Dan, Sandy, Steven, Kyle, Nadia and Austin
Here we are, six of us as of November 14, 2001 when we adopted Austin.  Our first Russian child, Kyle, arrived home September 20, 1997 after Dan completed his adoption in Shakhty, Russia. Dan traveled to Russia by himself to adopt Kyle while Sandy stayed home to take care of Steven who was recovering from a broken leg.  Our second adoption from Russia was Nadia on February 4, 1998.  

We live in southern Washington State, just a few minutes drive from Portland, OR. 

Since we began looking into adoption, and our adoptions of Kyle and Nadia from Russia, we have started becoming more involved in international adoption and domestic adoption.

The Roberts Family, July '97
Several members of Dan's family have a genetic condition called Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI). OI is a rare condition that is more commonly known as "brittle bone disease".  There are 4 current classifications (or types) of OI, and between all the members of our family, we have 3 of the 4 types represented.  Shirley, David, Dee Roberts-Baraw and Alec have Type I.  Sandy Gatewood-Roberts, Nadia (not in picture) and Steven have Type IV.  Bruce Baraw has Type III.  Hildegard, Bo, Dan, Shannon, Julia and Zach do not have OI. This makes the current count 8 people with OI and 7 people without OI in Dan's family, quite a different take on the meaning of "normal".

Dan's mother, Shirley (front row right side), has been a volunteer for the OI Foundation for several years.  She has worked as the OIF National Conference Registrar for several years.  David (Dan's brother) is a contractor and partner in a company that does residential remodelling and new home construction. Dee (Dan's sister) works as a teacher in southern California.

Dan
Dan is the oldest of 3 children, and the only one of the 3 to not have OI. He has helped out with various OIF functions including picnics, dances and the 1988 OIF National Conference that was held in San Jose, CA.  He has volunteered as a parent contact for OIF and helped run a workshop, with Sandy, at the 1990 conference.

Dan has now made two trips to Russia to adopt children.  The first trip was to the southern part of Russia, to Rostov-on-Don in Sept '97, and the second was to St. Petersburg in Feb '98.  Dan found the people to be friendly, the food to be good, and the architecture was fabulous!  Moscow celebrated it's 850th anniversary in Sept '97 and many of the buildings had been cleaned and restored for the occasion.

Dan is the Executive Director of Kids to Adopt, an adoption agency specializing in placement of older and special needs children. He often is giving adoption seminars or taking with prospective adoptive parents on the phone or by e-mail.

Sandy
Sandy, along with her friend Debbie, founded the California Satellite Chapter of the Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation in 1985.  Sandy has served as an officer for 'Satellite' and has also been on the Board of Directors of OIF.  She has been a contact person for people with OI for many years and has done several workshops at OIF Conferences.  Sandy retired from a large computer manufacturer in the early 1990's.

Dan and Sandy originally met at an OIF meeting held at Shirley's house and began dating after the 1988 OIF National Conference.  We married in September 1989. Our wedding was taped for a video produced by OIF and a segment was shown on a Sally Jesse Rafael show about OI.

Sandy seems to have a talent for finding families for children available for adoption and had helped to unite several families and children in the months we were working on our first adoption. She has made many friends and contacts in the adoption community since we began our road to adoption in early 1997.  Sandy is a co-founder and President of the Board of Kids to Adopt, a non-profit adoption agency with offices in Vancouver, WA. She also talks with prospective adoptive parents and families about "Special Needs" adoptions and helps to find families for any available children with OI that she hears about.  She currently volunteers part time for Kids to Adopt and is a board member and volunteer for A Child's Embrace, as an adoption consultant, educator and speaker.

Steven
Steven was born in August 1995, 5 weeks early, after a troublesome pregnancy for Sandy.  We knew he would have OI since Sandy had done a CVS test at 10 weeks gestation.  We also had several high resolution sonograms done during the pregnancy to monitor his growth and any problems that might have occurred because of the OI.  He was carried from the delivery room to the neonatal nursery on a pillow as the doctors did not know how fragile he might be.

He was doing great, until at 2 weeks old he broke his femur while Dan was changing his diaper.  He had two more fractures at 5 and 11 weeks that only showed on the x-rays after they had begun healing. After this, Steven did very well until March 97, when, due to a bow in the bone, his femur broke again while he was walking.  This was a bad fracture, and because of the bowing in his femur, it was decided that we should have his leg 'rodded'.  The surgery went well and the doctor was pleased and surprised that the bone was much stronger than he had anticipated.  Recovery was 4 weeks in a double hip spica cast, then a few more weeks of learning to stand and walk again.

Steven's latest fracture was July 97, just a few weeks after he started walking after his surgery.  This one was an incomplete spiral fracture in the same site as his fracture in March.  The rod did it's job well and held the bone in place so Steven did not need a cast this time.  He was standing on it in 3 days, walking unaided on it in 5 days, and gave both his parents gray hair watching him run around on a broken leg.  Steven has become quite a good golfer, has been on TV several times and has golfed in several tournaments in the past 3 years.

Kyle
Here is our little blue eyed boy, Kyle Vasya.  He was born in Shakhty, Russia, which is in the southern part of Russia, east of Ukraine.  He was given up at birth by his single mother who was unable to take care of him.  Kyle spent 14 months in a children's hospital, and at one time was so sick he had to be transferred to a special unit and given extra care.  We adopted Kyle in September, 1997.  He was born on July 4th and everyone says with that birthday he was meant to be an American!

Dan spent a whirlwind week in Russia completing Kyle's adoption.  The big day was September 16th... off to meet Kyle for the first time, then to the court, wait for the Judge's decision, wait for paperwork, to the Registrar's office for the adoption certificate and new birth certificate, then finally back to the Hospital to pick up Kyle.  Another couple of days to get Kyle's passport, medical and immigration visa taken care of and they were ready to start home on the 20th.  The trip home was a memorable one... for Dan!  Read Dan's story about the trip to Russia, and Kyle's adoption story on their own pages.

Kyle was severely developmentally delayed when we adopted him.  At 14 months of age, he barely had the coordination and strength to roll over and sit up on his own, and did not talk at all.  He was well below the USA growth charts in both height and weight.  In his first 10 weeks home, Kyle learned to crawl, stand, walk and RUN!  He went from nearly total silence to babbling and learning several words.  He grew nearly 3 inches and gained over 8 pounds and now weighs more than his "big" brother Steven.  After 5 months home, Kyle has nearly caught up in most developmental areas, is very strong and is nearly off the charts in weight... that is off the TOP of the charts!

Nadia
We first heard about Nadia 8 weeks after getting Kyle home from Russia.  We were a bit hesitant to add another child to our family so quickly as we had yet to fully adjust to having Kyle at home.  Nadia was also an older child than we had planned to adopt. After much discussion and planning (and seeing her picture!) we decided she would be a much loved and welcome addition to our family.  We told our families about Nadia on Christmas morning, and needless to say, it was quite a suprise for everyone!

She has OI like both Sandy and Steven, and has lived in hospitals and orphanages all her life.  Nadia was given up for adoption by her parents who were unable to care for her because of her brittle bones.  She has had about 13 fractures and a few operations to straighten her lower legs.  She has never walked, but with her recent surgeries in Russia, and another surgery or two here to straighten her legs, we feel good about her future chances to walk.  Nadia's last surgery was the first week in December and she was still in a cast (9 weeks later) when Dan and Dee arrived in Russia to pick her up in February.  After four days of asking, Nadia finally let Dan cut off (more like hack off!) her cast in the hotel room in Moscow after the Doctor at her immigration medical told her it had been on long enough.  She was so pleased to have it off that she put on a dress and went to show everyone in the hotel.

Dan traveled the first week of February '98 to St. Petersburg, Russia to adopt Nadia.  Dee, Dan's sister, also went on the trip to help, as Nadia was still in a cast from a recent surgery.  They had a great time and did plenty of sightseeing.  One morning was spent at The Hermitage Museum, and another spent at Catherine's Palace in Pushkin.

Nadia started school (2nd grade) one week after getting home and is doing well.  The language director for her school district as well as her English (ESL) teacher are from Russia and have been very helpful.  There are also several Russian speaking students in her school.  Everyone at her school is excited to have her there and she is becoming quite popular and is making friends quickly.  Nadia is learning English quickly and is adjusting well to living in our family.