Define Loggerheads
After this call from Amrex, I knew that I needed to get serious about finding legal representation. I had consulted with an adoption attorney back in March and she was trying to find a Personal Injury attorney to take my case. I had been continuing to hope that JOH and Amrex would do the right thing and complete an adoption, but this appeared less and less likely as the days went on.
During this time, I had been trying to get an updated homestudy out of my agency. As I was leaning towards going to a new agency, I had to salvage something out of this mess. I was having trouble choosing a country and Amrex had already asked my agency to try to determine whether I would be willing to go to Ukraine, Guatemala or Kazakhstan instead of back to Russia.
In early May, my agency called me and indicated that Amrex needed a letter stating that I received the documents that I had requested. They were under the impression that this would somehow stop the investigation in Russia. They also were looking for something that would indicate that I had not filed a formal complaint. I told them that I would need to see the letter that had made its' way to Moscow. It could have been what I wrote, and just had been misinterpreted.
On May 12, I received a copy of the translated letter and was surprised to see that it was in the form of a formal complaint and included many details that I did not know would need to be revealed to the Russian government. I only wanted help in obtaining Ethan's documents, his autopsy report and confirmation of his burial place, but to get anyone's attention I believe that the full horror of my story needed to be revealed.
I called my agency and let them know that this was not what I thought I had sent, however everything written was true and I was not willing to recant any statements in the complaint. I also indicated that I was not going to write any letters on Amrex's behalf regarding my documents, until I had in writing that they had a referral for me or were returning my money. He did not think that they would do this, but he would ask.
On May 18, my agency called me again and asked me whether I was willing to write a letter. I said that I was not going to do anything until I got my money back. I had been through enough with these people and knew that they were not going to complete an adoption for me at this point. My agency asked me what money I was referring to. I just about lost it and said the $18K that you sent to Amrex. My agency stated that this money was non-refundable.
I was really beyond upset at this point and asked whether they were going to consider this a reasonable conclusion to an adoption. I had been given a child with a fatal illness who died within 5 days of my taking custody. They really did not know what to say to this at all.
During the next week, several emails went back and forth with them asking me to write a letter and my stating that I had no incentive to do anything until they put into writing that I would get a refund. We were officially at loggerheads.