Adopting Alyosha: A Single Man's Journey to Fatherhood Through Russian Adoption | Inspiring International Adoption Story for Single Parents | Perfect for Those Considering Cross-Cultural Adoption

Every one of us who has adopted internationally knows our experiences would make a good book (particularly ours, but let's not go into that here). Robert Klose actually sat down and wrote it.I would really recommend reading this at the outset of your adoption wait. You may think it's discouraging, but at the end you'll realize he didn't tell you anything you didn't need to know. If you have done this, you'll be nodding in recognition.Klose is also very upfront in describing the sometimes nebulous and shadowy nature of international adoption as he moves from pondering an Eastern European child to a Latino one and back and forth, through different agencies and facilitators, of varying reliability. He must have gotten very down at some points, though he keeps his sense of humor up (albeit in a very cynical way). The best moment (althogh he didn't think it was that funny, I did ... but then again it didn't happen to me) is when the referral video comes and the FedEx man, seeing only the agency's name and the nature of the package, assumes it's porn.He shows you how adoption agencies really work (or don't), being short $4,000 even after his Russian adoption to a facilitator who never delivered in Guatemala.This leads him to Russia in its Wild West days of the early 1990s. Some of the scenes are pretty grim, but unlike other such memoirists he doesn't stoop to condescension, mindful that this is the culture his son will look to for his roots. Having been to Russia on an adoption experience myself I can assure he's not making this up.In the end, after bureaucratic complication on top of absurd demand for money followed by logistical screwup, Alyosha (Alexey, really, but that's OK) comes home with him. I, too, would love some form of sequel, or some update on how they're doing.