Carla and her husband have eight children and now await the arrival of a Ukrainian boy to family
Carla Azhderian is in Kiev, far from his home in California. She traveled to the capital of Ukraine to finalize an adoption process that had lasted one year.
Who also expects the end of this process is Serhiy, 11-year orphan who was taken out of the war zone in the south shortly after the conflict began in 2014.
"We fell in love by Serhiy when he went to the United States as part of a program that brings children struggling to spend time with a family. We feel really miss him when he went away and decided to adopt it," the American told BBC said.
It's not the first time Azhderian and her husband go through an international adoption process: they have adopted four children in four different countries. And already had four biological children before the decision to expand the family in 2006.
Guatemala was the first choice - a short flight and at the time, the main country of origin of children adopted by American families.
They saw the picture of a girl and immediately felt that it could be their daughter. But it died shot before the end of the process.
Until the UN warned of child trafficking in the Central American country, and the US closed their doors for the adoption of Guatemalan children.
But they did not give up and went to Ethiopia, where he adopted a girl one year. Then another girl from Ghana and a year ago, a Polish boy of 13.
"It was never a goal to continue adopting. Every time we adopted we thought we would stop, but still (going to) these countries and seeing the need ... So we thought, 'Well, we have room for one more." And the rest of the family always agree, "Azhderian said.
"But it became more difficult with the passage of time. I would say that every time you go to a country not a member of The Hague (referring to countries which have not ratified the 1993 Convention on international adoption), there is always corruption and ethical problems . It was more complicated (adopt), but it's for a reason: there is a need to control these processes, "said the American who, so take Serhiy, shall be a mother of nine.
The issue mentioned by Carla Azhderian is observed worldwide: a tendency to fall in the numbers of international adoptions.
In the last ten years and after decades of steady growth, the number of children adopted by families from other countries fell by 65%.
"There was a peak in 2004. China has always been the main 'source', with its huge population, but even there the numbers have fallen by nearly two-thirds," he told BBC Peter Selman sociologist at the University of Newcastle.
At the other end of this process are the United States, the main destination of adopted children. But the number of children finding a new home fell 70% in the last decade, according to the US State Department.
In Brazil there was also a drop in adoptions of Brazilian children by foreign families, according to the Federal Police compiled by the Human Rights Secretariat of the Presidency. In 1999, the number of children adopted by foreigners reached 452. In 2014, fell to its lowest level: 126 children.
Worldwide, the issue concerned because a growing number of children living in homes that are not permanent. There is also the growing number of "new orphans," from poorer countries and in conflict - UNICEF estimates that there are 13 million of them.
Children of War
The popularity of international adoptions increased after the Second World War, with at least 50 000 cases recorded between 1948 and 1969.
According Jade Gary, the University of Loyola in Chicago and author of the research Understanding the Decline of Adoptions Transnational Channels, World War II left "countless Belgian children, Polish, German, Greek and refugee Italian, resulting in the first large wave of adoptions International ".
A second wave came after the war in Korea, with children who were "a result of interracial relationships between Korean Americans and native soldiers."
But it was with the opening of Russia and China, in the 1990s, there was a further increase in international adoptions.
The collapse of the Soviet Union played an important role by placing the former republics of the communist bloc in the list of children's countries of origin to be adopted.
In China, meanwhile, international adoption has become a side effect of the one-child policy. It was a way of dealing with the problem of abandoned children in orphanages - most of them girls.
The effects of the adoption of programs to children from these two countries were until the 21st century, and the number of shares increased from 25,000 in 1995 to over 45,000 in 2004, according to the University of Newcastle.
China has become the most popular country of origin of international adoptions, a record that still belongs to the country today.
And the US have established themselves as the main destination, taking almost the same number of foreign children than all the rest of the world combined.
The fall
The fall can be attributed to several factors, including economic changes and a reaction to crimes such as child trafficking, according to Peter Selman, one of the world's leading authorities the issue.
The war in Korea caused a second wave of international adoptions
These fears, however, are not new: in 1993, the Hague Convention has become the model for regulating the flow of children between countries. But many countries that give children for adoption have not ratified this convention.
Professor of American Law David Smolin wrote about the "dark side" of this "international market" after discovering that two children had adopted from India had been kidnapped.
Smolin said that some international adoptions are similar to trafficking: a process in which children removed from their families illegally are placed on legalized flow adoptions apparently the legitimate channels (for traffickers who profit from the process and often in collusion with authorities).
Suspension
The Chinese government has placed more restrictions on international adoptions and the population in orphanages increased
Due to suspensions indefinitely at several of the main countries of origin of these children, international adoptions almost stopped.
In China, the main change occurred in 2005 with the discovery of a child trafficking scheme involving six orphanages in Hunan Province. Orphanages delivered to Western babies parents taken by traffickers - some abductees and other "bought" in exchange for low values of compensation for the impoverished biological parents.
China then established stricter rules for adoption, but the population in the country's orphanages reached double.
Russia - which for many years was in second place among the countries of origin of these children and is now third behind Ethiopia - also slowed the process.
A famous case of 2008 placed the foster care system in the country in the spotlight: a baby died after being left by the adoptive father in a parked car under the hot sun in the US, months after the child has been adopted in Russia.
More recently, Moscow passed a law banning the adoption of Russian children by Americans, due to cases of abuse by foster parents. However, some saw it as a retaliation to an American sanction of 2012 to human rights abuses in Russia.
Another 20 thousand people also protested with pacifiers, against the suspension of adoptions of Russian children by US families
Restrictions
Other countries that also participated in this international adoptions flow now also face restrictions.
Guatemala, where years of civil strife led to an increase in the number of orphaned children, had a flow of thousands of adoptions per year to the US by 2006.
The lack of control did the number of irregular adoptions increase along with the legalized adoptions. The UN condemned the system and then the US suspended all adoptions involving children from Guatemala.
Hundreds of American families have adopted children from Haiti after the 2010 earthquake
Adoptions of Ghana, Bhutan, Cambodia, Nepal and Kyrgyzstan, among other countries, have also been suspended by the US.
Romania and Bulgaria, other countries that were among the main sources of adopted children, reduced availability of children for adoption after joining the EU in 2007 to meet the more stringent rules of the block.
Africa
Meanwhile, Africa appears to have a role in reverse the decline, or at least prevent it from falling further.
Before 1995, adoptions between countries of the continent were rare. The publicity surrounding the "celebrity adoptions" - Madonna in Malawi, Angelina Jolie in Cambodia, Ethiopia and Namibia - helped change this, partly.
"The adoption of Western concept was not fully understood in Africa, especially in predominantly Muslim countries, such as Nigeria, where adoption is seen as unacceptable but there is a tradition of children cared for by people other than their parents," Selman said.
Much of the increase is attributed to Ethiopia, where the number of children and teenagers sent abroad increased by 600% between 2000 and 2009.
That figure subsequently fell, but Ethiopia still in second place in the list of main countries of origin.
The number of adoptions has increased manifold in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, but the participation of the African continent as a whole in adoptions flow is still modest compared to other regions.
Nurse cares for a child in Palna, one of adoption agencies and orphanages older New Delhi. Adoptions fell by 35% in India since 2012, according to government data
However, one in three orphans in the world live on the continent.
Experts suggest that we need to face the decline in expanding the profile adoptions of foster children.
For many years the international adoption was appealing to Americans the possibility of finding younger children than those adopted in the US, Selman said.
But that has changed in recent years: infants and young children are finding homes in their own countries, and international adoption has served older children, sibling groups and children with special needs.
"In many Latin American countries such as Brazil and Chile, only older children and those with special needs are available for international adoption. This also applies to Eastern European countries such as Lithuania," he said.
This is a solution both for parents who really want to adopt as for older children less likely to be chosen, Selman said.
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