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Family ties

Couples share the wonder of adoption

Thursday, Nov. 10, 2005

Click here to enlarge this photo Barbara L. Salisbury⁄The Star Patty, who has requested that her last name be withheld, plays with her adopted son Jake, 15 months old. Patty and her husband adopted Jake when he was 7 weeks old. They have a semi-open adoption, meaning they agreed to provide pictures and letters to the birth parents for the first five years of Jake’s life, but the couple plans to stay in touch well beyond that. Click here to enlarge this photo Photos by Barbara L. Salisbury⁄The Star Michele Zeller singsto her daughter, Irina, 8, beforebed. Zeller and her husband,Peter, adopted Irina and her brother,Artyom, 7, from Russia last May.The couple plans to adopt anotherpair of Russian siblings in the nextyear.

While the Zellers adopted Irina, 8, and her brother, Artyom, 7, from Russia in April 2004, the children have clearly acclimated to American family life.

For the Zellers, explaining the journey toward adopting two siblings from Russia brings words that evoke hope and caution. After an unsuccessful attempt with one adoption agency, the Zellers began the process with Adoptions Together, a nonprofit organization that has locations around the region.

During that waiting period, Michele Zeller had time to reflect. The couple signed on with Adoptions Together June 17, 2002, which is also the anniversary of when Michele Zeller was adopted as a child.

The slew of feelings she had somewhat stifled weren’t quiet anymore. The process brought up emotions about her own experience and, in turn, showed her ways that she could answer any questions her children might have.

‘‘[I questioned] what my background was, why I was given up,” Michele Zeller said. ‘‘It wasn’t anything I could talk about to anyone. I didn’t want to hurt my parents’ feelings by asking. Little did I know I wouldn’t have hurt their feelings, and it could have saved me lots of angst.”

Looking into her past and learning from her perspective gave her the wisdom to know how to guide her children down the path.

‘‘I’m hoping that as my kids grow up I will be able to help them to sort out feelings that biological children never really have to face, and that they’ll come to me knowing that I might understand,” she said. ‘‘Even though I’m their mother. Only time will tell,” she added with a smile.

The process for adopting internationally doesn’t take as much time as adopting domestically, but it can exercise the passport.

The Zellers traveled to the Karelia region in Russia three times. The first time was March 8, 2004, when they traveled to the children’s village to meet them and to formally complete the adoption request forms. Next it was for an April 12, 2004, court date, when the judge agreed to a petition and granted the children to the Zellers. After flying home for 10 days, they returned to Russia and left April 29, 2004, with two new additions to their family.

‘‘Adoptions Together in Russia was very good to us,” Michele Zeller said. ‘‘It went very smoothly.”

As sudden new parents to two elementary school-age children, the Zellers had their hands full, but they love every minute of being parents.

‘‘The thing you don’t realize,” Michele Zeller said, ‘‘is that it’s 24-7. There’s not a lot of down time.”

Sandy Rappeport is the international adoption director and manager of the China⁄Vietnam program for Adoptions Together. She has seen many families adopt from abroad with satisfying results and has walked many couples through an integral part of the process—filling out the dossier.

‘‘A dossier is the collection of paperwork that families put together for the foreign country where the child currently resides,” Rappeport said.

The dossier usually includes the home study documents, birth certificates, marriage license and more, she said. Each country can add further requirements for the documents, and all papers have to be notarized and authenticated per that country’s requirements.

‘‘It was a little daunting,” Peter Zeller said of the paperwork.

Change is good

The nail-biting, wringing of hands, thoughts of uncertainty—all that is whisked away when the day arrives, carrying the sweet hopes and dreams, finally, of becoming a family.

When Lewis and Patty, who requested that their town and last name be withheld, decided to adopt through Bethany Christian Services, the process took three months, when it sometimes takes two years. The Prince George’s County couple adopted Jake when he was 7 months old.

‘‘It was literally a whirlwind,” Patty said.

Lewis, an engineering draftsman, and Patty, a stay-at-home mother, agreed that the entire ordeal was ‘‘amazing.”

‘‘It went not only smoother than we expected,” he said, ‘‘but it went smoother than we could have hoped for.”

To begin the adoption process, the couple had to jump through all the usual home-study hoops, which includes getting finger printed, filling out forms and social worker meetings.

‘‘The home-study guidelines are set forth by the Code of Maryland ... and are very inclusive,” said Paulette Holloway, director of Bethany Christian Services of Maryland.

And then there is Bethany’s self-study, which asks potentially adopting couples to examine what kind of people they are. No stone is left unturned.

Lewis and Patty also put together a profile—a scrapbook of sorts—that portrays the adopting couple and the lives they live, something for the birth parents to look at when deciding who to interview for the adoption.

‘‘Profiles run the gamut from a Creative Memories-type elaborate scrapbook to couples Xeroxing pages stapled in the corner,” Patty said.

Lewis and Patty’s wire-bound profile had family photos and scripture verses on laminated pages, all carefully put together by the couple.

Hand-picked parents

Jake’s birth parents looked at the many profiles, picked three and met with the couples for interviews.

‘‘We’ve met both of the birth parents three times altogether,” Lewis said.

During the interviews, the birth parents asked some expected questions, and some unexpected ones.

‘‘The birth parents asked us about television and about character and integrity,” Patty said. ‘‘The birth mother also asked, ‘Are you going to be willing to let [Jake] fall down and make mistakes and let him learn things on his own?’”

Jake’s adoption is semi-open, which means the family corresponds with the birth parents through letters. There is a schedule that Lewis and Patty must follow, which includes sending photos every year, social worker visits and letters until the child is 5. But Patty said she will continue to send letters and photos beyond that time.

‘‘We had said that we were willing to do it until he’s of age,” she said. ‘‘I can’t imagine being in [the birth mother’s] shoes and at the age of 5, [Jake] drops off the face of the earth.”

They will celebrate both his birthday and the day he was adopted. Patty explained that for people who adopt, there are different ways of commemorating.

‘‘Jake is going to know that he’s adopted. We’re going to celebrate it and embrace it. Some people call it ‘Gotcha Day,’” she said. ‘‘We call it ‘Homecoming Day,’ because that’s the day he came home.”

When asked about that day, Patty’s eyes well up and she thinks for a moment.

‘‘I don’t know if you can really describe that day,” Patty said.

Jake’s birth mother had asked that she be the one to place Jake in Patty’s arms.

‘‘I was bawling,” Patty said. ‘‘And she was comforting me.”

Although Bethany allows family and friends to be there when the couple formally adopts, Lewis and Patty opted to go alone.

‘‘We knew it would be emotionally charged,” Lewis said.

‘‘You walk in as a couple and you walk out as a family,” Patty said. ‘‘We saw God’s hand in all of this.”

According to Lewis and Patty, going through Bethany was one of the best decisions they ever made. All parties were treated with respect, they said.

‘‘Bethany exists for the birth parents,” she said. ‘‘They are there as a resource for them. Sometimes it’s best for the birth mother to keep the baby.”

And for the mothers who decide to give up their children for adoption, Patty has the utmost respect.

‘‘These are women who are choosing a life for their child, a life that they are unable to give them,” Patty said. ‘‘And I have a hard time comprehending how anyone can have any animosity toward them.”

Both she and Lewis hope that through their story, birth mothers will realize that there are alternatives and that many couples are looking to adopt.

The Zellers have the similar feelings. They are looking to adopt two more siblings from Russia and look forward to feeding two more mouths at the table.

‘‘Our story really isn’t much different from so many others who have adopted,” Michele Zeller said. ‘‘Each person brings their own life experiences to it, but the technical details are pretty much the same.”

E-mail Sara Schwartz atsschwartz@gazette.net.