Adoption Completed in Kyrgyzstan

“For six years, the Shimkus family prayed for moments like this. Finally, joy and laughter replaced frustration and tears.

After an international adoption battle that began when he was just an infant, 6-year-old Azamat is home. Frank and Gabrielle Shimkus have a son, and Emerson, 5, and Greyson, 3, have an older brother.

The family’s new reality hit Mr. Shimkus when he looked in the rear view mirror of his minivan last week and saw the faces of three smiling children sitting in car seats behind him.

“This is the way it should be,” he said.

The family’s adoption story, highlighted nationally as an example of the problems with the international adoption process, started in 2008. An adoption agency sent the newly married couple a photo of a frail infant from Kyrgyzstan, who had a severe cleft lip and palate. The Shimkuses knew they could provide the baby with the care he needed.

Heartbreak soon followed when the country in central Asia suspended adoptions. Two years ago, again thinking the adoption date was near, Kyrgyzstan again halted all adoptions amid allegations of corruption. Two trips to the country confirmed what the former television journalists already knew: they loved this little boy.

Earlier this year, the country reopened the process again. Mrs. Shimkus flew to Kyrgyzstan in early August for a court date and stayed there through mid-September, when the adoption was final and Azamat had the necessary paperwork to enter the United States. Legally, Azamat’s name is Aidan Josiah-Azamat Shimkus, but he will remain Azamat for as long as he wants. The family spent at least $60,000 in the six-year process.

In Kyrgyzstan, Mrs. Shimkus, 34, a therapist, stayed in an apartment with other families also waiting to adopt their children. She communicated to friends and family through Facebook. When she posted about how the orphans received little fresh fruit and little protein, the community responded. Mostly through a fundraising site she set up to help with adoption expenses, people donated $1,000 to help the orphans.

Each day before visiting her son, Mrs. Shimkus stopped at a market and bought produce, meat or other items the children did not receive often. She then posted photos to Facebook of the donations. Mark Volk, president of Lackawanna College, donated enough money for Mrs. Shimkus to buy school supplies for children. She told the students a college president from the United States cared enough to help with their educations.

The children loved — and needed — the nourishment. At 6 years old, Azamat is smaller than his 3-year-old sister.

“It gave people another way to join our journey,” Mrs. Shimkus said. “It gave me an added purpose when I was there.”

Before she left Kyrgyzstan, she saw the orphanage Azamat would have been sent to if he did not get adopted. With his partially repaired cleft lip and palate, Azamat’s orphanage still considered him physically disabled. As he got older, he would have been sent to a home with children with various physical and mental disabilities — a place with little chance to thrive. At his orphanage, he introduced Mrs. Shimkus to his friends as his “momma.”

Back in Throop, Mrs. Shimkus’ mother helped fix the girls’ hair each day and a large calendar in the family room helped the girls count down the days.

After more than 40 days away, Mrs. Shimkus, with Azamat by her side, met family and friends at John F. Kennedy International Airport last weekend, including two families who had already adopted children from Kyrgyzstan. Mr. Shimkus, 62, cried when he saw his wife and son. Emerson and Greyson ran to their mother and brother, knocking her off her feet. Azamat waved an American flag.

Though the Shimkus home is now filled with joy and laughter, the family knows there will be struggles ahead. Azamat knows no English, and because his cleft palate still must be fully repaired, he only speaks a little Russian. Before leaving Kyrgyzstan, Mrs. Shimkus learned a few Russian phrases, such as the words for “be careful.”

At times, Azamat will break down, grieving for the friends he misses and the only life he knew. Adjusting will take time. When he feels down, Mrs. Shimkus plays him a video she took at the orphanage. He has even used the video messaging software Skype to see friends from his orphanage, who are now adopted and living across the U.S. The families are already planning reunions. Mrs. Shimkus has also found Disney cartoons in Russian online, which the orphans sometimes watched on a flickering television. He’s also learning cultural differences. He thinks cold drinks can hurt him and sitting on the floor is wrong.

Multiple doctor and therapy appointments are scheduled, with the hope that Azamat can start school by January.

The night Azamat came home, Mr. Shimkus, a former state representative and co-pastor at Trinity Congregational Church, held the crying boy and rocked him. Mr. Shimkus immediately remembered holding Azamat the same way when the little boy was an infant.

“I promised you you’d be here,” Mr. Shimkus told his son.

Azamat said the word “daddy” for the first time Monday.

The Shimkuses have found Azamat to be the same thoughtful, sweet boy they left at the orphanage two years ago, before the second suspension of adoptions. On one of his first days home, before he started to eat a banana, he broke it into three pieces, giving each sister a piece of the fruit.

He plays princesses with his sisters and one day, slid into a pair of their play high-heel shoes. He clopped around the house, laughing at the noise the shoes made.

“He shares his food with me. He cleans up his toys,” Emerson said. “I like having a brother. Mommy taught him how to say our names.”

Mrs. Shimkus said she could easily be bitter. Azamat should have been home as an infant. He should have received the medical care and speech therapy he has needed for six years. Instead, she and her husband missed six years of milestones while their son was the victim of an adoption process riddled with corruption.

But as the Shimkuses watched Azamat play with the guitar and laugh with his sisters last week, they instead focused on joy.

“We fulfilled the promise we made six years ago,” Mrs. Shimkus said. “We’re not taking this for granted. We know this could have never happened. In the end, we had a happy outcome.””

Adoption nightmare finally over for Throop family[The Times-Tribune 9/28/14 by Sarah Hofius Hall]

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