of 2016, our neighbors and good friends posted a photo of three children from Ukraine.” They were staying with them under a modality known as hosting, Tracy says.
The figure is similar to a student exchange. It allows foreign children to live for short periods (between 1 and 3 months) with families that could adopt them.
It was through a very similar process that Bethany and Nik Wight, a couple from Wyoming, met and adopted in November of 1200 to her fifth daughter, a Ukrainian girl.
“Even before we got married, my husband and I knew in our hearts that one day we would want to adopt,” Bethany explains to BBC Mundo .
“Our friends did hosting first and just seeing them in that process made me think ‘that’s very interesting’ (…) much of it was that our friends were the directors of this hosting program for Ukraine and we said ‘well, then let’s start’”.
‘Falling in love’ with their children
Both the Bells and the Wights assure that during that coexistence the love they feel for their children arose today.
Tracy describes Vanya and Serogzha as a “wonderful pair of children. illosos” who integrated into the family routines and made friends with the biological children of the couple.
“One day I was sick, I woke up with a note on the covers that said: ‘Tracy I ski’ and I saw them skiing on a hill that we have outside the house. They knew I might be worried and they wrote me a note to say ‘we’re going to be out’.”
“When we said goodbye at the airport a month later, I had a crying fit. The little boy, from years, I was crying and the big one, with 15, I was trying not to cry. And I kept telling them ‘I don’t want you to leave’”, she adds.
Bethany and Nik went through a similar process with Lera, who was brought to the US in 1200.
“We really fell in love with our daughter, who we have at home now, and we knew we had to move forward with the adoption,” says Bethany.
And it was during that process with Lera that they discovered that they wanted a second daughter.
During one of their trips to Ukraine they began the paperwork to adopt a girl who today has 17 years old and who is still in the country.
Today, legally, Bethany and Nik are already the adoptive parents from her daughter. All they have to do is travel to Ukraine to sign the papers to leave the orphanage where she is today.
“Only when my daughter has crossed the border will I be able to feel confident that he will be safe”, he assures.
The drama of the war
“We have been since Friday at midnight without knowing of her”, said Bethany with anguish to BBC Mundo on Sunday morning.
Bethany and Nik just need to sign their daughter out of an orphanage in the south of Ukraine.
For security reasons, Bethany preferred not to share exactly where her daughter is.
But according to what she told BBC Mundo, the orphanage where the girl is still is in the southern part of Ukraine, near the Crimean peninsula, which Russia occupies from 2014.
In this area the fighting has been fierce.
“There are times when we just need a break, because it’s so overwhelming”, she says.
“And when you hear that there are buses full of people trying to escape being bombed in the region where your daughter is, that makes you collapse,” she says, her voice broken by tears.
Awaiting a judge
Tracy is in constant contact with her children through a mobile phone that she left with them on her last visit to Ukraine.
“I had to tell them to make sure that, if they were going to cross any border into another country with their teachers and principals and classmates, they all had their legal documents with them (…) All those documents are legally necessary to complete an adoption.”
In order to bring their children to the US, Tracy and Nat still have to attend a hearing with a judge, who will review the case and ask the parties if they want to proceed with the adoption.
Additionally, Ukrainian law requires the parties to wait a month in case someone wants to appeal the process.
And although today the boys are in Poland, a place where Tracy could travel, she prefers to wait, and not make a decision that could put everything at risk. they’ve accomplished so far.
“There’s nothing I’d love more than to go see my boys,” says Tracy. “But I want to make sure that I have permission from all government entities”.
“I am concerned that a group of us, people with good intentions, travel to Poland and normalize a situation of strangers entering and leaving the hotels and that we are putting children at risk”.
Out of their control
Today these families are waiting to hug their children and live in peace, away from the conflict that has invaded the world’s headlines.
From a distance, these Parents feel they have done all they can.
“So many things have been out of my control. Really the only thing we have been able to do is depend on the Lord to help us through it,” says Bethany. She is waiting for a “green light” to bring her daughter to the US
“No matter what anyone tells me at the legal level, I’m going to love these kids and I’m going to do everything I can to be their mom,” says Tracy. “Even being his mom from a distance, if that’s how the story ends.”
“I hope is not like that…”
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