A few months after we returned home from Ukraine in 1993, we filed an I-600 petition with the Immigration and Naturalization Service to classify Denis as our "next of kin." This is the first step in obtaining permission for an adopted child to enter the US as a permanent immigrant. We set about trying to settle the girls into our family, a task which became more and more difficult as time went on. We sought help from counselors, psychiatrists, and other experienced adoptive parents, but their behavior escalated out of control and became destructive and unmanageable. After a year, we made the painfully difficult decision to seek help from an adoption agency to find other homes for them.

During that year, fewer adoptions were taking place in Ukraine. Each time I spoke to Tanya by telephone she warned me that adoptions were becoming more difficult. Our one obstacle was a man on the regional government council who was totally against adoption by foreigners. It would be best, she told me, to wait until elections took place in the summer of 1994. The chances were good that this official would be replaced.

Things were changing rapidly in Ukraine. The country had voted to become independent in 1992, but establishing new laws and government policies was a lengthy, gradual process. Early in 1994, Tanya told me that a new regulation now required all official government business to be carried out in the Ukrainian language. Even though Russian was the primary language of the Kherson region where Denis was, we would need to have all our documents translated into Ukrainian and authenticated by the Ukrainian Consulate in Chicago. Our old dossier, which had been translated into Russian, could no longer be used.

Our adoption agency updated our homestudy, and we started over with our dossier: birth certificates, marriage certificate, copies of our passports, medical and financial documents, a copy of our homestudy, and a formal request to adopt "a child named Denis Ignatyevitch Tho, residing at Teremok orphanage in Kherson." Every document had to be notarized, every notarization had to be certified by the county clerk, and by the Secretary of State's office. I made plans to return to Ukraine in July of 1994. I hurried to complete the dossier. INS cabled the US embassy in Moscow with its approval of our petition. I made plane reservations.

A week before I planned to leave, Tanya called. Elections would take place in Ukraine shortly, she told me, and the government planned to revise and nationalize its adoption laws. There would be a moratorium on foreign adoption until the new law was passed. It might be three or four months before this was done. It would be better for me to cancel my travel plans.

My husband and I talked it over. We now understood that many Russian and Ukrainian adoptions were not working out well. Many of the orphanage children had severe problems. Our family had suffered terribly trying to cope with the girls. We couldn't bring another seriously disturbed child into our home. I felt connected to Denis with my heart, but for our family's sake, I also needed to use my head.

I called Tanya back. "I'm coming anyway," I told her, "I have to see him."

Denis's group was napping when we arrived at the orphanage. He was cranky and crying when they woke him up and brought him to me. I sat him on my lap and comforted him until he stopped crying. As he became fully awake, he became excited. Tanya and the orphanage workers laughed when he began to speak. "What is he saying?" I wanted to know.

"He wants to know when you are going to take him to America!" Tanya told me. I had asked them not to tell Denis, but he knew. "I believe he has figured it out for himself," Tanya said. One worker said that since I had left, fifteen months before, Denis had told everyone that the Americans were coming back to adopt him. Even when others would taunt him saying, "Who would want you?" he continued to assert that he would be adopted. He knew. We would come back for him.

We went to speak to Valentina, the orphanage director, and she took out Denis's file. She spread it out on her desk. She asked me if I was sure I wanted Denis, and not another little boy. I reminded her that I had two Korean children at home. "And since Denis is Vietnamese," I told her, "I think he would fit very well into our family."

A look of puzzlement crossed her face as Tanya translated this to her. "Nyet!" she said, starting to look for a paper in the file, "Koree!"

Tanya was translating: "Valentina says no, Denis is Korean." But I didn't need a translation to understand. Denis was Korean! I was stunned. I could feel the tears well up in my eyes and begin to slide down my cheeks. Tanya and Valentina stood staring at me quietly with looks of concern on their faces. "What is wrong, Jennifer?" Tanya asked, "Is that bad news?"

I shook my head. How could I explain? We had set out to enlarge our family two and a half years before, wishing we could adopt another Korean child, but believing it was impossible. Who would have ever thought we would end up finding the child of our dreams in an orphanage in Ukraine!

I took Denis from the orphanage every day. We went to Tanya's house, where I was staying, and watched him play with her son. I had brought him small construction toys and he sat and patiently made every item pictured on the box. We went to the beach, sightseeing, shopping. Denis asked a lot of questions. He behaved well. He followed directions. He was able to sit still. I sat on the floor with him and we drew pictures together. I showed him little cards and asked him to copy the designs on them. I was relieved to see that he did well. "It's a test we psychologists use," I explained to Tanya, "to screen for brain damage."

It was extremely difficult to have to tell Denis I could not adopt him and take him home then. Over and over that week I had Tanya explain to him that the government had to sign some papers before he could come home. He seemed to understand and accept that.

On the last day we visited the orphanage, Denis said to me the one word he knew in English. "Good-bye," he said, giving me a hug.

"Goodbye, Denis, "Da svedanya". I bent down to his level and squeezed his little hand. "I love you," I told him in Russian."Ya tee-yehbee loo-bloo." The look on his face when I said this was a mixture of surprise and pleasure. It lasted only a second, but I carried the image of it in my mind for a very long time. Had anyone ever said, "I love you" to him before?

We thought Tanya could escort Denis to the United States when the new adoption law was in place. I filed affidavits at the embassy in Moscow stating that my husband and I had both seen the child we were going to adopt. We sent Tanya our power of attorney to handle Denis's adoption and immigration. We thought it would be only a few months.

We couldn't have been more mistaken.