Mom's Final Adoption Is Hardest Of All

After Placing 300 Kids In Homes, She Must Find A Family For Her Own Children

(CBS)  By at least two accounts, 48-year-old Diane Sadovnikov is the best mom in the world, CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman reports in this week's Assignment America. The sources: 9-year-old Christina Sadovnikov and her 6-year-old sister, Rebekah.

"She's very forgiving," Christina says. "She doesn't make us make our beds," Rebekah adds. "Well, not all the time," Christina says.

And that's not even the half of it. As director of the Sense Resource Center, Diane has facilitated adoptions for more than 300 Ukrainian orphans, matching them all with loving American families.

Co-workers say she has a good eye for finding good adoptive parents. It's a talent she will now call on one last time, for one final adoption: her own two children.

"It's hard, but I want them taken care of as well as I can possibly arrange for it," Diane says.

She was diagnosed with stage 4 cervical cancer last March and has been in and out of hospitals since then.

"She had cancer," Christina says. "For Thanksgiving she didn't come home." Adds Rebekah, "For Christmas she didn't come home and Easter."

"Advanced cancer of the cervix has a poor prognosis," explains Diane's oncologist, Dr. George Kemp.

The mortality rate is 90 percent, a statistic most patients simply ignore. But not this one.

"She has come to accept things in a way that is quite unusual," Kemp says.

Diane is a single mom. She has a few relatives, but she says they're all either too old or too far away to be a really good match and she isn't about to start compromising on her adoptions now.

So after a few months of searching, Diane found the quality she was looking for in a family friend, who said yes.

"The only reason I'm able to do it is because, for me, a way of showing them love is taking care of them whether I'm here or not." Diane explains.

Of course this is not to say Diana is giving up. Or anyone else.

"I get up in the morning because they're there," she says.

"I would like her as a mom for my whole life," says Christina. "Me too," Rebekah says.

Diane's doctor says if she can make in five years, she'll probably beat the cancer.

[hiskidstoo]

Diane helped us adopt our son in 1999 (Mariupol Ukraine), she has been a wonderful support and Godly example to many, many people in the international adoption community. I know God will lead her to the right placement for her girls. Our prayers are with Diane and the girls. Teresa Fillmon

[hiskidstoo]

Diane helped us adopt our son in 1999 (Mariupol Ukraine), she has been a wonderful support and Godly example to many, many people in the international adoption community. I know God will lead her to the right placement for her girls. Our prayers are with Diane and the girls. Teresa

[meswin]

What a courageous woman Diana is. I can't imagine finding another mother for my daughter if I was a single parent, dying. How heartbreaking. I pray that she beats this cancer and is able to watch her daughters grow up and have babies of their own.

[mfhollander]

As an adoptive parent myself, this story was very interesting to me. I hope you'll follow up in a few years to see how these folks are doing.

[llbates7]

It's a shame this woman is dying of cervical cancer when we know what causes it and there is a test for it. I'm just curious if she was offered the HPV test along with her pap smear. All Women specifically over the age of 30 should have an HPV test with their paps. HPV is a virus that is the leading cause of cervical cancer. By the time cervical cancer shows up in a pap it may be too late. Such a shame.....