Twins from Siberia

By Brett Grassmuck
Arnold-Imperial Leader
June 17, 2004 

     It was March 2003 and Hillsboro residents Chad and Stacey Woods sat shivering in small orphanage in Tomsk, a small region in Siberia. It had been two months since they had seen the twins they were about to adopt and Stacey worried that they would not remember her or her husband, and that the boys would cry.

     The door opened. With a resounding “Momma, Poppa,” 2-year-old Nikita and Kirill ran to their new parents. The Woods family was ready to begin its long trip back to Missouri.

On April 14, the now 3-year-old twins, Luke and Gavin, celebrated their first year being in the United States with their new family.

     The saga started in 2002. Chad and Stacey were watching a news program on KSDK television and heard news anchor Karen Foss telling about her daughter’s adoption of a child from China. Foss gave the phone number for Children’s Hope International, the agency her daughter worked with.

     ”We wanted to start a family, but we hadn’t been successful,” Stacey said. Chad and Stacey called and received some information and brochures from the agency that described the adoption process.

      They decided to go for it. Chad and Stacey said they looked into several adoption programs, but didn’t qualify for some. Several of the programs required the parents to stay in the country for three to four weeks at a time.

     “Russia just fit us,” Stacey said.

     Once they decided to adopt, they said they had to fill out a mound of paperwork -- their dossier. They were asked about their finances, their physical health, and even the measurements of the rooms in their house.

     “I worked for the Sheriff’s Department at the time, so I had to disclose all the training that I had,” Chad said. Chad said the adoption took more paperwork than the couple’s wedding and buying their house combined.

     “It was unbelievable,” Stacey said.The information was sent to Russia, where work began on matching the couple to available children. The Woodses were told it would take three to four weeks to hear back. Chad said originally they had filed for one child, but knew they couldn’t afford more trips in the future if they decided to add to their family. So, they asked instead for two kids. Stacey said they wanted siblings and realized they would probably not be adopting infants as a result.

     The couple received a phone call telling them twin boys were available. Were they interested? Yes, they were.

     “They called us on a Wednesday and said to be at the airport the following Wednesday,” Chad said.

     Chad and Stacey had to make two trips to Russia. Both times they stopped in Moscow and flew on to Tomsk. Their first trip, where they signed an intent-to-adopt form, lasted five days. “You basically go over and meet the kids,” Stacey said.

     The couple got to visit the twins just once during the first trip, for two hours. They took puzzles and toys for the boys and left them some pictures of the family. The couple knew they faced a two-month wait before they could return to Russia and take the boys home.

      “It’s not that big of a deal until you’ve played with them,” Chad said. “You know they are going to be your kids, but you can’t see them for two months.”

     Finally, they got word that the adoption could move forward. When the Woodses returned to Tomsk, it was 40 degrees below zero. They spent four hours a day with boys for the next 10 days. They played with the boys for two hours in the morning, and another two hours in the afternoon, after the twins had lunch and a nap. Chad and Stacey hit a few legal snags in the courtroom during their second trip. “It was like a trial,” Chad said.

     The judge determined that the birth mother’s parental rights had not yet been terminated, and ordered the adoption officials to contact her. When they were unable to find the mother, Stacey said, a neighbor was subpoenaed. The neighbor testified that the mother had made no attempt to

contact or retrieve her children. The judge was satisfied and the mother’s rights were terminated. The adoption was final, on April 7, 2003.

     Chad and Stacey had to spend one more night without the twins, but were able to pick them up from the orphanage the following day.

    “When she slammed the gavel, it was a legal and binding contract just like in the U.S.,” Chad said.

     Because of the court delay, the family ran into problems with the flights they were supposed to take. They got into Moscow a day late, and then had to spend several extra days there waiting for their flight to the United States to be rescheduled.

     They put the time in Russia to good use, however, visiting sites in their children’s homeland. They took a walk in Red Square and got to watch a church service.

     “It is beautiful in Red Square,” Stacey said. “It’s absolutely amazing.” 

     The delays cost the couple an extra $1,500 for airline tickets, pushing their overall cost to about $37,000. Chad said the government helps out with the burden, allotting $10,000 in tax credits per child, disbursed over five years. Chad and Stacey arrived back at Raintree Plantation in the Hillsboro area with the twins on April 14, 2003 and couldn’t be happier. Chad said his favorite part is having a family to come home to everyday.

     “It feels like they were our own kids ever since they were infants,” he said. “Everything is great, we couldn’t be happier.” The twins have had no trouble adjusting to the United States and are doing well with English, their parents say. Chad said the boys remember a few Russian words and continue with a few behaviors they picked up at the orphanage in Tomsk. He said the twins were told at the orphanage that if they got out of bed on their own, a monster would be waiting to get them.

     “To this day they won’t get out of bed by themselves,” Chad said.

     Chad said they have run into the usual challenges with having kids, such as trying to find a babysitter, but the challenges haven’t been any harder because the twins were adopted. 

Chad and Stacey want to preserve their children’s heritage and compiled a journal of their trip for the twins. They changed the boys’ names to Luke and Gavin, but kept their original names, Kirill and Nikita, as their middle names.

     The twins will start at Good Shepherd pre-school in August. They know their ABC’s and they love to sing “This Little Light of Mine.”