By Myra Frailey Morton, '84

“In Russia we have a choice, good road or good cars. We chose good cars.” Prophetic words from our driver in Siberia as we weaved our way around the pothole-strewn streets. In fact I’m not sure there are roads—it was hard to see under all the snow.

Why would I be spending time in Siberia—a short 17-hour flight from Columbia, S.C., and 12 time zones away? My husband and I traveled halfway around the world to complete our family.

After trying for so many years to conceive a child, I cannot comprehend the emotion behind giving one up for adoption. But thankfully for my husband and me, two women have had the courage to give up their children for better lives than they could have given them. And thanks to these two women, my family is now complete.

Most women spend nine months carrying a child and then go into labor to deliver it. I spent nine months filling out form after form in triplicate worrying if we were doing the right thing, would we be good parents, what if the child didn’t bond with us … the emotions of parents to be. My labor was two round trips to Siberia. The first trip is required by the Russian government to file the paperwork, the second trip you go to court and finally bring home your child. The miles of travel, the stress of forming attachments, the difficulty of adjustment can all take their psychological toll. But the coo of a satisfied and secure toddler, the tight loving embrace of an infant so totally dependent on me makes any stress a distant and cloudy memory.

Our journey down the road of adoption began in the same place it does for many couples—the lonely abyss of infertility. The medical tests, shots, and infusions are cold and sterile and belie the devastation behind every failed attempt. Every month when we realized I wasn’t pregnant, it felt as if someone died. The feelings of inadequacy and failure were at times overwhelming, and the weight of their impact can test the endurance of any relationship.

In 1998, the effort seemed hardly worth it any longer. Nerves frayed and financially drained, my husband and I knew only that we still desperately wanted a family. So were turned toward a door that had been open to us all along if only we had looked—adoption.

Domestic adoptions and international adoptions cost nearly the same amount of money, our agency told us. But international adoptions take a much shorter period of time. And time, we felt, was running short for us to begin our family.

The prospect of working with two federal governments, two bureaucracies, and the unfamiliarity of the process was extraordinarily daunting. Placing our trust in an agency in Charleston and in a Russian facilitator half a world away was quite the leap of faith. But our faith was rewarded in August 1999 when we returned to Columbia with our son, Alexey. He had been born on Mother’s Day that year.

Our trip was sensory laden—walking the streets of Moscow and seeing a country try to rebuild itself was amazing. Next to the newly built churches and decaying office buildings were American symbols known the world over—McDonald’s, KFC, and Coca-Cola.

The longest line we saw was of Russians exchanging their rubles for U.S. dollars, which hold value longer than the ruble. Everyone we met had two or three jobs—all trying to make enough money to pay the same prices we pay for items such as $1 for a Coke. Doesn’t sound like much until you realize the average salary for a teacher is $100 per month—if they get paid. The teachers we met had last been paid in August, and we were there in October. Amazingly they still go to work everyday. They are so proud of what they do and understand that if they don’t teach the children, nothing will change.

For more than two years we felt truly blessed by the addition of Alexey to our family. Today, he is a sensitive, caring little boy with a generous hug, a joy for life, and a laugh that melts my heart. So positive was our experience with him that we decided in 2002 to complete our family with another child.

We felt strongly about returning to the same orphanage and using the same facilitator who had moved to an agency in Wisconsin. Again we filled out reams of paperwork. Again we waited anxiously. Again we were rewarded.

In October 2002, we traveled to Russia to meet our daughter. Siberia was everything one might imagine in the winter—below zero temperatures, several inches of permafrost covered by another foot or more of snow.

We drove up to “our” now-familiar orphanage. The smells, the sights, the sounds—none of it different than it had been three years ago. In a room called the “Winter Garden” painted with scenes from Russian fairy tales, we met a little red-haired, rambunctious toddler who in fewer than four weeks would become our daughter, Nikki.

She hugged us. She played with the toys we brought. She bossed around the other toddlers in the room and redistributed their toys. She ate the Teddy Grahams we imported from Walmart. She gave us no choice: we fell in love immediately. She has been in charge since the first meeting.

We have felt the hand of God in each of our adoptions. In both we were amazed at how smoothly the process ran in a procedure rife with bureaucratic delays. But we literally felt the chills run down our spines when we discovered that Nikki had been sleeping in the same room and crib as Alexey had been three years earlier. For all of us, her adoption was, without question, meant to be.

Today we are a family—my husband, a little boy, a little girl, and me. Yes, we have a house with a fence and a dog, and Alexey is pushing hard for a kitten. But the joy does not lie in being a typical American family. With two Russian children, that we certainly are not. No, joy comes from giving and receiving unconditional love, from feeling whole and content, and from finding each other across the miles at long last.