By Jim Heintz
The Associated Press
MOSCOW — After weeks of anxiety plodding through the opaque Russian legal system, two U.S. women have custody of their adopted Russian children and are preparing to take them home to start a new life together.
Jeana Bonner of South Jordan, Utah, and Rebecca Preece from Nampa, Idaho, told The Associated Press on Saturday about the expenses, the confusion and emotional swings they’ve gone through since arriving in Moscow in mid-January, expecting to quickly leave with their children, both of whom have Down syndrome.
The Bonners and Preeces each have another child with the syndrome.
Bonner and Preece, and their husbands Wayne and Brian, had spent about a year, including multiple trips to Russia, to arrange for the adoption of the 5-year-old girl and 4 ½-year-old boy. By late 2012, the adoptions had received court approval and they thought all they had to do was wait out the 30-day period in which such rulings can be challenged.
But in those 30 days, a ban on Americans adopting Russian children sped through parliament and into law, part of a hastily born package of measures retaliating against a new U.S. law allowing sanctions on Russians identified as human-rights violators.
If you’d like to discuss family law, contact with Kaine Fisher, head of RLG’s Family Law Department, kfisher@roselawgroup.com.
