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The Heppenstall family is one of many adoptive families that are happily intact
Monday, August 14, 2000
By Cindi Lash, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Sarah Heppenstall knows all too well the educational and psychological problems that can plague children who've spent their first years in orphanages.
She knows there are parents who've invited such children into their lives, only to decide they didn't have the financial or emotional resources to help the children resolve their problems. She personally knows a couple who severed their relationship with an adopted Russian-born daughter after concluding the child would harm others in the family.
Yet for all of the bumps in the road that she's had to navigate during the four years since she and her husband decided to adopt six Russian siblings, Heppenstall, 40, of O'Hara, said she had never rued that decision.
"We have had issues, and it is a struggle some days," said Heppenstall, who with her husband, C. Talbott Heppenstall Jr., also 40, adopted three Russian girls and two of their brothers, ages 2 to 10, in 1996. A third brother, then nearly 2, joined the family in 1998.
"But we've always felt we'll get through this and get through it together," she said. "We've never regretted it, or thought, 'I wish we could give one or two of these guys back.' We absolutely feel that God put these guys in our lives, and God will help us through the issues we have."
At a time when adoption professionals say they are seeing a worrisome increase in the number of failed adoptions of Russian and Eastern European children, the Heppenstall family is one of many adoptive families that are happily intact and intend to stay that way.
The Heppenstalls were childless in 1995 when they read an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about the efforts of Adopt-A-Child, a Squirrel Hill adoption agency, to find a family for five siblings from a Moscow orphanage. They were living in Clarion County, where Sarah Heppenstall was pastor of a Presbyterian church.
The Heppenstalls applied and were chosen to adopt the children, who'd been removed from an alcoholic mother's custody. After moving to a larger house in O'Hara, they brought the five children home in May 1996.
The couple later returned to Russia to fetch their sixth child, a brother who was located after his siblings had been adopted.
The children quickly learned to speak English, swim and adore ice cream. They gained weight, got their teeth fixed and started school.
Since then, their lives have evolved into a whirl of school and play, swim meets and practices, music and dance lessons. Some of them see therapists and others attend language camps or classes to help them recover from their difficult early years.
"These kids didn't learn [in Russia] to have long-term goals. That's hard when your most pressing need is finding food today," Heppenstall said.
While long-term placement in institutions usually is detrimental to children, Heppenstall said her children actually benefited by their stay there. Their orphanage was one of Russia's better institutions, with a caring staff that displayed affection for the children.
Between their devotion to each other and the kindness they received from the orphanage staff, the children learned to care for others and did not develop severe attachment disorders exhibited by many other children who have lived in orphanages.
Heppenstall said her greatest concern today is her oldest son, now renamed John. He is 13, and his bouts of teen-age rebellion are heightened by lingering anger from his past.
He is loving but can be defiant -- a common trait in once-institutionalized children -- and he has problems with planning and impulse control, she said.
"Every adult with whom he deals says he's a kind, sweet, caring and loving child. But he doesn't think about consequences," she said. "He'll walk past a water fountain and spray somebody and we'll say, 'John, you got in trouble for that three days ago. Didn't you think?' "
John has moved from the Fox Chapel School District to a private school that offers smaller classes and more discipline. He's also benefiting from therapy that aims to stabilize his emotions and help him set goals.
John; his sister, Catherine, 11; and his brother, Max, 9, have had problems reading, probably because they started late. But the younger girls --Margaret, 8, and Susan, 6 -- are great readers and spellers, and Sam, 4, is learning nicely as well.
To help them deal with experiences in their pasts, the younger children are attending a two-month therapy program at Allegheny General Hospital's Center for Traumatic Stress. The program is helping, their mother said, and they are thriving in school and summer camps.
"We have normal lives, compounded by some extent by the issues of the adoption and the typical struggles of having a teen-age boy," Heppenstall said. "We're very happy."
Heppenstall said she knew Anna (see related story on Page A-9), whose family dissolved its adoption of a 5-year-old Russian girl last year, and was saddened by that family's experience. But she said she also knew of 70 to 100 other families that adopted children from Russia without experiencing such serious problems or later terminating their adoptions.
When people ask her questions about adoption, Heppenstall makes sure she tells about both the good days and the tough ones.
"When someone calls me up, they have to realize it's not perfect. There are going to be some troubles and there's going to be much joy. You have to pray about it. Down the road, when you're tearing your hair out, you have to feel in your heart that God put this family together."
The Heppenstalls have adopted six siblings from the same Russian family. From left, John, 13; Max, 9; Sam, 4; Catherine, 11; Susan, 6; and Margaret, 8. (Andy Starnes, Post-Gazette)