Finally, Yuriy's home: Russian orphan adopted after three-year struggle

Three years ago 11-year-old Yuriy, who had only known life in a Russian orphanage, visited a Georgetown family for six weeks. It was the summer of 2004. Like others from his orphanage he was so malnourished that he was severely underweight and undersized for his age. He had never owned anything he could call his own - everything at his orphanage was community property, even clothing and toothbrushes. His bedroom was shared with eight others.

Exhausted after a 23-hour trip from the Smolensk region of Russia, Yuriy arrived at the Georgetown home of his host family Cheryl Millman and David Searles at 2 a.m., and stayed up for the next two hours, going from room to room in the spacious home.

"I looked at all the rooms for two hours - wow. I couldn't believe it," said Yuriy this week, now officially adopted and safe at home with his new parents and two big dogs.

Millman let him sleep until noon the next day after his 2004 arrival. There would be a bicycle for Yuriy and all sorts of new adventures in America. Thriving during his summer with their family, the happy, sweet-natured boy won the hearts of Millman and her husband, David Searles. Even though they had only planned to host Yuriy for a visit through the Kidsave Summer Miracles Program, by summer's end in 2004 they wanted to adopt him.

The family cried together at the airport on Aug. 16 of that year when it was time for Yuriy to go back to his Russian orphanage.

"We are going to come and get you," promised Millman.

"Mama, you come get me in two weeks," said Yuriy.

Millman thought she would have Yuriy adopted and home for Christmas. Instead, it would take three frustrating years - time filled with stalling tactics from the Russian government - before Yuriy's dream of having a family to call his own would be realized.

"They are saying they prefer to find Russian families to adopt their orphans," said Millman in 2005 after her first year of struggling to adopt Yuriy. "But in Russia there is a stigma attached to being an orphan, and Russian families aren't interested in adopting other peoples' babies. There are 500,000 kids in orphanages over there. There are 300 in Yuriy's orphanage. Nutrition is so poor in these orphanages that the children mature more slowly, and some only weigh 64 pounds at the age of 11. Yuriy only weighed 68 pounds."

Millman made many trips and phone calls to Russia during her three-year adoption odyssey, fighting to keep Yuriy from losing hope as he stayed on at the orphanage. In January 2005, traveling with three other women, Millman brought over 144 toothbrushes for two orphanages. As the adoption delay continued, Millman took over as the Massachusetts coordinator of Kidsave for 2005.

There were numerous trips and weekly phone conversations with Yuriy, who said he knew Millman and Searles were not going to abandon him, but it was sometimes hard to believe it would ever happen.

"I thought the Russian government wouldn't let them adopt me," said Yuriy.

But it did finally happen, on May 28, in a Russian court, when the adoption was granted. The new family flew back to America on June 2. Millman was not going to let down her guard until their plane landed in America.

"I did not feel I could breathe, that this is not happening, until we landed on U.S. soil," said Millman this week.

But it was happening, and a large welcoming party was waiting for them at Logan airport when they arrived. There were flowers, flags, banners, a cowboy hat and red, white and blue balloons. The event was so festive that one man asked them, "Are you welcoming back a soldier from Iraq?"

It was quite a homecoming and Mother Nature had something to say about it as well. It was the same night a violent electric storm and high winds hit Georgetown.

"That was a bad storm," said Millman. "There were trees down all over the place and there was no power. We had no lights and the garage door wouldn't work. There was a bat flying around in the house and the dogs were barking."

"A bat was flying right by my face," said Yuriy with a laugh.