In April we signed a contract with Adoption International Program (AIP) incorporated in Santa Barbara. The owner and director is Mr. Orson Mozes. We signed with AIP after seeing the picture of a beautiful baby boy on a photolisting through the website www.precious.org and hoped adoption could help us grow our family. Mr. Mozes informed us that 80% of his clients adopt the child they selected from the photolisting. Little did we know at that time that photolistings are illegal under Kazakhstan law (where we are adopting from) and their country does not recognize referrals or allow children to be held for any particular couple.
As I researched the laws of Kazakhstan and began chatting with numerous couples on the Yahoo groups for adoptive parents I started to uncover the appalling reputation that Mr. Mozes has and his unethical and illegal practices. Sadly, we were financially bound to him and could not afford to lose the money we gave him to date.
After loving this baby boy for nine months and dreaming of the day he would become a part of our family we were informed that we could not adopt him due to a problem with his paperwork. We were brokenhearted and considered ending our relationship with AIP and looking for another agency. However, Orson reminded us we would not get a cent back of what we had already given him. So, we forged ahead and after some time Orson informed us that his contacts in Kazakhstan had found another baby boy for us. We accepted this baby boy, named Stanislav, and once again our hope was renewed.
We traveled to Kazakhstan in February with both excitement and trepidation. After 24 hours in the air we landed in Almaty, Kazakhstan and were met by Orsons contact in country, a man named Nigmat. Up until that point Nigmat was only the name of a faceless man that we wired money to in an account he has in Cyprus. He explained what we should expect during our trip and collected the remaining balance due in cash. Nigmat left and we stayed in the airport with is assistant waiting for our early morning flight to the city Ust-Kamengorsk.
When we arrived in Ust-Kamengorsk we were informed that the coordinator, Almagul, was stuck in Astana due to bad whether, so we could not go to the orphanage until she arrived. We waited patiently and two days later we were finally introduced to our beautiful son Stas! It was the happiest day of our lives. He was sick and very delayed developmentally, but he was perfect to us. Our nightmare continued though when ten days later, after celebrating Stas first birthday together with a party at the orphanage, we were informed that his birthmother returned and stated she did not want him adopted. Devastation cannot adequately describe the pain we experienced from this loss. We considered flying back home immediately. However, we felt that there must be a baby who needs us and could help make us a family.
My husband could not bring himself to return to the orphanage. I went back and was shown several children. I felt connected to one baby boy, Andrey, and I told my husband I thought he would feel connected to him too. It was very difficult for my husband to open his heart again, but he did and fell in love with Andrey. After completing the mandatory fifteen day bonding period we went to court and the judge granted our adoption. We were thrilled and on cloud nine! My husband flew home and I stayed in order to complete the fifteen day waiting/appeal period and finalize the adoption. On the fifteenth day of the waiting/appeal period I was told that HIS birthmother filed an appeal! This was beginning to feel like a horrible Lifetime movie!
I had to go to the appeals court in order to fight for our son. The first day, the birthmother did not show up. They rescheduled for two days later and this time she showed. She gave power of attorney to a gentleman friend and he was the greatest force behind this appeal. The court denied her appeal and the case was returned to family court. I had now been in Kazakhstan for two months and my Family Leave was running out. We were also paying $175.00 per day for the apartment, driver and translator. I was not getting paid for these two months and our funds were drying up. I finally had to leave our case in the hands of our coordinator and head home. Getting on that plane and leaving our son in the orphanage was the most difficult thing I have ever had to do in my life.
I have been home since mid-April and there is no resolution to our case. There were two court dates: one on May 16 and the other on May 30. We were informed in writing by the courts in Kazakhstan that we did not show up on those dates and neither did our Power of Attorney! We have been told by Mozes wife, Christen Brown, that Orson is gone and there is no money to refund us. We have now lost thousands of dollars and are home without our son and getting very little help from our agency. We do not know what to do anymore. We feel betrayed by AIP and Mr. Mozes has destroyed our lives. Any attempts to describe the emotional and financial destruction wreaked at the hands of AIP will fall short of describing the true impact on our lives.
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