Our family started out with just the two of us.  It was nice, but something was missing……

We got married and started in on what we thought was “our” plan for a family.  “Our” plan was to have kids a few years after we got married, maybe 2 to 3, and then just work and be happy.  Well the having kids part didn’t happen quite as we planned.  When my husband, Brian, and I got engaged I was tested for a genetic translocation of chromosomes and found that I carried a balanced translocation which meant I could pass it on to our biological children.  We decided to see what happened and have the child tested during pregnancy.  About one year after we were married I became pregnant.  We were ecstatic.  However, within a few months we lost the baby girl who was supposed to be born on August 25, 1996.  Grieving for a child is unimaginable.  I kept to myself, unwilling to believe anyone else had been through that same sort of hurt and believing that God must be punishing us for something we’d done.  We were devastated.  We began looking into adoption; not whole-heartedly though.  We didn’t really know any families created through adoption, personally, and didn’t know anything about the process.  We went to a local attorney and filled out some forms and looking back, I now understand those forms were just questionnaires for a birth mother to look at and select adoptive parents for her child.  We never did receive a call from that attorney. 

A couple of months after the loss of our first child we found out we were pregnant again and we found out three, very long, months later that the baby boy I was carrying did not have the balanced or unbalanced translocation.  We were thrilled.  Cole was born to us on time weighing in at over 8 lbs.  The day he was to be released to go home the doctors detected a loud murmur.  We were told to travel to the children’s hospital an hour from our home that same week to have it looked at by a pediatric cardiologist.  We found out when our son was five days old that he had Tetralogy of Fallot, Situs Inversus and Dextro Cardia.  These were such scary words to hear.  Then the doctor explained everything to us, we took a deep breath and I read everything I could get my hands on about his condition.  Every few weeks we drove an hour to take Cole to the hospital where he was first diagnosed with his congenital heart defect.  They finally decided we’d shoot for surgery when he was 1 ½ years old.  We waited and watched him for 8 ½ months until he had a large enough cyanotic spell to require correction of his heart defect.  He then, the day before Thanksgiving and his dad’s birthday, had open-heart surgery.  He went in around 7:30 in the morning and came out for us to see him at around 5:00 that evening.  It was a very long day and a very long week and a half of living at the hospital.  He was off and on by-pass twice, making the likelihood of brain damage higher.  He had patches put over his two large septal defects to stop oxygenated and unoxygenated blood from mixing and had muscle thinned out near one of his valves so blood could pass easier between his heart and lungs.  Cole is now 11 years old and perfectly healthy in every way.  Hooray for God!  They no longer think he’ll need any further surgeries and to Cole’s extreme happiness he will be allowed to play high school sports!!!!  We, of course, know that life can change just like that, but for now this is our life and his.

Shortly after our first son was born I was already thinking about another child.  I began requesting adoption packets from every agency I could find in the phone book, reading them and stashing them under my bed.  Thinking we could really never afford to adopt, we decided to try one more time.  We got pregnant with our second son and he was born a little more than three years after Cole.  Chase arrived on time at over 9 lbs.  Chase carries the same balanced translocation I do and was born with a defect that meant having two separate surgeries to completely correct.  This required more visits to the same children’s hospital we had been to 3 years before.   Chase is now a happy and healthy 8year old and sweet as can be.

Several months after our second son was born I was already wondering how we could have a third child.  We didn’t know how we’d do it, but the one thing we did know with absolution was that that child would not be biological.  We didn’t want to go through the anguish we went through during those three, previous, pregnancies.  Having gone through multiple amniocentesis’ and a Percutanious Umbilical Blood Sampling or PUBS test we just couldn’t do it again.  I began collecting adoption agency information again.  Not long after, we decided we were going to find a way to adopt a little girl from South Korea.  After meeting another adoptive family with a child from South Korea we filled out the preliminary application immediately.  For the most part we found the money when we needed it.  We sold anything we could live without and watched our every penny.  We paid bills as they came for the first part of the process, always having the money in our savings account somehow.  Then when the larger amount was due upon referral we got a loan for the remaining and used a loan against our whole life insurance policy to pay for a large portion as well.  We also applied for some adoption grants that were available at the time and received two grants.  God was so good to us. 

We received our referral after only 4 ½ months of waiting.  It was so quick for a referral, but seemed like forever to see a picture of our daughter at the time.  It was so much quicker than we expected, but she was ours.  In early 2003, our daughter, Kim, HaeBin came home to us.  I can’t even tell you in how many ways we knew she was ours.  Her name was HaeBin in Korea.  We had, the same month she was born, decided on Kaelin for her American name.  She was born 7 years after our first daughter was supposed to be born, just one day short.  She is everything we could have ever dreamed of and more.  She’s smart, beautiful and everything we saw our daughter being.   Kaelin’s now 6 and very beautiful and active, yet still like to be held. 

Yep, you guessed it, we went down that road again.  Our Ha, JeeYung was born 3 years after her sister and was more beautiful than words could describe.  She was born on the very day we filled out our paperwork to begin the process.  Our process for our 4th child was, from start to finish, 6 months.  We should have waited almost a year, but because we decided the waiting child program (special needs) was the way for us, she was ready and waiting after homestudy.  It’s truly amazing.  Chelsi Hana is just wonderful.  She was born 10 weeks premature and now at 3 years old is pretty much on-target.  Let me tell you about coordination….this girl has it.  She’s gonna be a ball player.  Chelsi’s most definitely a momma’s girl and we love to kiss and talk.  And my oh my is my baby verbal!  She speaks unbelievably well and has been for awhile.  As with our first adoption things just fell into place.  We fundraised for a VERY small portion of the fees and God bless us with two grants again.  We’ve also been blessed twice to have family who was willing to loan us the money until we were able to pay them back with adoption tax credits we were to receive. 

I never thought about the meaning of adoption before…….it’s love with no blood ties, just love for your child.  There are no limits to this love and it’s not any different in any way than the love for a child you have given birth to.  The only difference is you also have a great love for your child’s birthmother as well; this wonderful person who gave life to your child so unselfishly.  It’s almost more indescribable than any other love I’ve felt, but I believe feelings for your children are indescribable because it’s larger than any other feeling we’ve ever felt before.  We have two blonde haired, brown-eyed boys and two black haired, brown-eyed girls and I can’t imagine our family any other way. 

His plan was perfect.  It wasn’t my plan, it wasn’t my husband’s; it was His.  I had other ideas when we were first married.  Other ideas of what my life and family would be like.  It’s not at all what I thought and I thank Him everyday for that.  It’s exactly like I would have wanted it to be if I had known of this life before.  We had heartbreak, but He was just getting us ready for something bigger.  I can now see that everything in our lives is for a reason.  With the adoption of our first daughter I gained a faith in God I never knew before.  Even those really dark days have meaning down the road…..we just have to get there to know what it is and then……we are blessed.  I look at my four children every night in awe of what God has given us and I’m at peace.