Ela’s
time line April 21, 2008
March
24, 1990 Elvira Besedena was born prematurely in Zaporizhzhya where she was abandoned in the hospital nursery by her parents
for having deformed hands and feet.
February, 1991 at 10.5 months Ela was moved to The Zaporozhye Baby's home
“Sun” ("Solnishko") where Galina Galkina was and remains the Director.
Galina took special care of Ela who called Galina "mother" At the
orphanage Ela became good friends with Nikita and Dimitri.
July
18, 1997 Ela was moved to the orphanage for deformed and disabled children in Tsyurupinsk, Ukraine, along with Nikita and
Dimitri
1998 Sonia Paz Baron-Vine was at the orphanage to adopt two boys badly in need of surgery. They were Nikita
and Dimitri.
Ela
asked Sonia if she could also be adopted but Sonia couldn’t. She promised to be back when the boys were brought to health.
She stayed in close touch with Ela.
Nikita and Dimitri had seven surgeries each from 1999 to 2005
2005 Sonia started the process with an agency to adopt Ela but Ukraine stopped out of country adoptions.
March
24, 2006 Ela turned 16. At age sixteen she became too
old for the U.S. to allow immigration visas for adoption.
March 24, 2007 Ela turned 17.
2007 Ukraine resumed accepting new adoption applications from the U.S.
December, 2007 Sonia applied for a humanitarian visa so that she could bring Ela to the U.S. for corrective surgery
on her deformed hands.
January 25, 2008 The Department of Homeland Security refused to release the visa but said that cosponsors are required.
March 24, 2008 Ela turned 18.
April
15, 2008 two cosponsor applications for cosponsor ship with Sonia were mailed to the Parole and Humanitarian Assistance Branch,
Department of Homeland Security.
In June, 2008 Ela “graduates” and leaves the orphanage. The state
has offered her vocational training to be a seamstress.
Please get to know Sonia Paz Baron-Vine by clicking on
the link and taking a look at some of her video clips. It would seem that she has always lived a privileged, easy, exciting
life.
What you don’t see is that she has taken some blows she didn’t
deserve and kept on smiling and doing and giving of herself until it hurt and then she gave some more.
