BEVERLY — Kim and Lance Lang already have three car seats installed.
One is for Jackson, the couple's 4-year-old adopted son. The other two are waiting for boys the Langs hope to bring back to Beverly from Russia later this spring.
"He can't wait to be a big brother," Kim said of Jackson.
On Thursday, however, the life-changing moment was put in jeopardy when the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that Russia had frozen all adoptions to the United States.
Russia is still outraged by the actions of a Tennessee woman who earlier this month sent a 7-year-old Russian orphan back to Moscow on a plane by himself. Just six months after adopting the boy, 33-year-old nurse Torry Hansen wrote that he was violent, unstable and "psychopathic," and that she had been misled by the Russian orphanage workers who vouched for his mental health.
Thursday's news was devastating to the Langs and triggered a flurry of concerned phone calls from friends and family members.
Kim called the adoption agency and was relieved to learn that the circumstances weren't as dire as the news reports indicated.
"(The adoptions) are still moving forward," she said, "but it's tenuous."
A U.S. delegation is due in Moscow in the coming days to discuss the crisis with Russian officials. Russia is pressing the United States to sign an agreement that would more carefully screen would-be parents and monitor the families upon their return to the United States, foreign ministry officials have said.
"We're taking it day-by-day and hoping to get over there and pick them up," Kim said.
The Lances adopted Jackson from Russia when he was 2. They began the adoption process again in July and went to Russia in February to meet their sons-to-be. They are brothers, one 13 months and the other 2. They will go by the names of Carter and Cooper.
Yesterday, Kim and her husband signed the final paperwork to petition the Russian court in Moscow. They hope to be before the court in May and have their sons by June 1.
Kim is cautiously optimistic.
"These will be our boys, and we'll wait," she said. "Hopefully, it will be sooner rather than later."
Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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