16 Vietnamese Kids, US Families In Adoption Limbo

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Marsha Sailors painted the nursery pink and green at her Missouri home, put up princess pictures and built a crib for her new little girl. They hadn't yet met, but she already was in love with the smiling 6-month-old in a photo sent from Vietnam.

Three birthdays have since passed, but the child has never slept in the room or worn the clothes hanging in the closet.

Sailors and her husband visited the girl they named Claire a combined nine times in unsuccessful attempts to bring her home, and now are barred from any further contact.

Instead, Claire remains stuck inside a decaying Vietnamese orphanage along with 15 other kids who also have American families waiting to adopt them. Their cases went into bureaucratic limbo in 2008 when Washington suspended its adoption agreement with Vietnam over broad suspicions of fraud and baby selling.

"I just can't spend a lot of time in her room because it's just so sad," said Sailors, from Kansas City, who celebrated the past two Christmases at the orphanage in southern Bac Lieu province with her husband Chuck before authorities barred the visits in January.

"We're just longing to bring her home because otherwise her future ... I can't go very far down that road before my heart starts to break," she said.