MOSCOW — After weeks of anxiety, plodding through the opaque Russian legal system and suffering wallet-thinning expenses, two U.S. women have custody of their adopted Russian children and are preparing to take them home to their new families.

Jeana Bonner of South Jordan, Utah, and Rebecca Preece from Nampa, Idaho, told The Associated Press on Saturday about the confusions and emotional swings they've gone through since arriving in Moscow in mid-January, expecting to quickly leave with their children, both of whom have Down's syndrome. Despite last-minute problems complicated by Russia's recent ban on further adoptions by Americans, they prevailed.

Preece says "it makes us hopeful for the other families that have met their children and really would like to finish their adoptions."