children , four of them adopted . `` I understand he can talk his way into your heart and mind in no time . When the world is opened up for him , who knows what his capabilities and possibilities are ? ... If all goes well , on the 21st he becomes my son . '' It is a trip the Jacks will take with trepidation . The actions Thursday of a Tennessee woman who put her adopted 7-year-old son on a plane and returned him to Russia , saying he was violent and that officials misled her family , puts Americans in the process of adopting from Russia on edge . Officials in Moscow have threatened to suspend all American adoptions and the Jacks face a two-week process involving a court appearance and loads of paperwork before they can fly home with Valera . `` What this woman did to us is put us on pins and needles , '' Jack said . `` My wife has been beside herself , and I 'd be lying if I said I was n't concerned . '' The adoptions of about 3,000 Russian children by Americans are in progress ,
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Valera remembered being left in the Russian snow . How he lost his lower arms and some of his toes , he was n't always sure . At times , he said he was in a fire . The truth of what the 14-year-old experienced in his early years , no one will ever know . The orphanage where he lives said Valera was abandoned as a small child at a hospital in St. Petersburg , Russia . He had gangrene , the result of meningitis and an infection , which forced amputations . He was released to the orphanage in Nizhny Lomov , where he 's waited nine years for parents and a home to call his own . On Saturday , Stephen Jack and his wife , Christine , will leave their Goldsboro , North Carolina , home to fly to Russia , the final step in a 15-month journey they hope will give the boy what he 's always wanted . `` Having never seen him and only knowing a little bit about him , I still feel attached to that child , '' said Jack , 53 , who already has six