Caroline is my amazing, beautiful, adopted, 17yr old daughter.
She was born in Russia.
At age 11, an American family adopted her with her two younger sisters.
The original adoption disrupted two years later.
Caroline (13) and her sister (12) were then adopted by our family.

With mom asking some questions, this is Part I her story of an international adoption.

Tell me who is in your birth family? Mom, Dad, Marina (older sister; sent at birth to live in an institution), Andre (older brother; died), me, Galina (sister 1yr younger), and little sister (6yrs younger than Caroline).
How old were you when both parents had died? Seven

Where did you live after that? With grandma and then the orphanage
How old were you when you went to your first orphanage? Almost 9

How long did you live in the orphanage before you were adopted? 2-3 years (note that the older 2 girls were in the same orphanage; the youngest sister was sent to an orphanage for smaller children).

When you lived in the orphanage, did you always know that you were available for adoption? No.

Did they ever tell you that you were available for adoption? Not until a family came. Until then, I didn’t even know what adoption was. Noone told us anything.

Did they ever “prep” you for meeting adoptive families? Yeah. They told us to say Hello. The most important thing they told us to say is when the family leaves, to say “I love you mommy and daddy”. They also told us not to fight with each other, to say thank-you, and to behave.

Were you ever told about possibilities of being adopted with or without your two sisters? No. We were never told any of that stuff. We had to figure things out on our own. But, they didn’t want us to ask questions or argue or things like that. What some people did, is when people came over to interview them, they told them what’s happening in the orphanage and how life is in the orphanage – then those families were turned off and didn’t adopt the children. So, then they told us to behave and not to talk about the orphanage or bad memories or anything bad.

Once a family in America decided to adopt you, what did the orphanage tell you about that? They told us America is rich. The family sent us stuff from America and wrote us letters. But, when we left the orphanage later, they didn’t let us take anything. They didn’t even let us say goodbye to the kids. We just left.

What did you think about America before you came here? America is rich. Everyone has a lot of money and houses. Once you get adopted, you will be really happy and have no more problems. The families are rich and they buy you a lot of stuff. You will get to write back to your family and the people in Russia.