What Bitcoin Did - Adoption & Corruption w/ Becca Rubenfeld

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Becca Rubenfeld is the co-founder and COO of AnchorWatch. In this episode, Becca tells the story of how she adopted her son from a Ukrainian orphanage, including government corruption, falsified records, and systemic failures. What began as a summer hosting program turned into a two-year battle to rescue her son. Becca also opens up about her recent diagnosis with an aggressive and rare form of cancer—and why she felt now was the time to tell this story. THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS: IREN: https://www.iren.com/ RIVER: https://river.com/wbd ANCHORWATCH: https://www.anchorwatch.com/ BLOCKWARE: https://mining.blockwaresolutions.com/wbd Follow: Danny Knowles: https://x.com/_DannyKnowles or https://primal.net/danny Becca Rubenfeld: https://x.com/beccaamilee

child is being abused, and you literally are helpless. And people like to say, I would kill them. Would you? Would you? And it was the government, right? The government was lying, and the people were lying. It is a corrupt, failed system. I've lived a whole life in the last weeks.

Time makes no sense anymore. And I am scared, but I feel brave. I'm ready to win. I've got the tissues ready. Yeah. Ready to cry, Becker. That's right. We're doing a very different show today.

We are. So you have an adopted son. I do. Yeah. And we've been talking about doing a show like this for quite a long time. But like why now? Why do you want to tell a story now? Like you were quite adamant that you wanted to do this quickly.

Yeah. So, you know, I've been really open with the Bitcoin community. I recently got a cancer diagnosis. And from the time I got the diagnosis, or actually before I got the diagnosis, but I knew I had cancer and I knew that it was going to be a really large life event. And then as I continued doing testing to learn more about the diagnosis itself, it just got more and more serious. And the idea of doing a show with you about the adoption was just because it's a great story. Yeah. Right. And it's just a cool story that deserves to be told. And but with this diagnosis in hand,

it's just really important to me to get it out. It's, it's a little bit of a love story to him. And the diagnosis itself is a breast cancer diagnosis, but it's a rare and very aggressive form. And the prognosis is really serious, right? So this is not just an easy thing. to go through. Like, this is a very serious situation and I really have to consider things in life or death type of structure. And so really just having the opportunity to tell the story and have it on record for him and for my family is important to me right now. Yeah. And I do definitely have questions to ask you about the cancer diagnosis. But I want to do the adoption story first because this is the important part. That's the goal. Yeah. So tell me,

all about it. Like, when did you first decide that you wanted to adopt a kid? And why did you decide you wanted to adopt a kid? So this all started in 2012. So, you know, 15 years ago. And my ex-husband and I were just looking to grow our family. And we had not gotten pregnant. And so we, but we got to this inflection point that it was like, okay, do we start going down the kind of fertility path and exploring that, or do we go down an adoption path and explore that? And between the two, they're both hard, they're both expensive. Between the two, adoption just seemed more interesting. This sounds flippant, but it seemed like a little bit of an adventure. And I had no idea that the actual adoption would be an adventure because it was a very, very challenging adoption

and very dramatic, as it turns out. But it just seemed more appealing to me than shooting myself up with hormones and stuff. I imagine we absolutely would have gotten pregnant. But this is just the route we went. And when we started down the road, I started doing research on adoption, and I decided fairly quickly that I was interested in an older child,

which meant age six and up. The reason for that is a lot of the diagnoses or the issues with adopted kids that I wanted to have. if possible, specifically reactive attachment disorder, R.D. or fetal alcohol syndrome. A lot of, you know, fetal alcohol syndrome obviously is happening in utero. R.A.D., really the damage is done in the first year of life. And so even if you adopt an infant, if they're not actually in your home very quickly, the damage is happening. So if the child is not in your home by 12 months, 18 months,

you know, potentially, I'm not saying every kid, but the risk for RAD is a lot higher. And that's where they struggle to bond with their families later on. And those things don't really come out until they enter school or even puberty. And so I just decided, you know, based on what we were trying to do, which is really just grow our family, that these older children appealed to me more. So I started looking for like a six to eight year old. So I've got like, there's adoption in my family. It's not my story to tell.

And I don't know if the people who are involved in that would like be happy with me sharing too much. So I'm not going to say too much about it. But like the reactive attachment disorder is obviously a very real thing in adoption. Yeah. And like I think you say the first year, I think it's like the first year is especially important. And then like the first three years is like the key time. And maybe it's worth actually explaining what reactive attachment disorder is. Yep.

So honestly, because I never had to deal with it, I didn't do deep, deep research. I was mostly trying to avoid it. But the thought is that emotional development is happening very, very young. So when you're an infant, it's thought that the fluid surrounding your brain, when you're being rocked and held as an infant, is very important in terms of that emotional development. So if you're spending all your time laying flat in a crib,

then that's where they see this increased risk of that. And so what ultimately happens is as the child gets older, they just really can't form what we would consider healthy emotional bonds. And that can come out in different ways. You know, it can be exacerbated by intelligence level or other conditions at the same time, but just overarching, just not having the ability to form healthy emotional bonds.

And so this can come out in just really awful behavior issues, but way beyond a naughty child, right? Like just really traumatically bad behavior issues. Sometimes the children can be very, very manipulative. So, you know, they're survivors, right? And the way that they have found to survive is by manipulating those. So they can do things like be very sweet in public and be, you know, very well behaved and just absolutely adorable children. And then they come home and they're terrors and they abuse like, you know, break the fingers of the,

other kids in the home and, you know, hurt animals and things like that that are just very serious. And it doesn't have to be that serious, but all the same, you know, it can be very traumatic to families. And so in my network, my network is mostly people who also adopted older children. Yep. And even there, you know, if kids have this disorder, a lot of times it doesn't really become evident during the adoption process because the kid is kind of. of auditioning. That's right. That's right. And it's really more after they get home. So it tears a lot of

families apart. You know, it creates a lot of divorce. Kids end up, you know, being taken out of the home. If they were adopted from overseas, my son is from Ukraine. That can be very challenging because the government considers them the same as your biological child. So there's no real recourse. You can't work with social services in kind of a normal foster child situation. So a lot of kids kind of end up going to these camps in Montana, like residential camps, you know, go to jail, you know, just, yeah, it's just a lot of havoc. A lot of havoc. And so you wanted a kid six or up, obviously, so you can see if they have anything like

reactive attachment. You have a better chance, right? Because once you enter school, a normal development, childhood development is that you should be learning social behaviors from the friends at school. So you're kind of learning and changing once you enter school. But if you have some of these conditions, including fetal alcohol syndrome as well, they're just not quite developing correctly and it becomes more evident. Whereas like a three-year-old with RAD or FAS, they don't act that different from a really healthy three-year-old. So its school age was really what I was targeting. Yeah. Okay. And just to go back a little bit, when you first like had the conversation about adopting

with your ex-husband. Whose idea was it? It was my idea first when I started researching and looking into the age of the children and then learning about hosting programs, which is actually how we met him. What does that mean? So the US government has visas specifically

for overseas orphans with a few countries. So Ukraine, Russia, until Russia banned adoption to America, Latvia, Philippines, and maybe a couple of other countries. And it's a visa where the orphanage is shut down for the summer. And it's one of the jobs of the orphanage directors to figure out what to do with the kids because it's a boarding school. And so a lot of them will go to family members who are willing to take them for the summer, but not willing to take them full time.

There are these hosting programs where they go and they live with a family overseas, either in America, Ukraine has a similar visa with Netherlands. So they'll go and live with a family for the summer. For a lot of the kids, it's their first and maybe only interaction with a healthy family environment. And it's not an adoption program officially. So no matter what, you have to send the kid back at the end of the summer. If you try to keep them, it's kidnapping. And every year, somebody tries to keep them. And it's a big international incident. But the idea is that, you know, it's good for the kid, gives them a fun summer, good exposure to a family dynamic that maybe they haven't seen before. But it also does end up

being a little bit of a loophole for adoption because most of the world follows what's called the Hague Convention. And the Hague Convention has various rules in place as related to adoption, including that you can't pre-select your child. And the idea, The idea here is to protect the child from sex trafficking. So the idea is you can't just go in and take the prettiest, the cutest kid, and then adopt them, but actually then be trafficking them. And so there are rules that are very well-spirited, but it does actually bring a lot of questions into what kid you're going to get home.

So when you host a child, at least in Ukraine, there is the rule that you can't preselect your child, they don't, they do not follow the Hague Convention, Ukraine. But they still have a rule that you can't preselect your child unless you have an existing relationship. And so by hosting the child for the summer that establishes an existing relationship. And can you pick the child to come and stay with you over the summer? Yeah, you can. So I honestly, I picked him out of a catalog. Really? Yeah. So how does that actually work? Like what, so maybe again, we'll go back a a little bit. When you were like, when you had the plan, you're going to go and adopt a kid,

Like, what do you do? Like, why did you decide to go overseas rather than adopt in the U.S.? So there are, you can either adopt internationally. You can adopt from foster care here in the U.S. Or you can adopt a healthy infant from a mother who surrenders the child. And they all have tradeoffs. So if you want to do a healthy infant, the way that generally works is you work with an adoption agency, you make a kind of a dossier and your adjutant.

advertising yourself to a certain extent. This is like friends. This is what you get on friends. And then the birth mother actually selects you. Okay. And so if you are good looking, affluent, have a beautiful home, you're going to provide a really wonderful life on paper to this child. You have a very good chance of being selected quickly.

If kind of any of those things are lacking, then maybe it takes you a while. Yeah. And it's expensive. All right. All right. also, so maybe around like 50 grand or something. So that's that path.

I would say that is your best chance at getting a really healthy, normally developed child. It's not without risk. There's still drug and alcohol risks. But, you know, a lot of times the birth mother maybe has other kids and just can't afford, chooses not to afford one. And it really is kind of a sacrificial thing for the child. trying to give the child a better life. So no real judgments on the circumstances,

but I'd say that's your best path, especially if you're kind of in that profile that you have a good chance of it moving quickly. If you adopt from foster care, then, you know, it can be any age. The child will have gone through trauma. So any child being adopted in foster or international will have experienced abuse or neglect.

or abandonment in their lives. Otherwise, they wouldn't be that in that situation. So they will have trauma for sure. And it's just a matter of how much. And if you're the type of parent who has the capacity to help them heal from that and move forward from that and what level of trauma you're going to end up with

and will determine the outcome of the child. Additionally, though, one of the really intimidating things about foster is that your responsibility as the foster parent is to do everything in your power to reunite the child with their biological family. Okay. And so even if you're fostering with the intent to adopt,

at the same time, you're also trying to get them back with their biological family. And a lot of times that's fairly smooth, like, you know, the family is just out of the picture and that's not that big of an impediment, but often there is family. And so that's just, it's a very emotionally challenging thing to navigate. So then with international, you have no issues with the extended family.

Even if they exist, I mean, the adoption is the adoption. And once they're here, they're here. And so you don't have that same responsibility, legal responsibility. It can be, foster is cheap. So foster, I would say, total legal expenses should be under $10,000. and most people can probably do it for free. There's grants or the government just doesn't, just waves or reimburses families.

So fostering should be free. And I think it's great. And I think if you're of the personality and character to do it, I think it's an amazing program. And I would consider it later in life as well. With international, again, it's pretty expensive depending on the country. It's probably 30, I don't know, with inflation.

but maybe 30, I would guess these days, maybe up to 100,000. And that's not including lost income. So it's quite expensive. You have to take time off from work. There's a lot of travel back and forth. So in all those, honestly, the travel, and that was interesting. Like that appealed to me, actually. And so that's just the route we took.

Also, then I learned about these hosting programs. And once I knew the hosting programs existed, that was very interesting because it gives you this opportunity. You don't have to do a year and a half of foster classes. You don't have to get certified in anything. Pretty much you do a background check. You send some money and they send you a kid. It's very meat market-ish, but it is efficient.

And so that appealed to me. It's like, okay, you can try out a kid, see if there's a bond, try out just this concept of older child adoption, and see if it works for you. If it doesn't, see a junior. Like, I hope you had a great summer and they go back. Yeah. And if it's a great fit, then you can try to pursue adoption.

So I started learning about these hosting programs and things, you know, international adoption, there are rules against trafficking for a reason. There's just a lot of unsavory people in this industry. And it is an industry. This is a money industry. And that's, I started seeing that even in hosting. And I would say hosting is their American-based hosting programs, their non-profits. Most of them are evangelical Christian, which I actually, that frustrated me.

I was raised Christian, but I'm half Jewish, and I'm not a practicing Christian. And they only let you host if you're a practicing Christian. Oh, interesting. So, and that offended me. because I wanted to host and give a kid a good summer and potentially a good life regardless of that. And so I had to write an essay about my relationship with Jesus. I had to tell them my favorite Bible verse.

I think I chose something in Isaiah. This is before chat, GBT as well. Yeah, well, I was raised in that manner. So I knew the material, but just being kind of roadblocked from helping a child by that, I think, is inappropriate, and I still feel that way. Totally agree. So, but the hosting programs, I would say,

are not heavily corrupt. I think they're well-spirited, and they are trying to, you know, help kids. And so each of these hosting programs, you know, there's maybe 20 of them, they have a photo listing. And so the hosting

programs travel to these countries. They build relationships with the orphanage director. And they do a lot of screening of the kids. So the orphanage director will say, look, I need to find placements this summer for these 50 kids. I think these 20 will just not do well.

Like, I'm not going to send them. And so then these 30... Because of like behavioral reasons. Behavior and it probably will not be successful for anybody. And so then they kind of limit it down. And then the hosting program goes and they interview the kids, just short little interviews. and ask them, you know, just see if they're socially adept enough to navigate to summer with a family.

And so there's actually a lot of screening that happens before even you're choosing from the kids. That's unique and appealing because you're getting some extra eyes on these kids. And then so then the way it works is they have these online photo listings. There's a little one inch headshot, more or less of a kid, and like a one or two sentence, description of the kid or like a quote from the kid. This episode is also brought to you by Iron, the largest NASDAQ listed Bitcoin miner using 100% renewable energy. Iron are not just powering the Bitcoin network.

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and earn it to $100 in Bitcoin when you buy. That's river.com forward slash WBD. Okay, so when you're looking through this catalog, there's 50 kids or whatever. Probably on each one, there's probably 500 kids because they work with maybe 10 orphanages. Okay, makes sense. So, like, when you're going through this,

what made you pick your now son? Fate. So you go through, and there's a lot of just cute little kids, right? And so you would go through, and I would show my ex. I would be like, oh, she's, oh, look how cute she is. And she wants to be a hairdresser, or whatever a six-year-old wants to be. And so I would go through and just be like, oh, she's cute, he's cute. Like, oh, this one's cute.

And sometimes I'd turn around my laptop and show him. And he'd be like, yeah. Yeah, yeah, he's cute. And then I would come back or, you know, I'd get to one and it's just like this adorable group of kids, like maybe it's three or four siblings. And, you know, they excel in school. You know, we were very academically inclined. So I wanted a smart kid.

I wanted a kid who had a chance at being a successful adult. And, you know, the description sounds so great, but like, oh, there's four of them. Yeah. That's too much. And so I just, I looked over probably about two months at thousands of kids, thousands of kids. And then I got to his picture and I was like, here he is. Hmm. It's him.

He's mine. Mine. Mine. And that's where like the first little scam actually appeared. So it was a little pick. Wait, tell me why he was yours first. I think the first one, I mean, he was a very cute kid, but there were many cute kids. How old was he at the time?

Well, I didn't even know. The picture looked like he was 10-ish. He was, now I know at the time he was actually 14. Okay. But just a little guy, right? And so he was a little older than I was looking for, but like the description was some, his name was Yuri at the time. He's changed his name to James. But it was like, Yuri speaks five languages, English is one of them and wants to be hosted in a big city.

That was it. I'm so curious then what it was that drew you to him. I have no explanation. I really don't. I have no explanation. But I was for sure. And I mean, even at this point, it was still, it wasn't serious. I was picking a kid for summer.

Yeah. And so that sentence that he speaks these languages and wanted to be in a big city, I'm like, we're in a big city. We can do that. And so I called the hosting program. And I was like, Yuri number E112. I'd like that boy, please. And they called me back and they were like, oh, I'm so sorry. Yuri actually is already being adopted by another family, so he's not available.

But we have all these other children. Here, let us send you a different link and you can look through the other children. And I was like, I don't want the other children. He's mine. Like, what do you mean he's being adopted by another family? And I closed my laptop. I didn't look at another family. photo listing. I cried for two weeks. I couldn't sleep. I literally cried. I was so upset that,

and I chided myself because you should be happy. He's being adopted. Good for him, right? But I wasn't. I was quite upset about it. After two weeks, I got over it, right? Eventually, I was like, okay. So I opened the laptop again, and I came across a different hosting program that I hadn't heard of previously. I was like, oh, another one. And so I signed up for Axis. to their photo listing. And I started looking through their photos. And I came across a different picture of him, where he looked a little older, but the name was still Yuri.

And this one said something like, Yuri wants a family in a laptop. And I was like, I think this is him. I think this is the same boy. And also, I can provide him with a family in a laptop. I think this is the same kid. And so I called that hosting program. And I was like, hey, I've got a question about Yuri.

I was interested in him. He was on this other hosting program's website, but I called them and they said he's being adopted. Like, is it the same child? And they said, that's strange. I think we're the only American hosting program working with that orphanage. Let us talk to the orphanage director and, like, figure out what's going on.

So they called me back a few days later. They had talked to the OD, the orphanage director. And he's like, nope, you are the only hosting program. I don't know who that hosting program is. He's still available for hosting. And so they called me back. He's available. I gave them $4,000.

I did my background checks. And this was in April. And he showed up, I think June, sixth or so of which year? 2012. Okay. 2012. And so I think the scam there, it wasn't a scam scam in that they were trying to steal

your money. I think what the scam was is that they would pick pictures of cute kids from other places and kind of pull you onto their hosting program with the cutest, best-looking, healthiest-looking kids. And then when those ones were not actually theirs to offer, then they would serve you up whatever kids they had. And so they were just trying to like funnel people into their program. Yeah. But still scammy, right? And so, but all the same, now six weeks later, he was going to be showing up here. And that's how fast it was. And so in those six weeks, I just, I tried to not

picture his personality because I knew at this point he was 14, which was way older than I had intended. Did that initially put you off in any way? No, because he was mine. I had just, I, I, He was mine. And so he was whatever age he was. And then also, I think psychologically as well, in the pictures, and even that first summer, he was pre-pubescent. And so he really was just a little guy. And he had a tiny little voice and a tiny little body.

And he was just an adorable little boy. So the maternal instinct was fully there. And so when he came over in the summer, how does that work? Do they fly on their own and you pick them up at the airport? Yeah, they fly as a group. So they meet in Kiev. Their little group goes with a chaperone to Kiev. The hosting program meets them at the airport.

They fly either just to JFK or maybe a couple of major airports. And then from there, usually they get matched up with a flight attendant who volunteers to chaperone children for various reasons. And so he then flew, I think, from JFK with two of us. whether Ukrainian kids who were going to be hosted in this region. And then we picked him up at the airport here. And so what was that like, like the first time that you actually saw him? It was great. He was just tiny.

So I didn't really know what to expect size-wise. And he was, I would say, the size of a 10 or 11-year-old American. And so he was just like an adorable little guy. He was outgoing from the beginning. like, you know, he shook my ex-husband's hand and gave me kind of an awkward little hug. The flight attendant who had chaperoned him was a beautiful woman. And he was like giving her eyes, right? So he was very flirty with her, beautiful young woman.

And that was adorable, right? Just seeing this young teenager, like, putting the moves on this woman. So that was cute. My mom was there as well. She had come to town to just help out. and be around. And on the way home in the car, well, first of all, the first thing he asked to do

was to go brush his teeth. I get it after a long flight. Yeah, a long flight, but like that was important to him. So my husband took him to the bathroom and he got cleaned up. Was that the first thing that he said to you, really? Pretty much. That was so funny.

Yeah, pretty much. I don't remember other than hello and welcome. You know, we had a little sign. Yeah. Yeah, I think his first request was to go get cleaned up. He came with nothing. He was wearing a hosting program T-shirt and the t-shirts, like way too small and an empty backpack effectively.

He had a toothbrush and maybe a pair of underwear, and that's about it. And yeah, I mean, so he had raw dogged that whole flight. So why was he in the orphanage in the first place? So, you know, I did clear with him talking about this stuff. So what I can share is that when he was a young child, he was with his biological parents. He lost one of, and, you know, it wasn't a great healthy home environment at all.

The reasons in Eastern Europe, the most common reasons, are alcohol and drug use, but especially alcohol in Ukraine and in Russia. So there were lots of issues there. It wasn't a healthy home environment. He lost one of the two parents who passed away, supposedly by freezing to death on a snowbank. Oh, shit.

Actually, apparently, is not that uncommon. Would just like get blackout drunk? You get drunk and you sit down to have a rest. Oh, my gosh. So once one of the parents had passed away, the other became even more unstable. And he, so I think the parent died when he was around six. And at age eight, how big an eight-year-old is, tiny.

At age eight, he chose to go live on the streets rather than stay home. Wow. And so around age eight and nine, he was living on the streets in a town called Ujjjjjad in western Ukraine. and, you know, sleeping on pipes, on hot water pipes and sewers, because the pipes are warm, living with other street kids, you know, eating where he could do it. He was adorable and smart, very smart, so smart. And so he was able to use charm.

He didn't have to be violent. He can be violence back then. Like, he definitely did have to be at times to protect himself, but he didn't have to use violence to get what he need. So he could be defensively violent, did not need to be aggressively violent. And so, I mean, I remember him just saying different things about how he would eat and how he would survive.

I mean, things like at movie theaters, like there's a lot of popcorn that gets dropped, right? So, like, you can pick up popcorn and eat popcorn. He kept warm at night. So he... No wonder he was small. Right, right. His whole life, he's been a hardcore gamer.

So the reason why, he wanted a big city is he wanted high-speed internet. I'm not kidding. He just wants a big city in a laptop. Yeah. And so he just wanted a laptop to game and high-speed internet. That was that, which is hilarious. Because in Ukraine and many places, there are internet cafes, right, that are 24 hours.

And so he'd go and hang out there. He was cute and they would let him hang out all night for free. And so he would stay warm by going into internet cafes. and playing bootleg Russian video games and became a hardcore gamer. He's like a pretty serious gamer. He was highly ranked in League of Legends and stuff. And so, yeah, just kind of survived. And then he, when he was eight or nine, I'm not quite sure.

He was playing in a building site and was either pushed or fell from like the second story. Oh, shit. And hit his head. And some teenage girls found him and carried him to the hospital. And he ended up spending some months in a sanatorium, like a long-term hospital where he was healing. And eventually they found his parent and was like, hey, we found your kid. And he, between the options, he actually chose the orphanage. He wanted to go back to the streets.

They wouldn't let him and said, no, you either need to go with your parents or you need to to the orphanage and he chose the orphanage. And so then he went into the orphanage at age nine. And he, I mean, he was, it was obvious how smart he was right away. So he explained things like how bad the orphanage is, right? But how good it is comparatively and that he understood that it might be kid prison, which is, you know, how he viewed it. but he would have food and have a chance at education.

And so, and he was telling me this that first summer. You know, he was explaining that, especially after a year in the orphanage, he said for the first year, I was, I just lived scared. That was his framing. Like, he always sounded a little extra profound because of broken English, that he would just, you know, say exactly what he meant

with no extra words. And said that he lived scared for a year. And the big boy, beat the little boys, and the big boys steal the little boys' food, and everything was terrifying, and there were fights and knives and just violence and abuse, like, between kids, right? And that he just, it became obvious to him that his only way out of this life was through an education.

And so the next year, there was a charity that was visiting the orphanage and that worked pretty closely with this orphanage. They were from another country, but they would come in periodically. And he has an inclination for languages. And so he would, when they came, he enjoyed going and talking to them and just trying to speak Dutch in this case.

And they just recognized how smart he was. So they sponsored him to attend the gymnasium, which is like a prep school outside of the orphanage. And so he, I think there was maybe one other kid, but attended school with what he called family kids. And so he actually then had the opportunity to, you know, get more exposure to healthy dynamics. There was one teacher, his name is André,

who took good care of him, who brought him home for dinner with his family, who paid extra school fees if they were going to a museum and needed to bring a few bucks and just looked out for him. There were a number of caretakers at the orphanage who were more caring than others. And there were some bad eggs as well. But then at the school, I think they took very, very good care of him.

And so he would walk back and forth. He said it was very hard for him. I mean, I remember, I think, when he was 15, he got in a fight at soccer camp. And he came home and he was so upset by this fight. And he just, he was crying that he's, always been different and he just hates it. In the orphanage, he was the school kid.

And in the school, he was the orphan kid. And just he was never normal. And I told him, I was like, Yuri, here you are a normal. Like here you are a family kid. So like, you don't have to feel different here. And he literally fell down on the ground crying, like in the kitchen, just collapsed crying. Just that idea of being a family kid was just so important

and different from something that he had experienced. But it set him up very well. Because he wasn't only in this scary high stress environment every minute of every day. He also had really lovely people and smart people. Ukraine actually has a very high standard for education. And so he had a lot of things that actually were going from very well before we met him.

And so, like, we started this conversation talking about, like, the issues kids can have if they have, like, a traumatic upbringing. He was obviously older, but he also had been through a hell of a lot of trauma by the sounds of it. So, like, when he got here, how long did it take him to kind of adjust? Were there any ever issues with any of that stuff? No. No.

He was just a delight from the beginning. He started calling me mom on day 10. Did you cry? Not that moment, but I'll never forget it. The way where we were living at the time, the washer dryer were around the corner. And I made him, I was trying to teach him life skills. I didn't know if we were going to adopt him. And so I made him do his on laundry.

I taught him how to use the machine. He didn't know how to turn on a stove. I taught him how to make eggs. I was trying to teach him how to eat for cheap in a healthy way, right? And so he was over there trying to figure out the washer dryer, and but couldn't see it, see me because he was around the corner. And I heard him whisper it. He was practicing.

And so he was around the corner. He goes, hey, mom. That is amazing. Hey, mom. And then said it out loud like that. And so I pretended to not have heard the build up to that. And I just said like, yeah, and went around the corner. And I helped him out with what he was doing.

And so he just called me mom from then on. And that was while he was here just for the three months. Yeah, that was 10 days after I met him. Wow. He told me that when he was walking up to us at the airport, that he was thinking like, okay, this is maybe my new mom and my new dad. Holy shit. Yeah, right?

So, I mean, it was very much on his mind for sure. And of course, like any kid that's coming is kind of hoping that. But, you know, he was definitely hoping. Yeah. that this was going to work out. And so, no, he was just, he was adorable, he was smart, he was obsessed with gaming. The only kind of conflicts we had were screen time.

And we did, we had just drag out fights over screen time. So how long, because it's funny, because the dynamic is so different to, like, a mom and dad with a normal 14-year-old kid in the sense that, like, you've just met them. So, like, how long does it take to have, like, an argument? Because teenagers can be, like, little shirts. Um, he didn't have the teenage little shit thing for a while. Um, but we did argue, but it was more about screen time.

We pretty much only argued about screen time for years, uh, probably until he was like 17. So 14, 15, 16, we didn't really have those teen problems. I think he was happy to be in a family. And we just didn't see those kind of behavior issues. Even when they popped up, it was all well within the realm of normal teenage. attitude type stuff, never anything concerning. And he was just so sweet. That first summer, one of the, I mean, beautiful, but just heartbreaking, heartbreaking moments was, you know, he had a, we had a bike for him. And so, and we lived in downtown Seattle. So he was biking,

but in downtown. And he had come back from biking for a couple of hours. And I had lent him some sunglasses. And, you know, they were expensive sunglasses. Who cares? But, you know, they were expensive sunglasses. And he, and I was like, where are the sunglasses? And he's like, he had lost him. And I didn't want him to think, you know, that like, we're rich now. And, like, you can just be careless with other people's belongings. The sunglasses themselves were not important, but I just, I didn't want him to. It's a lesson. Yeah. And so I said, like, well, you need to go look for him. And, and, And he was like, you could see, he's like, I have no idea where they are, right?

I was like, well, go look for him. I mean, go put an effort in, right? And expecting him to go look around and look in the obvious spots, look where you lock up the bike. And he didn't come back for a few hours. And when he came back, he came in, he kind of slammed the door. He went to his room and he was just sobbing. And I was like, you know, come out here, right? And he came out and he's like, they're going.

I don't know where they are. I was like, that's okay, that's okay. Thank you for looking for him. It's okay. And he was just so upset and I was like, it's okay. Like, calm down, calm down. And broken English, right? This first summer, he did speak English,

but we used Google Translate and facial expression and body language to communicate a lot that first summer. And so he took my iPad and he's just typing out. He's just crying as he's saying, and as he's saying, typing out. And he said that he thought that I thought he had stolen them and that I thought he was evil. And he needed me to know that he hadn't stolen them. He thought, I thought that he had taken them and sold them on the street for money and that he was a bad kid. He always used that phrase. I'm not a bad kid. And, you know, I had never thought.

that whatsoever. It's just a careless kid. It's not just a little careless and not that big of a deal. And he was just terrified that he had ruined his shot at a family. He was sure that we wouldn't want to adopt him because we thought he was a thief.

And so it was just, it was very obvious that he was a sweet little boy who was just a good kid, good-hearted. And, you know, he's a toughie. like he's he estimates that he's been in like 200 fights. Holy shit. In his life. And some of them are knife fights.

A kid got curbed in a fight by him. So, yeah, don't mess with me because I have like, he's tough, right? So, I mean, he's a banker now. He's grown and he's a banker. So he's thriving. and in kind of what we would say is a successful and normal and healthy life. But yeah, he's a tough guy. And I love it.

I love it. I mean, he loves me and will look out for me in whatever way necessary. But yeah, that's how that first summer went. And then we got to the adoption process. And that's when things started getting really crazy. So before we get to the adoption process, like when he's here, how long did it take you to love him? I loved him when I saw that picture.

And so when we went through this very long, very challenging adoption process. Yeah, so what happened at the end of the summer? He has to obviously go back to UK. And so we started the adoption process. A horrendous goodbye to the airport. Yeah, that started, honestly, started the story. So everything up until now was kind of normal hosting, a very good hosting experience, but normal.

Generally, the experience, if you want to adopt is the hosting program will, do a little research and they'll tell you if the child is available for adoption. So I had done that before the summer started and he was available for adoption. And meaning he had lost one biological parent, the other parent had given up rights. So he should be free for adoption. And so that's what I understood going into it. So the process when you're adopting international is you start with USCIS, so U.S. immigration. And there's a dossier that you have to assemble of documents and do background checks and have home studies and things like that. It's about a four-month process. And so we went through that process. No problem. Went through it in the normal amount of time,

four months. I'm sorry to keep interrupting. Before you do this, do you say to him, we want to adopt you? Do you want to come here? Or? I think, yeah, I think, well, he was making it pretty clear that he wanted to. Yeah. And I think we started the dossier maybe without asking him specifically, there was a point where we did. I mean, we didn't just start it without him knowing, because at that age, they really have to be a willing participant. Actually, I think maybe right at the end of the summer, he asked if we would or if, yeah, he asked if we would.

And I kind of deferred because you're not allowed to talk about it. You're not supposed to. You also don't want to set them up for something that may not happen. Correct, right. And so I really kind of deferred on that. And then we started the process. And I had given him a phone. And so he did have a phone.

And that's actually how we learned English. Because every day really at 11 a.m. here, which was like bedtime there, 9 p.m. there. We would call. I would top up his phone card. I topped up his phone card using a mail order bride website. No way. I learned how to do so many weird things. And so I would like top up through this mail order bride website, his SIM card.

and then he had minutes and we could talk. And then he would use all those minutes to play games. So it was like a constant thing. But we would talk and because we didn't have Google Translate and we didn't have facial expressions, he really had to listen, right? He had to learn English there. So we would talk frequently. And at some point, I don't remember exactly when he would be asking,

like, are you going to adopt me? And I would continue to not quite answer that question. And also my husband and I were still deciding. You know, like we had started, but like, are we sure we want to do this? Are we sure this is right for us? And so we hadn't like decided, decided like I had, but I was kind of waiting for him. And again, he wasn't resisting, but it's a big decision, of course. And so finally, as we were kind of going through, I think a few months, again, he's smart.

he interrupted me. He asked, and I was like, oh, I don't know if we can. Like, we're still trying to talk to the government. And we didn't have USCIS authority yet, authorization yet. So I was like, oh, the government hasn't given us permission yet. And he interrupts me, and he said, I didn't ask if you're going to adopt me. I asked if you want to adopt me. And I was like, I do want to adopt you.

Yes. And he was like, okay. And I was like, damn. Got me. He said he was small. He's very smart. He's very smart. One of the fun things, they say you adopt a kid that you choose a kid if you get to

choose, that either looks like you or looks like your spouse. Oh, interesting. And he does look a lot like my ex. Very similar facial expressions since then, too, that I think he picked up from him. But personality-wise, he's just like me. Really? Yeah. He's like a mini-me.

couldn't have raised a kid more like me from a baby. That's so funny. It's so funny. That's great. I mean, it's very satisfying, right? And so, yeah, so we finished the USCIS. We got approved. We submitted it to Ukraine, which should have started a four to five month process in Ukraine

that finishes with you going to Ukraine. So it's about a year-long process from start to finish. It should be Ukraine. It should be less than that, which is one of the reasons I chose Ukraine. It was supposed to be fast and cheap, which at the time meant. at less than $30,000 and nine months was supposed to be. What are Ukrainian adoption should take? So we submitted it and they're like, oh, he's not available.

And I was like, mm? And they're like, yeah, he's not available for adoption. But, you know, you can come to Ukraine. We'll give you an appointment. You come to the Ministry of Children in Kiev and we have a catalog and you can, and we'll give you three to choose from. And so you can choose that you can read about these three. and then whichever one you choose,

you can go visit them in the orphanage. So why did that happen? I didn't know yet. And so that started kind of the two-year hell of mystery that we had to unravel. And so I was like, no, those are not my kids. He's my kid. So no, why isn't he free for adoption?

He should be free for adoption. And they were very cagey, and they wouldn't tell me why. And they're like, we can't tell you why. There's something confusing, but anyway, like, and so we had a facilitator. They were called. And the facilitator was associated with the hosting program, but a Ukrainian. And so if the hosting program, I would say, is a nonprofit, it's American, the facilitators

generally are local, and they're in the industry, right? And they make a lot of money off these adoptions. And so she was like, oh, look, to it. I'm trying to figure it out. And so she came back and the answers weren't there. And I was like, well, I don't want another kid figure it out. Like, he's mine. Like, he wants to be here. We want him here. Like, what are you doing? Like, what's going on? And so the answers didn't make sense. And the answer started conflicting. And one of the hardest emotional things over these two years is I knew I was being lied to constantly from every direction. But I could.

couldn't quite piece it together. So it's like you would ask like, okay, well, what did you hear from the ministry of children? And she would tell me some nuggets of information. And then she'd be like, and they said to come back two weeks Thursday. And so two weeks Thursday, you know, I would be talking to Yuri James. I'd be talking to James on the phone. And I'd be like, okay, they said they can't figure it out, but we're going to check two weeks Thursday. And so then for two weeks, just nothing is happening, right? So then on, and I'm talking to

him and he's telling me, you know, the good and the bad of what's going on and like, you know, the fights that are happening. And he's only eating potatoes and rice and like no protein and just, and like bad things are happening. And everything that he went home with from hosting is being stolen off his body. Things are stolen off your body while you sleep. They're all, and you're like, well, can you put it inside your pillow? And he said, like, you think we haven't thought of that, right? So it's like they have things in the air vents. They're hiding them.

And just like, whatever is not attached to you is stolen immediately. And even if it is attached to you, it's stolen off your person. And so, like, you can't sleep. You're always sleeping with one eye open. And so then finally two weeks Thursday happens comes. And so then I call the facilitator. I'm like, okay, what do you find out? And it's like, you know, she was like, oh, oh, hi, Becca.

Yeah, they said that they looked and there's still something confusing and to call them back on Tuesday. And so this would just draw out and draw out. And you know there's some bullshit happening, you know, there's lies happening, but you don't, you have no. You don't know what lies. You don't know what it is. And as a foreigner, I have no right to anything.

I don't have a right to information. He, Ukraine doesn't really have rights for children. So he has no rights to this information. And so you're just at the whim of these people. And so this just goes on and on and months and months go on. And we didn't have a good explanation of what was happening. It was just lies. That's all you really, really understood.

And so the time is going on and he's... And it was so stressful, not just being lied to, but knowing that he's still in this... terrible situation and asking you, mom, did you figure it out yet? And I mean, every few days, he'd ask that question and have to answer, no, I haven't figured it out yet. But I'm still trying. And he'd be like, okay, don't stop trying. Okay, I won't stop trying. And it starts looking hopeless and to the point that, you know, I would assure him, hey, if we can't adopt you, we'll still take care of you.

When you age out of the orphanage, when you're 16, and you're on your own, you're not going to be on your own. We'll make sure you have a place to live. We'll pay for college. You can still have a good life in Ukraine, and he'd be like, okay, but don't stop trying. And it's like, all right, you won't stop trying.

But it was just heartbreaking. I had never really until this medical diagnosis, like that was certainly the hardest thing I ever went through. And actually, at this point, it still is, because it wasn't just the stress. It was fear for your child because he felt like my child already. And again, like, what do you do when your child is being abused and you literally are helpless? And people like to say, I would kill them. Would you? Would you?

Would you get on a plane and go to an orphan? and kill somebody? Because I bet you wouldn't. I bet you would be as helpless as I was at a loss to decide what to do while your child asks you to save them. And you can do nothing. It was terrible.

It was terrible. Hearing him ask, had I figured it out yet, and having to tell him no. And I didn't know what to do either, except that I wouldn't. stop trying. And it was the government, right? The government was lying and the people were lying. And they're not all bad people. There's wonder, I love Ukraine. Like, he loves Ukraine. But it is a corrupt, failed system, in particular international adoption. This episode is brought to you by

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I could have just kind of fixed it. I don't think that was quite true. I think he and many of the good characters are actually, you know, complicated characters who this is a money industry. So how are they trying to get money from you for this? No, that was part of the confusion. Everybody who I tell this story to is like, well, this is pretty obvious, Becca. They were just milking you for money.

I didn't pay a penny. Not one dollar did I pay for this facilitator, these people, the team, the translators. I didn't pay a single dollar. So when everybody's like, obviously it's just corruption, they're just taking your money. No, they weren't. So what was it? Well, so what eventually happened is, I fired that facilitator.

And just we had done a year. And he was, I went to Ukraine and visited, had a chance to see the orphanage to meet people. What was the orphanage like? Was it terrible? No, it was one of, I think it was a very good orphanage. It was clean. It was relatively nice.

The building was nice. The large majority of caregivers are good people. I mean, it's, for some of them, it's just a job, and that's obvious. And for some of them, they really love the children, and that's obvious. And some of them are abusive, and that's obvious.

But it only needs a few abusive adults to turn it into a horror show, right? And so, you know, as my son would show me around, and even just a kid, he'd be like, hold your back. Like, don't, like, hold your things. That kid will steal it off you. that kid has a knife

and he would like try to protect me and like move me towards the wall and then you know the other kids like you know that in the orphanages starts at age five or six below that they're in a baby house and you know five and six year olds especially malnourished ones are tiny so there would just be this little cluster

of just little babies just adorable and we would bring little toys, which, you know, they loved. I got in trouble, though, because it gives the impression that the Americans are the saviors, and they don't actually want you handing out candy and toys. They want the caregivers to hand it out, you know, and that makes sense. So I stepped on some toes unknowingly.

But overall, like, it was really wonderful to visit. And more than anything, I got to know his friends. So I got to know his dorm. He lived in a, just in a small room with six boys. And so I really got to know his classmates and his friends very well. And a number of them did eventually get adopted before him. So a lot of kids didn't have this mystery going on, and their families came and they adopted him. No Americans had adopted from this orphanage until this summer.

So the summer that we hosted him was the first time that there was a relationship with America. And so a couple of other families did successfully adopt kids. I'm still friends with a couple of them. And so I fired the facilitator. He came back the second summer. So now he was 15. He's going through puberty. He's all of a sudden bigger and just, but, you know, he's still him.

And had a great second summer. Sent him home again. Honestly, sending him home that first summer was one of the worst days in my life. probably the worst day of my life. We, it was gay to A-10 in Seattle. And I had authorization to bring him to the gate. And we got there and he laid down on the chairs with his head on my lap and just cried and cried.

And I cried. And, you know, I petted his hair. And the gate agent knew the situation. I told her that, hey, we're just going to stay out here. and right before you close the gate. We'll get him on the plane. And so she did that. They loaded the whole plane.

And so the whole gate was empty. And he just laid on my lap and cried. And, you know, had to put him on the plane, not knowing if I would ever see him again, sending him back to the unknown. It's a tiny little boy. And when I got home, I just, just the grief I felt.

And I remember I just stood there. I wasn't leaning against anything. I was just standing in my living room and just, it's like the muscles just melted. And I just like slowly just fell to the ground, just in a straight column. I just, it was really terrible that first time. And then, and then things proceeded as I described. The second summer was much easier. He was a little man.

He, my ex was former military. He was a Marine and so he had sent him home with his, like a duffel, with our name on it. And I have a picture of him walking through the airport, like walking to the gate, carrying his own bag, much more confident, much more confident in us. He knew we were still trying. So it was much less sad the second summer.

So then we hired the new facilitator. And that's how I know the first facilitator was no good, because the second facilitator figured out the secret very quickly. So I think what was happening, so what we figured out was there was a large corruption ring that had been going on in this region for many, many years. And I think what happened is that until this hosting program... So here, the actual corruption ring was in Ukraine,

if depending on the status of the orphan, so whether their biological parents are living or dead, whether, you know, there are particulars that determine if they can be made available for adoption. And there are also particulars in terms of how their parents' property is treated and held in trust for the child. And if the parents had owned an apartment, then that apartment, depending on the status of the child,

should be held in trust. So when you age of the orphanage, then you get to claim ownership of the apartment. The per capita GDP is like $6 or $8,000 annually, maybe a little higher now. But an apartment, even in Ukraine, was like $100,000. So it was life-changing, right? And they were very valuable.

And so if what we figured out, and if everything is accurate, the regional ministry of children. So not the national one, not the local, not the people who worked in the orphanage, but this regional office for 15 years had been changing the documents, falsifying the documents of orphans,

not forwarding the documents to the national database of children for adoption. And by doing so, they were stealing those apartments and they were selling them on the black market for 15 years. And so what that means is for 15 years, not one child from this region was adopted by foreigners. Holy shit. And yeah.

And so if I understood correctly, it also means nobody was adopted by even Ukrainians outside of the region. So they still could be adopted by regional because they were on the regional database, but they weren't doing the proper documentation to send them to the national database. And so you have to sit on the database regionally for a month. It's a month local, a month regional, and then 12 months national, and then foreigners can adopt. And so the issue had been that they were saying, like, look, what eventually came together was they're like, look, we can see that his document exists, and we can see that he was once on the national database,

which is why we told you originally he was free for adoption. He's not there now. And it was this mystery. So I think probably what happened was that the original facilitator probably figured this out pretty quickly and probably got paid off by them to not explain it to me.

That's what I think was happening. So I think she wasn't part of the corruption initially, but she became part of it. And so once I hired the new facilitator who wasn't part of it, and who was higher integrity, we pretty much uncovered it. And it turned into a huge national scandal. So that has all like completely unraveled now.

Yeah, it unraveled immediately, immediately. Because look, Ukrainians are lovely people. They don't want to live in the sixth most corrupt country in the world in that way. You know, you can send your kid to daycare and pay whatever fee. but if you want, and they'll keep your kid alive. If you want them to read to your child and take good care of your child, then you have to pay them a bribe.

Oh, really? Yes. It's pervasive. So it's just like there's what things cost and then there's what things actually cost at every level. And it's not that everybody participates, but kind of everybody participates,

and then some people really blatantly participate. So the orphanage director's son drives a Ferrari. That doesn't make sense. Sure doesn't. Right. A lot of Ferraris driving around rural Ukraine, right? So it's like you know who the bosses are. And it's very obvious.

So when this was exposed, people were rightfully horrified. They were outraged. Like these are our children. These are our country's children. And you've been doing this to them for decades. How many thousands? thousands of children didn't have chance at a family for your greed. Yeah.

You know, so they were outraged. And the entire regional office got fired. All of them. Gone. And so then they're like, okay, at the moment, at that moment, there were 235 kids who should be on the national database, who weren't. And they said, we'll fix your sons first and his best friend because we had found a family in Idaho, James asked me to find a family for his best friend. And he's like, hey, can you, he wants to be adopted to, can you find somebody?

And so I threw this kind of network of hosting, I found a family. Amazing. And since he was at the center of it and I was at the center of it and they didn't want more bad press, they said they will fix him first and him. But their eyes on us, we can't do anything out of the norm. so you still have to wait the one year. Holy shit. So from the time you first met him to now,

how long had passed? As in at this point. At that point, about a year and a half. Okay. A year and a half. So probably we had been on this road, this adoption road, in the confusion for about a year.

And so we fixed the documents. Huge relief. We were going to have to wait a year, but it was like, okay, just one more year, You can come back this summer. So three of the 12 months, you're going to be with us. We'll come visit one more year.

You got this, right? And then the war started. Oh, shit. So, I mean, it was like euphoric, right? So this in like 2014, the Crime Year War. Exactly, yeah. So it started with the Maidan first. So, you know, I was watching this.

I would be working. and then on one screen, I would have the live feed of the Maidan watching what's happening. It was very nerve-wracking because Russia doesn't allow adoption to Americans. Ah, so if they had won, then it's over. If they had invaded, it was over. And so then it was this new panic of, I mean, I was researching like literally getting an extraction team,

trying to get them out of there. And then the Maidan gets more. serious and he was also approaching age 16, which is where the United States cuts off adoption. Oh, shit. Okay. I thought you meant he was going to get drafted into the war. That too. That was like the next concern. But it was like, okay, oh my God, like, so if Russia and so Russian tanks were on the northern, on the Belarusian border, just an hour away from Kiev. And so it was like, you know, they really could take Ukraine in a day back then, because they could have just crossed the border. You know, the military was not moving.

yet. This was just a small protest, really. It was like six square blocks, and it was citizens. It wasn't military. And then over the course of these months, so like, you know, I'm watching the clock and the United States cuts off adoption age 16 unless they have, this is not in writing. This is not the law, but this is a practice that if you submit your adoption documents before they turn 16 and you go to the country to the the embassy and you have to physically file them there and take your oath. This is me, the parent, take your oath and do some things before 16. They will honor it until 18. And they will allow the child to come. And so that was coming, but Russia was on the border

and the Maidan is heating up. And so it's going from a peaceful protest to a relatively violent protest. And the bonfires are there and the tires are burning. and every day it's getting worse and worse until the day that it all fell apart. And so on that day, this is the day that Yanukovych, the president, was chased out of the country. And the reason he was chased out of the country is because what I think and what many think

were probably Russian snipers came above the Maidan in high rises and started picking off protesters. So it had already been fairly violent for a couple of. months and the government and the police were not having luck getting people to go home. And so these especially young guys were just camped out there and they were organizing themselves into what were called hundreds, which is an old Cossack military organization. And so little units and they had shifts and women had kitchens and it was this little military organization just keeping the protest going.

And if the police came in, you know, they would throw the bricks. And so, but on this day, these snipers started picking people off. And I remember, because I was watching it all day, every day on my side screen, and there was a particular view on the camera where I watched people get murdered. And again, this is just a camera. This isn't a video. This is a live view. And people were hiding behind streetlights and trees.

And this is right next to the Maidan. And so the camera view is switching between like three different camera angles all day, every day. And just kind of rotating through these camera angles. And people, you would see them take a deep breath. You know, maybe they stood there behind the lamp post for an hour. And then they would take a deep breath and they would make a run for it. And they would get murdered right there on my computer screen. And so this went on all day.

And it was horrific. And you would just see people bleed out on the screen. And then somebody tried to go out and like pull them back. And that person would get murdered. And so while I was watching this, I bought a plane ticket to Kiev because I think that would have been either the last days of February or the first days of March of, yeah, I think so. And but his birthday was in May.

And it was so close to Russia taking over that I was like, the only thing I can do now is at least make sure these documents are submitted and I take the oath before the embassy. get shut down. And so while I'm watching people getting murdered, I buy a plane ticket and I run home and I pack a bag and I go to the airport and I fly to Ukraine. And by the time I got there, I think of 70 something, 77 people, 90 people. I can't remember the number had been murdered that day by the snipers. And but overnight, the people had chased Yanukovych out of the country. So a lot had happened in this day. And therefore, by the time I landed and I was there, it was actually fully peaceful. Yanukovych was gone. And I met the facilitator's team. They took me to the embassy.

I went. I submitted the documents. I took my oath. My job was done. He was a 15-hour train ride away, so I couldn't go see him. But I did go to the Maidan, and it was very heartbreaking. It's a small area. It's just a few square blocks. And so there was no doubt about where things were happening. And the whole, it felt like the whole city was there. Everybody had come out in their Sunday clothing.

They were dressed up wearing their fur coats, lots of fur coats in your country. you know, wearing dresses. They had their children with them, also wearing their Sunday clothes. And there were just millions of flowers everywhere. And they were piling flowers at each spot, you know, different activities. And so there were the burned out tires and burned out,

you know, where just the wire is left from tires being burned and turned over buses that people had been hiding behind. And I've got pictures of my stuff. and all of these. And the side of a bus that's been spray painted, and somebody told me, it says, stay on this side of the bus. Because if you go on that side, you're going to get shot. So, like, people had spray painted the safe areas. And just at all these kind of different points,

just mountains of flowers. I mean, physical mountains, 10 feet of flowers, just where everybody had just brought flowers. And everybody was sobbing. The citizens were crying. at just the horror of this situation. And I had mentioned that they had organized themselves into these hundreds, this unit.

And so they ended up calling the people who had been murdered that day, the Heavens Hundred. And so I was walking around, just taking all this in. It was very sad. And then I got to a point, and there was a light post in front of me. And there were, like, two bullet holes here and here right in front of me. And I just, I realized that this was the camera angle.

This was the light post right in that spot. And I looked down and my feet were in blood. Oh my God. It was blood on my shoes. And I just, I realized I was standing in this spot. And I think in this spot something like 11 people had been murdered like 30 hours earlier. And their blood was still there. And it was just, it was very sad, right?

And but we had gotten the documents submitted. And so then there was a moment that felt okay. So again, this was spring, and his year was going to be up in November. So we still had a long wait. And so for a little bit, it felt okay. Like the threat was removed. And then they invaded Crimea. And so then we just, there were rumors that the orphans were being drafted first.

and he was turning 16 and did turn 16, which is normally the age. You age out of the orphanage. They agreed to keep him for 10th grade. Usually you age out at 9th grade. Since he went to this other school, he was able to stay. So they kept him in the orphanage for an extra year, and he continued going to school.

But it was just this fear that he and his roommates were going to be drafted. So then it was a race against him being drafted. And then obviously at that point, there would have been no hope of getting them out either. And just watching, so I was, I just watched those years, the first couple of years of the Ukraine crisis, very, very closely. And, you know, he was on the West.

So he is very pro-Ukraine. And that's his bent. And he still feels that way and loves Ukraine. And so do I, because that's where he's from. And, you know, but definitely all my network, well, his network was in Western Ukraine. People in my adoption world were also Eastern Ukraine. So I really was very attentive to the early days of that conflict,

whereas I think a lot of Americans didn't really start paying attention until the last maybe four or five years, whenever it became more national news. So, yeah, I watched the early days of this war very closely. And then finally we kind of caught a break. So once we hit his one year, he hadn't been drafted. He was still kind of safe and sound. He was 16, but we had had the documents submitted.

And then happily, kind of everything from that point went smoothly and normally. And so we finally, November came. I think it was November 15th was our appointment date. So you go to Kiev, you go to the Ministry of Children. they offer you three children from a binder, momentary panic. We hear the walk. And but then they were like, no, no, we know. Trust us.

We know all about you. And everything from there went very smoothly. So my ex and I, we spent about three months in Ukraine. You can go back and forth, but we just, we chose to stay there. Yeah. And so spent quite a lot of time in Kiev. spent a lot of time in Ushkrad and the smaller town where the orphanage actually was. And, you know, honestly, like had a really good time.

We actually got to enjoy the culture and the people. And finally, the terror, the fear that this wouldn't go through was pretty much past. Everything went very smoothly. And at the end of it, we had courts. And you asked earlier about this bonding. And at what point, you know, the man versus the woman kind of, really bond. When we finally got to the court and the judge signed off, well, first of all, we've paid massive fees, expedite fees, as they're called. I mean, tens of thousands of expedite

fees get paid in this industry. All totally legit. Of course. So we get to the point. Fee's have been paid, and the process proceeds as it should. And the judge signs the document and he was our son legally. And Ukraine, because they don't do the Hague Convention, they actually finalize the adoption there in Ukraine. You don't have to come back and re-adopt here. And so when they come here,

as soon as they step on American soil, they are a U.S. citizen. And so when that finally happened, it was nothing to me. He had been my son for three years. I had gone through all my terror. Yeah. Previously.

I look over my ex-husband, that's when he was crying. That's when it became real, real. Now he had a son. That's so interesting that that was the moment. That was the moment. I mean, he loved him before then, but, like, that's when he had a son. And I didn't need the document for him to be my son. He had been.

And it was beautiful. He's a great dad. and loves him very much and vice versa. And so that was really nice. And then we had maybe two final weeks where you run around paying more fees, getting all the documents reissued with his new name showing us as his parents.

So reissuing his passport showing his new name, reissuing birth certificate, showing us as his parents. And was that when he changed his first name as well? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's very common. A lot of them want American names. And, you know, we, whatever he wants.

So he spelled his name because he knew Dutch before he knew English. He was spelling Yuri with a J. So J-U-R-I-Y is how he was spelling it. And so we were like, well, what name do you want? And he's like, oh, like, do you want a J name? Like keep it consistent? He's like, okay. And so literally it was like, well, first of all,

Yuri means George. That's the equivalent. So we're like, it could be George. He's like, no, not George. And he hated the name Yuri. He said it was just like, it was like a plumber name. That's what he thought. It's very, there's only like 10 male names

and like eight female names in Ukraine. Everybody is the same name. And he thought that Yuri was just like a worker's name and he wanted a difference. So I was like, well, what about George? He's like, no, it's the same name. Like, and so we threw out some J names. And so like the third one was James that I threw out.

And he's like, James, James, James. I like it, James. And I was like, okay, you don't have to. You don't have to pick that quickly. He's not have to choose that fast. Exactly. He's like, nope, James, James, James, James. James.

And then he was James. And then he was James. Until literally the day that we were filling out after the adoption is done. and now we're getting the documents redone. He had seen a Jason Statham movie. He's like, Jason. And I was like, absolutely not. Like the grandparents, they're all calling you James.

You have email addresses that are James. You've been James for 10 months. Yeah. And he's like, Jason. Jason's such a cool name. And I was like, and you know, I'm just like, it's his name. Should I let him? Like, I was like, no.

Oh, dude, your name's James. And he's like, all right, James. And so, yeah, so we did that and flew home. What was it like when you actually landed on American soil with him as your son? I mean, it did. Was all the relief already done kind of thing? It was mostly done. It was mostly done.

So we got home. We did, oh, you know, what was great. The adoption went final on Christmas Eve. So, and like I said, I'm half Jewish. So in my family, we always celebrated both Christmas and Hanukkah. That year, Hanukkah was still going on. And so adoption day, the years that Hanukkah is the same time as Christmas are my favorite years, because it's Christmas Eve, Hanukkah, and adoption day all on the same day.

So that night, we had a hotel, and that night he, for the first time, was allowed to come stay in our hotel with us. He didn't have to sleep in the orphanage. And I had out on the street had bought like a little Christmas tree, you know, that they had done the little cross to hold it up. So it was like a freestanding little Christmas tree, maybe three feet tall. And I bought a little string of lights. And just we had that in the room.

And so just we had our first family Christmas that night. And so, yeah, when we came home a couple of weeks later, that two weeks was very busy because you really are, you're running and everything has to be notarized and you're paying fees to every notary and you really are just hustling, hustling. And so yeah, we get home. The customs line was like five hours long. We got to skip it. You just went up to the front and said like, hey, we've got an IR3 visa. And they're like, okay, and they took you into a room. He had to go be questioned because of his age. He had to go through and do it alone and get questioned by immigration and then came out from there.

Really once we got through immigration, he was a citizen. And so that was cool. And then we got back to Seattle. And because, again, because of his age, over the age of 14, if you're under the age of 14, you're just, it's done. You're a citizen. And that's all there is to it. Above the age of 14, you still have to take the oath of citizenship

before you get your certificate of citizenship and you need that to get a passport. So there's a few. few extra steps, but they're procedural. And so to do the oath, they do those group oaths that you've probably seen on TV or something where there's a big room of people and you repeat the thing. I can't remember what we had going on. Like, we needed, we couldn't do it on that schedule.

And so I researched and I found out that that's the one way to do it or a federal judge can do it. And so I emailed one of the local federal judges, and I just explained that. the situation. I said, hey, I adopted this boy. We need to do an oath. Can't do it during the thing. Is this something that you'd be able to do for us? And they emailed back and they're like, yes, we've never done this before. We'd be happy to do this for you. So we made an appointment. And unfortunately, my ex couldn't be there. He had some conflict. So I took my son. And the

judge turned out to be Quincy Jones's brother. Because Quincy Jones was raised here in this neighborhood right where we are. And so Judge Jones and his chambers, his staff, had actually prepared for this because it was a really special opportunity. So they had balloons. Oh, that's so cool. And a cake. And he had brought in his father's grandfather's immigration papers from Jamaica. And before we actually did the oath, he and my son sat down together and he gave him. And he gave him a talk about how everybody in America is an immigrants, one way or the other, either old or new, but this is a country of immigrants. And if he feels different, don't because he has every right and privilege as anybody else

in this country. And he also has every responsibility that everybody else in this country has. And he talked about his own family and showed him his documents and letters. from his own family and just made it a very, very personal, beautiful ceremony. It was really wonderful. And so then they stood up and took the oath and took some pictures together, which are some of my favorite pictures, and walked out with all his documents. And then just kind of a funny moment, we stepped out into the hallway.

and there was a Native American man standing there waiting for something unrelated to the procedures. And we stepped out and we had the balloons and the flowers and the documents. And the man looked and he said, did you just become a citizen? And James was like, yep, I did. And he goes, well, on behalf of the first Americans, I welcome you as the newest American. What a cool experience. Very cool experience. And then we just got to normal life.

And that's it. He started school and, you know, started high school. I put him back a couple of years figuring more time, more better. And that was dumb. He didn't need more time. That probably created some frustration because he was a couple years older than his classmates. Yeah. But went through high school and school and now is a banker and lives a few miles away with a wonderful girlfriend who he's been with really the whole time.

and just really is thriving and has a great relationship with me, my family, my ex, his family. He loves having a family. He's like, I'll talk to my parents and who live, you know, a ways away, over an hour away. And without my knowing, they'll just be like, oh, yeah, James came over today. He did a few hours of yard work and then we had lunch and we played Monopoly. And then he went home. And I'm just like, it's so beautiful that a guy in his young 20s, his early 20s, I mean, now he's 27, but in his early 20s would just like take his time and do that voluntarily.

He's, I've got a young niece and he's just wonderful with her. He just loves having a family. He doesn't take any of it for granted. I don't think I saved his life, but he does. And he says so regularly. Like he's so smart and so charismatic that I think he would have thrived wherever he was and we would have supported him.

But he views it that way. And frankly, it's his life experience. You're definitely allowed him to have opportunity he would never have had otherwise. Probably. Yeah, I'll own that. Yeah, I certainly, I view this adoption and any adoption, especially of an older child,

is one where you do change the trajectory. And so throwing money around to charities, you never know where that's going. There's a lot of corruption. But when you find an individual who has the ability, like who their makeup is such that it's fertile ground, then you can invest your time and maybe some money into that individual. And you can really see them take advantage of that.

And that's what we did with him. And he did take advantage of it. And it's great. It's when you adopt an older kid, it's not about saving their children. childhood, we had missed it. We had missed it. We missed the boat to save his childhood. The goal was to give him a healthy adulthood was to make sure when he has kids, that his kids have grandparents and that he has a healthy adulthood and he does. And that's, that's the goal. It's an

incredible story. Like what a thing to go through like years and years, but here you are. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's incredible. Thank you. Thank you for sharing it. Yeah. we started this with you saying the reason you want to start share this story now is because you feel a little bit of time pressure because you're recent diagnosis yeah um i'm sure you're sick of talking about it no i find it helpful okay i find it helpful so i mean you've been pretty open with what's going on on twitter and things but for anyone that doesn't know do you want to just explain sure where we're at sure um on uh on may first i well actually at sailor at the hundred k party at the sailor party on new y You were there. We saw each other. I was wearing a very low-cut dress. And after the party, I was looking at photos of us, of our friends. And I saw a lump through my skin.

I could see it in the photo. And so I paid attention to it, and I figured if it didn't go away within a few months, because sometimes they do. They'll go away if they're hormonal. And it hadn't. And so I eventually made an appointment. And on May 1st, I had a mammogram. And they told me there in that mammogram that I had breast cancer.

You know, they would need to verify it with pathology. But from what just the picture, they were very confident that not only I had cancer, but also I would need a mastectomy. And so for the early part of May, I knew that. Again, they were not uncertain about it. They were very clear what they saw in the image. And at that point, what they told me is, if you have cancer, this is the cancer to have.

Yes, it's a mastectomy, but it's stage zero, and it's a 99% survival. And even that was traumatic, right? Because the idea of a mastectomy is just horrific. And, but I didn't tell anybody. I kept it a secret. for those weeks because I figured before I rocked my parents or my son's world, before I did that to them, before I disrupted Anchor Watch, I would do the biopsy and let's get it confirmed and let's make

it real, real before I do that to others. And so for a few weeks, I was alone with this information and it was, it was very damaging to me. Holding that in. Yeah. And, and, and, and, and, it was, it was, it was very damaging to me. Holding that in. Yeah, and I've explained that I think to do the job of Anchor Watch, of being a co-founder of Anchor Watch and to build a company from nothing into what we expect to be a very successful company, and we're well on our way. And a company that's going to be around and contribute to our industry,

it's very demanding, and I have to be very hard. But my personality is not that. hard i mean i hope i hope in this story i almost like no becker the friend and becker the business woman as like oh there it's almost like two different personalities a bit yeah and i and that's not on purpose i think that's natural but when i'm working i'm working uh and and so i'm very hard i'm very demanding um i've you know i expect excellence uh from my team from counterparts and happily, man, does our team deliver? Yeah.

So, you know, Rob and I are definitely aligned and kind of our vision for what this company can and should be and what it's going to contribute. And so it used to be when I was still working at Starbucks, I still kind of had that buy by. I built and ran a large program, like, you know, that had really significant dollar research. responsibility, billions and billions, $20 billion, moving through our program.

And I, before that, I had hundreds of millions of dollars of AUM that I managed. So it's like I was used to this high pressure thing. And but in my home life and when I dated, you know, I was much softer. And so at home, I feel like a woman. I feel soft. I feel like me. And when I'm working, I feel hard and I feel like a killer. and I feel like me.

They're both me. I'm comfortable, but I need, but both are part of me. And with Anchor Watch, there's no time for the softness. I don't have a social life. I've set my dating life for the most part aside because there's just no time. I'm fully devoted to this company and to make you a success,

which means I'm hard all the time. And so when I got this diagnosis and I knew that I would be having a mastectomy, it was very traumatic because it felt like I was being forced to make my body match just this half of me that wasn't the complete me so I felt like I had to kill the woman in order to survive

and I felt like myself like with a capital S self I felt like it was being sucked from my body and I had to let that happen because if I didn't let that happen I was going to die. And so that's where I was. I was in this very troubling personal experience for these three weeks.

And then I got the biopsy and it was confirmed. But it was confirmed as what's called triple negative breast cancer. And triple negative means it doesn't have estrogen blockers or estrogen receptors or two other hormone receptors. So it's negative for all three of these receptors, which means there are no alternative of treatments that can work. So you can't take estrogen blockers or progesterone blockers or HR2 blockers. So it means you have to go through like chemotherapy.

Chemo and the knife are the tools. And so already then I knew it was at least serious and it's more aggressive and it's like, oh dear. But it was like there are two, there's actually invasive and non-invasive cancer that I have. And at the time they said like the non-invasive is very large. it's eight centimeters. The invasive is quite small,

but it's still triple negative and which is very serious. So at this point, I knew that now I had this very serious situation. And so it was time to tell my family and tell Rob and tell the team. And so, but Vegas was coming up. You know, it's the largest Bitcoin event of the year. And I knew that all my friends would be there. You know, all my friendships have kind of moved

into the Bitcoin industry. that we work with. And I just decided I couldn't do this alone anymore. And so I had previously tweeted how in shape I am right now. I'm just, I'm very strong. I haven't been this healthy. Just, I feel the best I felt really in my entire adulthood. And I tweeted that a few weeks earlier. And so I told my investors, you know, I had already told my family and my son. And, told Rob, told the team, and then told investors. And then I found that tweet from a couple of weeks earlier. And I quote tweeted and I said, JK, I have cancer.

That's such a classic back way of delivery names. I was very gratified that people have found it funny. A lot of people told me they thought it was a good way to do it. And so I tweeted it out and it has just been, immensely helpful for me. I was just, I've been showered with love and showered with support to an overwhelming extent. And I went to Vegas and it's just like the hugs and the love. And it was just, I had this catharsis of finally sharing and which kind of resolved the like horrible mental state I had been in. And then to replace that just with all this love was was so amazing and important

because the diagnosis has continued to get worse and worse into the point that just we finalized what that diagnosis is yesterday. And so the reality of the diagnosis is that it is triple negative, it is stage 3C, and grade 3. And what does that actually mean? What it means is that is highly advanced locally. So stage four would be if it had moved to a distant organ. So if it were in my blood, bones, brain, lungs, that would be stage four.

And with triple negative specifically, that would have been 95% mortality. And it's just, it's very serious. So stage three means it's locally advanced. And then A, B, or C means how advanced. And it's C, which puts it around 45% survival, 55% mortality. And so, yeah, telling the story, look, I've never been in the bottom 50th percentile in anything in my whole life. And so the idea of me falling to the bottom half now. Doesn't sit well.

It's just I believe I will be fine. Yeah. But I start chemo in a week. I'm going to shave my head in a week. You'll join me. Yeah, we're going to be matchy, matchy. We've talked about, you know, Rob and I are going to have some pretty epic co-founder photos.

You'll be the best looking bald person at Anchorage Watch for sure. Absolutely. Sorry, Rob. Maybe the most notable bald person in Bitcoin for a bit. But yeah, it's, I'm about to get my ass kicked in a very real way. The chemo is going to be the hardest chemo there is, the most hardcore real deal. is how they phrased it. I've been flying around the country,

getting second opinions from the best, and I'm blessed to be able to do that. And we've gotten to the point, so yesterday I got the results back from the PET scan, which was looking for metastag tumors, and it didn't find them. So that's how they were confirmed me, okay, now we know the diagnosis.

We're gonna say it's C3, 3C, sorry. And so now we have the beginning of the treatment plan set, which is to get going on immunotherapy and chemo. And when does that start? Is that imminent? It's the 30th. Yeah.

So it's what nine days from now or so, something like that. And so I've been getting ready. Bitcoin has been amazing to me. Here in this region locally, they have, you know, last week in a group of Bitcoiners, along with my family, they came and they did my whole summer's worth. the house chores and yard chores for me. That's so cool. It was so amazing.

It's, I mean, amazing. Like, imagine, you know, people are giving up their time. People have been generous in every way. My house has not had no flowers. Like, my house has been in flowers. I can see them behind you. I've had, you know, just flowers. I tweeted about how, you know, I'm preparing for war, which is how I feel.

And my oncologist yesterday, I was talking about shaving my head. And she's like, yeah, with your purpose. personality, go fold G.I. Jane and let's go kick some ass. And I like that. I like that image, right? And so I had tweeted that just day before yesterday. And last night, I got a package from Amazon from crypto graffiti. And he sent me some war paints. Love that. So people have just been awesome. And I've heard horrible stories of people's own cancer experiences, right? People who, including my own investors, more than one that I didn't know, who had stage four with 95% mortality and survived, right? And so some days that's intimidating

because I'm very cognizant. I'm like, yeah, you're one of the five, the 95 are not here telling me about their experience. But look, I have the confidence of being me with a 50-50 shot. And I I don't lose. And so I'm very confident that I'm going to be able to to survive this. And I'm going to go through chemo and it's going to beat the shit out of me.

But I am going to make it through it because I am strong. And any time that I am terrified, which I am, I'm very scared. I have all this love. And I literally, I think about somebody's face that I saw in Vegas

looking, you know, with their face right in front of me and just like kind eyes and maybe tears in their eyes, but telling me it's going to be all right. And it makes me feel better. It really does. And I just, I've got thousands of messages from people. And then I think about these people with their horror stories, their stage four stories of, imagine how that feels. Like if I had been the opposite. And last night, I had found that I have a 5% chance of living for three years. Look, I would still go into it the same. I would still go into it ready for battle. But imagine the difference in that feeling where, you know, you can say, look, I don't lose. And I am always in the 95th percentile at things. But, you know, look, luck is playing a way bigger role here when you're

And so these people who are telling me their stories and going through that level of terror, the existential fear of knowing you're going to be dead soon. And you have young children, not a grown son who's capable of taking care of himself, who you've seen launched, but a young child. And so also have the fear of taking care of them and trying to keep life normal for them

while also making plans for you to not be their parents anymore. And how awful that is. Or one woman who had stage four while pregnant. Holy shit. And the fear of not really dying, but like, can I live long enough to give birth to this child? That's my goal. I don't care about myself.

Like, I need to stay alive long enough that this child makes it, right? And so people have gone through just horrific emotional experience. and without the benefit that I have of these thousands of people telling me it's okay and that they're here for me. And so even if my family is amazing, they're supportive, they're loving, they're going to be here for me. They live locally. But I cannot tell you how profound all this love is. It's profound. I will, look, whether I live for three years or for 50 more years, I just, I will never get over.

How amazing, even just these six weeks have been, how it's not even, I've lived a whole life in the last weeks. Time is, time makes no sense anymore. And, yeah, it's, I mean, it's only, what, three and a half weeks. since I told people publicly. And just the amount of just, it's just love. And it's amazing. And I'm so grateful. And I'm so overwhelmed.

And I cry all the time, right? I'm not really a crier, but I cry every day. And just usually just for a few seconds, right? Like, just it happens. Almost all the tears are just gratitude for all the things I'm lucky about. having all this love and support, having my family, being physically strong. This is going to be financially very damaging, but it's not going to bankrupt me. I have excellent doctors.

I have the access to the best in the world. I can fly around. I have people cleaning my yard for me. I'm so blessed. and this is not fake. This is, I am so lucky to be going into this war with all of those things. Everybody, everybody is going to face their thing. We all hope that it's when we're old, right?

But, you know, some people do get hit by a bus. Some people get hit by a missile. Like, sometimes you don't even have the chance to consider your end. And I'm about to go to war. But when I think about all of these things, I have nothing working against me. The fact that I have to go to war is just the hand I've been dealt. But I have everything working in my favor, including all this love from this community. And I don't know how bad it's going to feel.

You know, the chemo is going to be bad. The hair's gone in a week. I'm shaving my head in a week. What they've told me to expect is obviously the nausea. They said it's not as bad as it used to be. You're not puking your guts out anymore because the anti-nazia medicines are so much better. I'm going to have neuropathy in my fingers and toes.

I'm going to have a, my mouth is going to be filled with sores. I'm going to be on immunotherapy drugs, which doesn't have that many side effects, but there's risk of diabetes and organ failure and all kinds of stuff. I'm going to be picked and prodded and then I'm going to go into surgeries and have surgery after surgery after surgery. And maybe I'm going to have radiation. So it's going to just beat me up.

But the way I feel right now is that when I go through those things, I think I will, just like I do now, I think I will be able to think of all the support I have. expect it to still be there because that's what people have showed up for me and demonstrated, I think it will make it easier. And the easier it is, the more likely I am to get through it. So when you hear about people, no fault to them, but just they can't make it through the chemo. It's just too devastating. It's the hardest chemo there is. And at some point, just begging for it to end. That's not going to be me. That is not going to be you. It's not going to be me. I'm not going to tell them to stop the treatment. I'm

to say keep pounding it pound it until it is dead and then keep pounding it and when i am just in absolute misery i've got all this love and all this support and everything going for me and i'll be in the top 50th percent i would never bet against you on that like i know it's cliche but you're a tough motherfucker like if there was someone i was going to back in this fight it would be you i mean it's obviously an incredibly hard thing that you're going to have to go through but you have got this they uh they look it's a little cheesy but i keep reminding myself that you can't be brave unless you're scared bravery as an emotion does not exist without fear and i am scared but i feel brave i'm ready to face this and um i'm ready to win and uh you're going to win you're going to win

you're going to keep winning thank you for recording this with me no thank you for doing it like it's amazing that you've just been so open with everything um i'm looking forward to doing this podcast thank you and however long when you've kicked cancer's ass and we can talk about that story okay um but i appreciate you so much likewise i know you've got this everyone knows you got this you got the support of everyone we love you becca thank you thank you