Masha caught the last plane

Masha is two years and eight months old, but she doesn’t look her age. The girl cannot walk and is forced to take antibiotics every day at a certain time. The child has spina bifida, a kidney infection and developmental delay. Russian adoptive parents were not interested in her, after which she ended up in the database for foreign adoption.

On the day when the Duma adopted in the third reading amendments to the law prohibiting the adoption of Russian orphans in the United States, Masha was taken from an orphanage in the Moscow region. Today she flies with her new American parents to Kentucky. There she is waiting for her one-year-old brother, four-year-old sister and long-term treatment, which, as her new father and mother hope, will allow the girl to get back on her feet.

"Masha is our blessing!" says Lindsey, 29, a housewife and former elementary school teacher. Her husband, 30-year-old Jeremy, an emergency doctor, smiles: “Masha is a blessing! Such a bright child!” Masha crawls around, smiles and demands to be placed on the windowsill so she can look out the window at the beautiful view of Moscow in lights from an apartment on the 23rd floor of a building on Novy Arbat. Jeremy packs a bag of toys to entertain the child on the plane, including a pillow sewn by Masha’s American grandmother with balls inside.

— Why did you decide to take the child from Russia?

Lindsay: “We didn’t consider Russia specifically, we could take a child from another country. Masha just fit what we were looking for. We wanted her to be in age between our two children. And we wanted a girl, because our daughter I really asked my sister. When I was pregnant with her brother, she told everyone that I had a girl in my belly. It wasn’t necessary for us, but we are happy that she looks like us in some way. because she will be able to choose what to tell at school, whether to say that she is adopted or not. We, of course, will not hide this from her, but suddenly she will not want to tell her peers about it.”

— Why did you even decide to take a child from an orphanage, and not give birth to another one of your own?

Lindsey: "At our church (Kentucky Christian Church) where we go, there are a lot of people who take children. We are often told that there are many children in the world who need a home, and we should help if we can. We always We knew that sooner or later we would take the child."

Jeremy: “Our neighbor adopted a boy from Russia, now this boy is 9 years old. Many of our friends adopted, but most went to China and Africa for children.”

— Did you plan to take a disabled child?

Lindsey: "We were ready for it. We said we were ready to take on a child with a physical disability because we thought we could handle it. My sister is a physical therapist who specializes in getting troubled kids back on their feet. So we thought that we can help. We couldn’t help a child with mental disabilities, but I think we can cope with physical disabilities.”

Jeremy: “I work in emergency medicine, I have a medical degree, so we can handle it. I also have a flexible work schedule, so I can help at home.”

Lindsey: “The judge couldn’t understand why we were taking a child with special needs, no matter how many times we explained to her that such a child would be able to stand on her own two feet, that any child would bring happiness, that she would be able to walk. The judge kept repeating: “ Why do you need a sick child?"

Jeremy: " The judge asked me the same question: 'Why?' Several times. I answered, but she didn't understand. I don't think she ever understood."

Photo: Maria Eismont/PublicPost

— Do you know about the amendments to the law prohibiting the adoption of Russian orphans in America?

Lindsay: “We heard about this from our driver when we were taking Masha from the orphanage. We were busy all these days and didn’t watch our news. I was very upset. And I was surprised how such a decision was made, and so quickly - without for society to at least properly discuss this problem.”

Jeremy: “Our driver said that a lawyer was killed, his killers were banned from entering America, and in response, Americans would be banned from adopting children. He also told us that in America a child was fried in a car, and they are very unhappy with this. This law will only hurt to those families who have already chosen their child in Russia. The rest will simply go to other countries to pick up their children.”

Masha was lucky. Other disabled children from Russian orphanages may be less fortunate. Alena Senkevich, the Russian coordinator of the American adoption agency, says that she wanted to go on vacation, but now she can’t - she needs to send children who have already met their future adoptive parents to America as quickly as possible, before the law comes into force.

“I feel like Schindler. Now there are so many families who want disabled people - we’ll give them to everyone. Disabled children are often more emotionally developed and spiritual. Thank God that Masha will leave. I try not to think about what will happen when the law is passed.”

Alena says that after the signing of a bilateral agreement with the United States, the process of transferring children to American families in the Moscow region went well, the guardianship authorities helped in every possible way. What will happen now is unknown. Russian adoptive parents, she says, have begun to take in problem children more often, but so far it is not easy for disabled children to find a family without foreign adoption. “Before, they didn’t take healthy people from us, but now they do. It just takes time. Foreign adoption will die by itself in ten years. Another thing is that the children who are waiting for adoption now will be in these institutions for disabled people by that time.”