exposing the dark side of adoption
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Linking to Kazakstan

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Adoptive parents get together

By Susan D. Brandenburg

Shorelines correspondent,

Martha Pumphrey of Jacksonville Beach had just about given up hope of ever having a child. Then she heard about Kazakstan.

Now, after some urging from friends, she has a baby daughter named Katlyn from the former Soviet republic along the China border.

"I was a single woman over 40 years of age," Pumphrey said. "Even qualifying for international adoption seemed unlikely, but my friends at Beach United Methodist Church encouraged me to take a leap of faith."

She checked adoption alternatives on the Internet daily. Then, in May 1999, a friend sent a picture of Katlyn. "She was 3 1/2 months old and just beautiful," Pumphrey said. "I knew she was mine."

Martha Pumphrey holds her daughter, Katlyn, who was adopted from Kazakstan.

-- Special

Martha and Katlyn Pumphrey were among several dozen people -- parents from throughout the United States who had adopted children from Kazakstan -- who gathered at the Sea Turtle Inn, Sliders Oyster Bar and other Beaches locations last weekend. It was the group's third annual reunion.

After sharing a day of ocean, sun and sand together on Jacksonville Beach, the 15 families with Kazakstan kids met on Sliders' covered patio to share meals and memories.

Twenty-two hours and 11 time zones away from the Beaches, located between China and Russia, is a tiny country called Kazakstan where children are being orphaned and placed daily into orphanages known as "baby houses." Although Kazakstan is one of many countries where children are born and abandoned, it is unique because its government provides the children with clean, safe surroundings, reunion members said. During the past four years, about 1,000 Kazakstan kids have been adopted by families from the United States.

In November 1996, Dan Capron of Atlanta was stationed at the American embassy in Almaty, Kazakstan, when he and his wife, Mary Jane, began exploring the possibility of international adoption.

"It has been such a marvelous blessing being Katlyn's mom that I'm going back to Kazakstan ... and bring home a little sister for her!"

Martha Pumphrey

'Kazakstan mom'

"We had gone through many months of infertility treatments and a miscarriage," said Dan Capron, who was at the reunion. "Adoption was a means of fulfilling our desire to have a family." Capron toured two Kazakstan baby houses and found them to be clean, with the children healthy and well-nourished.

"The administrators of the baby houses were in favor of my adopting a child," Capron said, "although many in the embassy thought international adoption was against Kazakstani law."

Upon returning to the United States, Capron hired an American attorney in Kazakstan and began filling out paperwork for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and obtaining documents from the American embassy.

"Without the help of some good friends at the embassy, I'm not sure I would have had the documentation to support our case," Capron said. "But all the hoop-jumping was well worth it when Mary Jane and I held our 5-day-old daughter, Mary Elise, for the first time on March 10, 1997."

Now 4, Mary Elise Capron was the oldest Kazakstan child at last weekend's reunion.

Since adopting Mary Elise, the Caprons have traveled to Kazakstan twice more to adopt their sons, Zachary and William. They have also spread the good news about Kazakstan's young and healthy population of orphans to many childless American couples and are now in the adoption business.

"Dan and Mary Jane are responsible for most of the happy families you see here today," said Pumphrey.

Two weeks after learning of Katlyn, Pumphrey took an extended leave of absence from her job, purchased a month's supply of diapers, formula and other infant needs, cleared her savings accounts and cashed in her retirement. Then she flew to Kazakstan. Forty-eight hours, six airplanes and thousands of miles later, she met her daughter for the first time.

As Beaches residents, Katlyn and her mother were among several Jacksonville-area families at this year's reunion, along with John and Cindy Bradley of Queen's Harbour, who traveled to Kazakstan in September 1998, to adopt their daughter, Danielle, now 3.

"There are families at this reunion from all over the country," said Cindy Bradley. Jim and Peggy Fulford of Middleburg are the newest members of the group, having just returned from Kazakstan with their son, Jacob, 21 months, in May.

Although they're all from the Jacksonville area, prior to adopting Kazakstan kids, the Bradleys, Pumphreys and Fulfords had never met.

"Now, we will keep in touch with each other for life," said Cindy Bradley. "It's great that these children will grow up knowing other children who were born in the same place thousands of miles away from here."

Doyle and Rachel Elliott of Wake Forest, N.C., were accompanied by their two children, Samuel, 3 and Leah, 2.

"We went to Kazakstan and brought Samuel home, and then, surprise, along came a biological child named Leah!" laughed Rachel.

Aaron Weinstein,1, also surprised his parents, Steven and Chayna, soon after they returned to their home in Atlanta with his Kazak sister, Hana, 3.

On the other hand, Sean Clegg of College Station, Texas, was 10 years old when his parents, Pat and Susan, brought his little sister, Amanda, 2, home from Kazakstan. Sarah Goldman of St. Louis was 9 when her brother, Alex, left Kazakstan with her parents, Terry and JoAnn. Joe and Lorraine Young of Ringgold, Ga., brought back a pair of 1-month-old Kazak babies, Micah and Emily, now 2 1/2.

"People always ask us if they are twins," Lorraine said as she passed juice containers to the blonde, blue-eyed pair. "We say, 'For us, they are.'"

It took two trips to Kazakstan for Sid and Susan Schrum of Durham, N.C., to complete their family of five, which includes David, 3; Matthew, 2; and Sammy, 2. Paul and Donna Ripley brought their Kazakstan kid, Aidan, 2 1/2, down from Stockton, N.J., to the reunion to meet his "kissin' cousins." Connie and Gordon Scott of Marietta, Ga., reminisced about their trip to Kazakstan in August 1998, when they adopted Cameron and Cassandra, both 3.

"He was 6 weeks old and she was 3 weeks old. We fell in love with both of them," said Gordon, talking with fellow Georgians Kris and John Dwyer, and their Kazak daughter, Grace, 2.

Although the majority of Kazakstan kids were adopted from orphanages where they were healthy and well-nourished, Sean and Carol Donovan consider their son, Kaelan, to be a true miracle baby.

"Kaelan was a tiny foundling," said Carol Donovan. "He was literally starving to death when we got him -- 3 months old and 9 pounds. We saw him and said, 'We'll take him. He's ours.'" Today, Kaelan weighs 33 pounds and is a healthy, active 3-year-old.

"My husband named him Kaelan," she said. "It's Irish for 'mighty warrior.'"

Since Kazakstan is on the border of Russia and China, many of the children have Chinese or Mongolian features, while others are blonde, blue-eyed Russians.

The couples sought children halfway across the world in a remote country that most of them had never heard of for several reasons: There is a shortage of infants available for adoption in the United States. In U.S. adoptions therehere are complications such as waiting lists, strict age and socio-economic requirements and the ever-present possibility that birth parents will change their mind and want the child back. Kazakstan babies are healthy and available for adoption at infancy. And although there are many horror stories regarding international adoptions, couples who have adopted Kazakstan kids have generally had a good experience in the country and with the people of Kazakstan.

"The best experience, though, is when you bring your Kazakstan kid home and she is your daughter," said Martha Pumphrey. "It has been such a marvelous blessing being Katlyn's mom that I'm going back to Kazakstan ... and bring home a little sister for her!"

2001 Jul 7