St. Louis lawyer couple shares international adoption experience

Daily Record and the Kansas City Daily News-Press, Jan 12, 2005 by Mike Nixon

For some attorneys, any working morning might begin with a leisurely viewing of the sunrise from wall-sized windows in a 41st floor office adorned with mahogany and brass. From there, they slowly and deliberately strategize over freshly ground coffee served in Limoges china.

Many know their midday will feature a rapid and determined courthouse pace. They will be flipping pages of an oversized ledger or pounding a computer keyboard in search of obscure data critical to a case presentation immediately following a lunch-hour recess. And there is just enough time to glug down an individual container of prebottled cappuccino bought at the same location where a stop was made to fill the car with gasoline.

Later, others would surrender to their standard office rule, when at 10 minutes after the hour the last person out locks the metal- framed glass door - three suites down from the grocery store - only after having disposed of used Styrofoam cups stained with evidence that each had at one time contained a brown liquid.

Yet, no matter if one is guided every minute with a leather-bound day planner or scribbles a to-do list on paper ripped from a steno book found near the telephone, everyone connected to the legal profession, like any other industry, has a double life revealed at quitting time.

Away from contracts, securities, subpoenas, bills of discovery, writs of attachment, divorce decrees, civil litigation, even from traffic court to Supreme Court appeals, it does not take long before the necktie is gone, car radio is on, and the next critical decision is whether to hang up that charcoal gray suit in exchange for jeans or sweatpants.

For many, the best interaction they could count on all day is to be able to say I'm home and know there will be a response to confirm that statement. The experience might vary from person to person and house to house, but basically it is the same.

Take Peter and Ellen Dunne for example. They seem typical among the legal community. Both have good educations and credentials. They have worked real cases with real people. And each has become established in high-profile firms. Peter spends his day as a principal in the downtown St. Louis office of Rabbitt Pitzer & Snodgrass, while Ellen demonstrates her skills at the Clayton office of Blitz Bardgett & Deutsche.

Yet, when everything to be accomplished at the office has reached the point that nothing more can be done at that time, Peter and Ellen undergo a transformation en-route to their west St. Louis County home. Even their facial expressions change from a focused seriousness and passionate debate mode to a more relaxed demeanor, concerned about critical issues that include what's for dinner, getting the two boys to hockey practice and being serenaded by their daughter's latest piano composition.

Peter and Ellen Dunne have a typical family. When they walk down the street, it is apparent that they belong together. The kids try to imitate the parents, and the parents for a while are just two of the kids. They are just like everyone else - except that their children are adopted. Oh, and they were born and lived the earliest part of their young lives in the Eastern European country of Belarus.

About 10 years ago, Peter and Ellen decided they would like to adopt a child. They did their research, considered their options and through a friend discovered that they were not limited to working with agencies that handled just domestic children. There was a whole world of kids who needed caring and nurturing parents just as much as these wannabe parents needed them.

Through the course of events and circumstances, and with the help of a reliable international adoption program, Peter and Ellen - four years after the fall of the Soviet Union - made their way to the now- independent country landlocked between Poland and Russia and found themselves attracted and matched with two little boys whose birth mothers were unable to provide for them.

For Peter and Ellen, it seemed right that not only should they have sons, but these children each deserved the opportunity to have parents plus a brother. Four years later this family, as is typical of other families, expanded when an infant girl born in the same land and under much the same circumstance as her would-be brothers joined the household that gave her an opportunity to have a mom, a dad and siblings.

Early on, parents involved with international adoptions, and the children to whom they provide a home, get a lot of attention. Television news crews greet them as they arrive at the hometown airport, and newspaper reporters capitalize on the novelty. Donations are made, gifts are offered, and for a moment, a hard, cold world becomes warm and comfortable. But what about 10 years later?

They are totally Americanized, said Ellen of Sergei (12), Nikolai (10) and Diana (5). The boys are very typical, added Peter.

Like most of their suburban friends, Sergei and Nikolai enjoy a game of soccer and are impressed that some professional hockey players have first names that are the same as theirs. And Diana does all the typical little girl things, including a demonstration of her musical genius on the family piano and asking Mom questions while she is talking on the telephone. They are basically normal children, Ellen said.