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 Tina Kaawaloa/INF |
Jillian Michaels is only an ocean away from motherhood.
After announcing in 2010 that she would be focusing her efforts on starting a family, the formerBiggest Loser trainer began the adoption processin the Democratic Republic of Congo.
And while she has finally received her referral, Michaels’ future daughter awaits the day they are reunited — in Haiti.
“I’ve been matched with a little girl,” shetells Access Hollywood Live.
“I went over to visit orphanages and I ended up falling in love with this little girl, and by the grace of God, I got matched up with her.”
However, while Michaels, 37, is elated that her dream of being a mother is quickly becoming a reality, she admits it is still too soon to celebrate.
“I now have to get her home … it could take up to a year to get her home,” she says. ”Anything can happen and fall through or fall apart, so it’s kind of premature for me to say it, but that’s where it’s at.”
Should the adoption go awry, Michaels warns, “You’ll know why I’m devastated and not coming out of my house for months.”
– Anya Leon
In 2001 and 2002 we adopted our two girls named Olivia and Giavanna. Both children were adopted through Chicks-in-Crisis, a non-profit organization located in Sacramento, CA.
Through this experience with CIC, I felt compelled to help this organization raise money to assist mothers in need. With the support of many friends, family, and several area businesses, I have become an advocate for teen-parenting, open adoption, foster care and counseling families in the adoption process.
The strawberry festival is just one of the fundraisers that I helped make my own each year, along with clothes closets, diaper drives and other programs in the foster system. I’ve been an active member on the board for the past ten years. We have many success stories putting families together with nearly thirty successful adoptions per year.
There is a nice story of an eleven year old boy named Michael, and Inez Whitlow, the founder of Chicks In Crisis. Inez was working for the adoption attorney working with the boys mother who was incarcerated in a California State Prison. The mother had hoped of getting him back once released, but things did not turn out that way. Michael has been in Inez's care since he was 17 days old. Inez used this valuable experience to practice what she preaches. Michael is still in the foster system but has been raised by Miss Whitlow. Michael is an amazing eleven year old boy who has hopes of playing basketball in the NBA. He and Inez recently traveled to stay with my family to meet Joe Courtney a retired NBA player who is going to mentor Michael. Each story is close to my heart!
Chicks-in-Crisis gives children a chance to be loved and educated! Adoption is part of my everyday life and I hope to continue to have the passion to make a difference in adoption and the foster care system for many years to come.
Darlene, a teacher at a private school in Concord, had been dreaming of being a parent since she was a young child.
She went to college, began her teaching career, and thought she would someday find the right man to marry and start a family with. As each year passed, Darlene had still not found that special someone. Meanwhile, her biological clock was ticking. Darlene says, “I have not found the man I want to share my life with yet and I really wanted to start a family so I decided that since I am very secure about being single, have a full time steady job and an amazing support system - that it was the time to begin the process. ”
The bottom line was, she wanted a child who would call her mom!
Darlene began undergoing infertility treatments while in her mid-30s. After working with a sperm bank and not getting pregnant after multiple attempts, she was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome. Darlene could have sought treatment for her condition, but opted instead to turn to the idea of adoption. She simply wanted to be a parent and welcome a child into her life!
Darlene turned to the Independent Adoption Agency in Pleasant Hill. This non-profit adoption agency facilitates open adoptions, where the birth mother actually chooses the couple or single person who will raise her baby. Together, the birth mother and adopting parent or parents choose the amount of contact they would like to have after the adoption. This could be a letter exchange several times a year, visits once a year, or even much more frequent monthly visits — it’s all up to those directly involved in creating an amazing family.
As a single woman adopting a baby or trying to adopt a baby, Darlene was told it would likely take her longer to adopt than it would for a couple. After all, many birth mothers are single women just like Darlene. On the flip side, Darlene was also in her late 30s by now, had an established career and had an amazing network of friends and family supporting her.
Darlene began the long wait. Months ticked by and Darlene was still not a mom and had no prospects for realizing her dream. She frequently contacted her adoption counselor at the Independent Adoption Center to share her worries and ask questions. She knew that her counselor was there for her throughout the entire adoption process. Questions like, “Why not me?” or “When will I be chosen?” were met with positive answers to reassure Darlene that one day, it would happen.
Thirty-seven months came and went. The 2011 school year had just started, and Darlene was dismissing her students on the second day of school, when she got “that” call. A call that would forever change her life and turn her struggle to become a mom into a reality.
The bell had rung and students were dismissed when it happened. She was just beginning to talk to fellow teachers about the day and drop off and dismissal procedures, when the secretary summoned her to the school office. Darlene knew something important was happening but had no idea how her life would change in an instant.
The secretary told Darlene she needed to call her adoption agency immediately, and Darlene was kind of at a loss, overwhelmed for a few moments that something big could be happening. However, the Independent Adoption Center called again for Darlene at 12:30 p.m. She was told that a birthmother and birthfather wanted her, yes her, to parent their baby. And, by the way, the birthmother was in labor right!
At 7:22 p.m., Darlene’s miracle happened when a baby girl was born. Darlene got into her car and drove the two hours it took her to get to the hospital in Sacramento where her daughter was waiting. Two and a half hours later, this new mom was holding her precious daughter in her arms. Can you imagine dismissing students hours earlier, never knowing that would be the day a lifetime of dreams would happen!
Darlene shares that for the first five weeks of Shayna Rose’s life, she was kind of in a fog. How did this happen after waiting so long? Was this a dream? Luckily for this new mom, this was a different kind of dream — a real one that meant Darlene’s family was complete after infertility and 37 months of waiting to adopt. She celebrated her 41st birthday with her daughter and looks forward to Chsristmas.
So, what are the best moments for this new mom? Darlene says, “Each and every one!" Darlene says. "I love her smiles and laughter, this makes up about 90 percent of the day. She is a very easy baby and so content, rarely fusses. I love reading to her while cuddling, which we try to do twice a day.”
Of course, being a single mom is not easy. Darlene is the sole provider for her daughter and caretaker. She continues to be on maternity leave and is cherishing each moment of Shayna Rose’s life, yet she knows she will have to return to teaching soon.
One of the biggest surprises for Darlene has been how much the lack of sleep, night-after-night, affects her. Being a parent, especially a single parent, is exhausting.
“Another surprise is how much over the top in love my family is with her," Darlene said. "Prior to placement, I always knew they would love my child, but they are so gaga over her it is so fun to watch. She recognizes who each family member is and lights up when she sees them. That is beauty to my heart.”
Darlene counts her blessings knowing her family and friends are her support network. They step in to help hang out with Shayna Rose, while Darlene catches up on sleep or they offer Darlene a few hours “off” so she can run errands without toting a carseat, bottles and a pacifier. All Darlene has to do is ask and her support network eagerly comes over to play with Shayna Rose.
Darlene’s future, including her daughter’s first Christmas and her first Christmas as a mom, could not be merrier. Darlene and Shayna Rose are a family.
When Apple founder Steve Jobs died not long ago many news accounts, obits, and reflections -- the smart ones, the good ones -- drew upon his 2005 Commencement address at Stanford University. Some even included video clips or links to his full address. (See full text and video here.)
These obits drew upon Jobs' Stanford address because: (1) he reflected upon death, including his own; (2) it contains remarkable stories about his life and the lessons he drew from them, and; (3) it is incredibly well-written and well-delivered. In other words, Jobs made writing about his life just as easy as using an iPhone.
A Commencement speech has to be one of the toughest speaking gigs there is, even worse than comedy. To paraphrase the old saying, dying is easy, commencement speeches are hard. I honestly can't think of a better Commencement speech than the one Jobs gave. He knocked it out of the park; a walk-off grand slam. (Could he sing and dance too? Jeez!) It is well worth watching and reading.
What struck me -- surprise, surprise -- was how many parallels there were to the Christian life, to the life Christians believe all are called to live.
From what I understand, Steve Jobs did not identify himself as a Christian. And yet his life as he described it and the lessons he learned and tried to live by are very much in keeping with the road Christians believe each of us should be traveling upon.
In his life there were many twists and turns, moments where glory could have been snuffed out. But three things appear to have marked out the life of Steve Jobs: faith, beauty, and love.
Here are some facts from his life.
He was adopted by working class parents who promised his biological mother they would send him to college.
He was a college drop-out.
He was fired.
He got cancer.
He died relatively young for this day and age.
And yet when he died, his company, Apple, was the most profitable company on the planet, in good measure because he was an adopted/fired/college-drop-out/cancer-survivor who ultimately died from the disease, one whose life was propelled forward by faith, beauty and love, especially as called out by challenges and adversity.
So let's review these twists and turns in his life.
First, he was adopted. His conception wasn't planned or wanted, obviously. His biological mother, an unwed grad student at the time, could have terminated her pregnancy -- but didn't, to the great benefit of so many of us. She wanted him to be adopted by college graduates, and the first couple lined up to take him were. But when he arrived as a boy, they rejected him because he wasn't a girl. So the adoption agency quickly called the couple who became his parents and asked if they wanted him and they gladly said yes. The only problem: they weren't college grads; indeed, the husband had not even graduated from high school. When his biological mother found out she refused to sign the adoption papers, and reluctantly relented only when his adoptive parents promised they would send him to college.
Not wanted at the time of his conception, rejected by those who were first lined up to adopt him, he came to working class parents who loved him. According to the Wikipedia article on Jobs, he was asked in 1995 what he hoped to pass on to his children, and he replied:
"Just to try to be as good a father to them as my father was to me. I think about that every day of my life."
Clara and Paul, his adoptive mom and dad, didn't know they were raising and loving and sacrificing for the Steve Jobs. He was, in effect, pot luck. He was simply the son they wanted desperately, the son they were willing to spend their life's savings on to fulfill their promise to send him to college.
Paul and Clara remind us once again that faithfulness is never a solitary endeavor. Someone is faithful to us first, faithful in love.
Jobs did begin college, but attended formally for only a short while. He didn't know exactly what he wanted to do, and he saw his parents' life savings disappearing to pay for a well-worn path to the unknown. While he didn't give up on his life's quixotic quest, he decided to find another way.
"I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK" (emphasis added).
He spent another 18 months informally sitting in on courses at Reed College.
"It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made ... You have to trust in something -- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
He didn't have a dorm room, so he slept on the floor in friends' rooms. He bought food with money from returning soda bottles, and got his one good meal a week by walking 7 miles to the Hare Krishna temple. But what he learned during these seemingly aimless years enriched many of our lives.
"Much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on."
As an example, he cites calligraphy. At that time Reed College had the best calligraphy courses in the country. Calligraphy certainly wasn't a class that Jobs would have taken if he was still a regular course-for-credit student with a Major. Freed from such constraints, in faith he stumbled his way into calligraphy.
"It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me."
And so faith, beauty, and love as expressed in the life of Steve Jobs resulted in your computer having beautiful typography.
Making things beautiful was one of the defining characteristics of his life. Such commitment to beauty included making things simple and elegant -- not only aesthetically but also in terms of their function and operation.
In a recently rediscovered video interview during the time between being fired from and coming back to Apple, Jobs reflected upon his belief that a major mistake of many business executives was "thinking that a really great idea is 90 percent of the work." Far from it.
"There's a tremendous amount of craftsmanship between a great idea and a great product... as you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows. You learn a lot about the subtleties of it. There are tradeoffs you have to make -- certain things you can't make electrons do, glass do, robots do, factories do. You have to keep 5,000 things in your brain -- these concepts -- fitting them all together... Ultimately it comes down to taste -- it comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best stuff humans have done, and then trying to bring those things in to what you're doing."
Jobs felt that part of the reason the Mac became such a great product.
"... was that the people who were working on it were musicians, poets, artists, zoologists, historians who just happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. If not for computer science, they would be doing amazing things in other fields."
And so Apple's products are a result of creative craftsmanship driven forward by a love of beauty and elegance.
Jobs commitment to beauty not only came from his love of beauty in itself, but also because he loved what he did, loved it enough to fight to make it beautiful. In Jobs' case that turned out to be the personal computer, something he fell in love with at the age of 12.
After looking up Bill Hewlett in the phone book and cold-calling him, Jobs was given a part-time job at Hewlett-Packard, and along the way was able to tour HP's research lab. There he saw the first-ever desktop computer. Jobs recounts:
"It was as big as a suitcase, had a small cathode ray tube display, and I fell in love with it. I would get a ride up to HP [as a teenager] and hang around that machine and write programs for it."
One of the results of getting fired from Apple was that it reminded him that he still loved what he did. Being rejected didn't change what he fell in love with at age 12.
In her touching tribute to her brother at his funeral, Steve's sister Mona Simpson, herself a novelist, stated something she considered "incredibly simple but true":
"Steve worked at what he loved. He worked really hard. Every day."
In continuing his reflection on being fired, Jobs described the enmeshing of faith, love, our calling, and joy:
"Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it."
His sister remarked that
"Steve was like a girl in the amount of time he spent talking about love. Love was his supreme virtue, his god of gods. He tracked and worried about the romantic lives of the people working with him ... I remember when he phoned the day he met Laurene. 'There's this beautiful woman and she's really smart and she has this dog and I'm going to marry her' ... He believed that love happened all the time, everywhere."
And now to the final turn in life.
In his Stanford address Jobs reflects upon death, which he called "very likely the single best invention of Life" because it helps to focus us on faith, beauty, and love. Death reminds us that life is short. As such, Jobs urged the Stanford students to live their lives, not someone else's idea of what their life should be. And such a life should be filled with real love and beauty. We shouldn't settle for second best.
"Don't settle."
Rather, Jobs urged the graduates to
"... have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
Being willing to trust that who you love and what you love to do, and the beauty that results, will lead you to become what you were meant to be, is summed up by Jobs in a quotation from the back cover of the final edition of The Whole Earth Catalog:
"Stay hungry. Stay foolish."
As Jobs said, "I have always wished that for myself."
We are all created to glorify God by being whom He created us to be. By all accounts Steve Jobs never stopped becoming himself. Perfect, no. Glorious, yes. In his final words, as recounted by his sister: "OH WOW, OH WOW, OH WOW."
MARIETTA - After unsuccessfully trying to have a child of their own for more than 12 years, an 18-month adoption process that included a two-month stay in Ukraine was a journey that has left a local couple with a new daughter.
Tim and Heather Felton, of Reno, returned from their trip abroad last week with their newly adopted daughter, Irina Jean Felton, who recently turned 8.
The bright-eyed little girl was abandoned by her mother at delivery and spent her entire life up until last week living in an orphanage in northern Ukraine.
"We've wanted to be parents as long as we've been together and we really believe the Lord led us to this beautiful child," said Heather Felton, 35.
November is National Adoption Awareness Month, something now near and dear to the Feltons, who were happy to share their story.
The Feltons were married 12 years ago and said after years of trying to have a child on their own they began exploring their options through a fertility specialist.
"We realized very quickly that there were no guarantees and that this could get very expensive very quickly," said Tim, 34. "At that point, we both agreed that we would be better off exploring adoption. There are just so many children out there who need homes and being parents was more important to us than how any child would come to be with us."
Since returning to the U.S. last week, the couple said they've been spending time getting to know each other and enjoying family time. Tim said he was granted time away from his job at Dimex through next week.
"Everything is a first," the new dad said. "I can't imagine seeing the world through her eyes right now. She lived with 96 other kids at the orphanage, but they really didn't get out much. She's been just so amazed at little things like traffic lights ... She loved getting on our plane and flying ... She loves pizza and pretzels, but doesn't like mac and cheese."
Irina speaks little English but frequently paused last week from playing with a puzzle to let her new parents know, "I love you momma and daddy." She loves to hug and seemed to enjoy joining her new father in singing an Ohio State fight song that ended with a high-five.
"The language barrier has been the toughest part of this but we're picking up on some of her language and she's quickly learning ours," Heather said. "When neither of us are on the same page, we usually figure it out with pictures or by pointing. Before our trip, we had actually started to learn some Ukraine but she's from a northern region where they actually speak Russian."
Tim said the couple chose international adoption after seeing the success friends had with the process. Private adoption agencies and public agencies, like children services departments, are the other common ways to adopt.
A typical adoption can cost from $2,500 to more than $40,000, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Adoptions from public agencies are generally the most affordable.
The Feltons estimated they will have spent approximately $30,000 in the adoption of their daughter, including time from work, travel, agency costs, legal fees, required background checks and social services home studies.
The couple expects to get about $12,000 of their expenses back through a federal adoption tax credit.
The Feltons said their costs were compounded a bit after they arrived in the Ukraine and committed to adopt Irina. It seems the family judge for that region went on vacation, delaying the process by four weeks.
"We learned that they don't just take a week or two vacation like we do," Tim Felton said. "When they take a vacation, they mean it ... And it was still cheaper to stay the extra time rather than head home and come back."
The couple said their adoption agency arranged for an extended stay in a small apartment near the orphanage where Irina was living. They were able to visit with the child each day until the adoption could be finalized.
According to Tami McBride, an adoption caseworker at Washington County Children Services, there are 38 children living in foster care in Washington County, with four children eligible for adoption. The adoption process for each of those children has begun.
"We have a lot of hoops in place to let people really know what they can expect before they adopt and to allow us to learn more about the adoptive couple," McBride said. "The idea is to make sure we have a good picture of this family, they know about this particular child and to make sure it is a good match."
McBride said many people fear adopting from public agencies.
"With public agencies, you are typically dealing with children who have been abused or neglected and who have not been able to be reunified with their birth families," she said. "These children range in ages from infancy to age 18, and especially with some of the older children, the poor parenting skills they've been exposed to are catching up with them. That's something adoptive parents must understand and be ready to dive into."
Private adoptions, which include private agencies or independent adoptions through an attorney, generally include the adoption of a newborn. Private adoptions are generally the most expensive method of adoption. Also, the process can range from just a few months to several years, according to statistics at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The Feltons' international adoption was a "blind adoption," meaning that they went to the Ukraine to adopt a child and didn't know if they would be leaving with a boy or girl, or how old the child might be.
"When you get there, the State Department of Adoption Services shows you 10 pictures and they ask you if any stand out," Tim Felton said.
The couple said they could have asked to see other children from the photos, or requested to see another set of photos. If none of the children were met with approval, the couple would have had to start the adoption process over.
"I guess maybe we were lucky because both of us took one look at Irina and we just knew ... We felt a connection," Heather Felton said.
Since 1995, November has been celebrated as National Adoption Month - a time to promote the awareness and importance of the adoption process for children in a wide range of communities and socioeconomic settings.
In December 2006, the Journal Sentinel published an op-ed from me about two adoptions that had taken place that year. One of those adoptions involved Mary Westemeier and her sons, Marcus and Benjamin. The following provides insight into the amazing narrative of this rather normal yet extraordinary family.
Westemeier is a typical mom. She loves her two sons dearly, laughs and plays with them, plans healthy meals for them and treats to bring to school for birthday parties. She has a partner whom the boys know as "Dad" and who is helping to raise them in a joyful, loving environment.
The story that brings Westemeier and her family to this point, however, is far from typical.
In February 2005, an unusual request came to Westemeier from an unexpected source. Her sister, Amy, asked her: Would she consider adopting the baby Amy was expecting? The baby was due in August. Amy and her husband had a 3-year-old son, Marcus, and they were struggling to properly care for him.
"I was stunned. I was 41, single and had lived alone for many years. I was only responsible for myself," Westemeier told me. She had always looked forward to having children, but the likelihood of that seemed to be lessening.
"I grew up in a family with 17 siblings; nine of my brothers and sisters were adopted. I was the fifth-oldest, so I really had considerable experience caring for young children, including newborn babies. The mothering role was quite familiar," she said.
But the question of adopting the newborn became more complicated. Marcus had been diagnosed with apraxia, a disorder of the brain and nervous system. He exhibited a significant inability to verbalize his thoughts and had difficulty with fine motor movements. Questions arose: What about Marcus? What about his care and well-being? Was Amy able to provide the essential care he needed? Westemeier's decision became more difficult.
All of these questions were woven into the family narrative. It was no longer a question of whether one person would adopt one child. There were issues that affected both Marcus and the unborn child, their parents and their extended family. Everyone knew the welfare of both children was paramount.
Because of Marcus' disabilities, social services had always been involved in his care and treatment, and counselors were helping Amy and her husband with parenting skills. The effects of an adoption on the entire family had to be considered. An even more complex question arose: Should Westemeier also adopt Marcus?
After serious consideration, the life-changing decision was made. Westemeier would adopt both children. Suddenly, her world would include two totally dependent little human beings. Life would never be the same.
Westemeier took custody of both boys in August 2005 - newborn Benjamin on the day he came out of hospital and Marcus at age 3. As a part of the adoption process, Westemeier became a foster parent to the boys until the adoption was finalized in 2006.
Westemeier and her sons faced many challenges - personal, financial and health-related. She had become a single parent to two children who were both diagnosed with disabilities that required intensive, long-term therapy.
Her salary as a public school teacher was adequate, but it certainly limited her options regarding anything much more than basic necessities. Lavishness and luxuries were definitely not a part of their everyday lives. They settled into a routine like so many other families.
Several factors helped minimize the challenges and made life easier and richer. Shortly after the boys came to Westemeier, a former boyfriend, Michael, came back into her life. Their relationship grew, and strong attachments were formed with Benjamin and Marcus. Ultimately, the family circle was completed.
Westemeier's family has helped greatly - picking up the boys from school, babysitting when needed, caring for them when, as Westemeier notes, "I need a respite - a chance to relax, to take a deep breath." Westemeier confirms, "I wouldn't have been able to take on this responsibility if I hadn't been encouraged and supported by my family. The boys know that they are truly loved."
Five years have passed. Benjamin is now 6, and Marcus is 9 and in the third grade. However, because of his special needs, Marcus' academic skills are not on par with others students his age. He struggles. Benjamin struggles, too, because he also has been diagnosed with apraxia.
The boys know Westemeier as "Mom." They consider Amy to be their aunt. Westemeier plans to explain their personal family history to the boys when she feels it's appropriate, when they can understand that history. For now, she feels the boys and the entire family have enough challenges in their lives.
"As a family, we are strong - and I would say normal. If I had it to do over, I really wouldn't do anything differently. The boys get along like brothers do - sometimes good, sometimes not so good. Our life is fine. We're settled, and we're happy."
Many would say: "I admire her, but I never would be able to do what she did. I just don't have the stamina or the strength of character." To those who think you or your family are not strong enough, secure enough or up to the challenge faced by Westemeier, I say think again, think long and hard. Because this is just one story among the many stories of children of all ages and situations who desperately need the love and security you can provide through the adoption process.
It's not easy. Life's not easy. But adoption can help make life better and richer for children in need.
Marilyn McKnight of Milwaukee is a retired teacher and a lifelong resident of Wisconsin.
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