My husband and I were told twenty-three years ago that we were infertile and that if we were anticipating children, we should plan on bringing our family together through adoption. I suppose that to some degree we are indeed, infertile. We have seven biological children………if we weren’t infertile, we would probably have twenty-three!
Let me go back………..about the time we had grieved the loss of our anticipated children and began to investigate adoption…we discovered that despite great odds, I was pregnant. Our daughter, Anne, was born in 1983. What a tremendous blessing! And we began to look at adoption again. We became foster parents for pre-adoption infants and provided emergency short-term care………..and we discovered I was pregnant! Our son Micah was born in 1986. He was followed by his sister Taylor (now 13), brother’s Samuel (now 10), Isaac (now 8), sister Sydney (almost 6), and little brother Joel (now 3). And in the back of our minds, the commitment we had made years ago to adopt was kept warm on a back burner.
In December of 2001, the burner flame roared back to high………..we just had a feeling that the time was right……..Was that God knocking on our hearts or was it indigestion? We thought it was time to find out. We were scared, unsure, inexperienced and had no idea how to begin or to whom to speak. We had just begun to think aloud to each other about this very scary thought when I was sitting in the dentist office flipping through a magazine and saw an add for a web sight…….Precious.org…….International adoptions.
I went home and clicked the sight open…….and there was a form that could be filled out to send a letter of inquiry to 40 adoption agencies. I filled out the form letter, and with terror in my heart(there was that indigestion again), hit the send button……….
Our first response came as an email from Tree of Life Adoption Center in Portland, OR. Sandy Roberts was a wealth of information and reassurance. She also mentioned a little boy who needed a home…….he had a special need but she thought maybe he would be someone we could think about adopting. I returned her email, told her of our fears, told her my husband was a teacher, we were a family of nine living on a teacher’s salary, we were totally inexperienced with the adoption process……and yes, we would be interested in the little boy she mentioned. Where was he? How old was he? What was his special need? What do we do now? How will we ever afford to do this? And Sandy began to fill in all the blanks with quiet competence.
His name was Rumen, he was ten months old, he lived in Bulgaria and he was missing his left eye. Were we still interested? YES!!!! We received his medical information and a video of him playing. Were we still interested? YES!!!! And Sandy turned us over to Daniel, the coordinator for Tree of Life’s Bulgarian program.
Daniel proved to be every bit as amazing as Sandy………he began to teach us the first day we contacted him……..as he explained that I needed to go to Bulgaria to visit Rumen before we could really begin the process.
SO here is the mother of seven getting ready to fly across Eastern Europe to a country she had only recently been able to locate on the World Map, to spend three days with a little boy she didn’t know, and had no idea how we were going to afford the fees to bring him home. Completely reasonable. Back to conversation with Sandy Roberts who first told us about A Child Waits Foundation. God had opened all doors up to this point and we had no doubt that this too would be taken care of in one way or another.
I had no idea you could fall in love in three days. The child in my mind now had become the child in my arms…….and I thought my heart would break when our time was too quickly over. He stood up in his crib and held up his hands as I left the room. I flew to Europe to visit a little boy……..and left our son behind. I cryed all the way to Warsaw, Poland and came home with tremendous incentive to get our dossier done.
We had no idea of the procedure that needed to be completed to bring a dossier together. Daniel has used up a life time of patience teaching us in the past year. He began to send us papers to be filled out…….to be notarized, appostilled, copied, copied again, stamped, stomped, yelled at, delivered, mailed, to be notarized again……….sent to the INS, sent to the FBI, fingerprints, home studies, medical releases, financial statements, …….we have gained friendships, patience, tolerance, an entire new vocabulary, greater understanding of legal procedures and people, of cultures, of ethnicities, team work, generosity and been witness to amazing groups of people who have worked and prayed our son home.
One of the first forms that Daniel asked us to fill out requested our son’s new name. We were torn……..did we take his environment, his caretaker’s, his language, his food and his name away from him???? Our son’s finally took a stand and told us “if he is going to be a Montes boy, he has to have a Biblical name”. And they named him Josiah Michael Montes. It felt right.
And so began our wait……on June 6th, 2002 our dossier was hand delivered to Bulgaria ( I am fairly certain a huge party was held in Portland, OR to celebrate our finally getting our paperwork done!). The process is both predictable and not……..the path of the paperwork is clear, the time elements can be quite different. The wait was agony. The little baby Rumen was becoming the little boy Josiah and our son seemed to be growing up without us……but all “pregnancies” do eventually reach a conclusion, and it was time for delivery. With tremendous joy, Daniel sent us a email with the subject “your trip!” in mid December 2002 telling us to be in Bulgaria on January 19, 2003 to bring our son home!! A thirteen month gestation and a 21 pound baby!!! A long and wondrous journey.
We (I took our 16 year old son Micah along as my “stroller”) arrived in Sofia on January 19, excited, scared, anticipatory, tired and eager to see our son again. The receiving team in Bulgaria was just as well prepared and competent as the team in Portland. They took us to the orphanage on the 20th………and within minutes of our arrival, little Josiah was back in his mommy’s arms………and the wait was worth every minute. I do not think that he remembered me at all……but he allowed my embrace and someday I will share with him how a dream fulfilled feels when it is suddenly in your arms.
I could write a book on “How to travel twenty-six hours across Europe with a two year old who doesn’t sleep” but I will spare you that for now. Josiah has now been home three months. He is cherished, adored and loved more each day. There is no doubt in our minds that his name is listed in a great book under “children of Brad and Kay Montes”. There is no greater joy than when he awakens at night, looks up from his crib and says “mommy, daddy”, smiles, and lays his head back down to sleep. He has gained 3 ½ lbs. And grown 1 ¾”. He has a wonderful occularist who placed his new colored prosthesis this week so that he has two beautiful brown eyes. His journey home is both completed and just beginning.
A Child Waits Foundation assisted our family and we could not have done this without their help. Tree of Life’s entire team, in particular Sandy and Daniel, have held our hands, taught us, cryed with us, encouraged us and pointed us down the path as they have used their personal gifts and talents. The Bulgarian teams, from driver’s to interpreter’s, coordinators, directors and attorney’s have kept us safe, cared for Josiah and us, taught us compassion and given of themselves in a way we will never forget. Our church, Evangelical Covenant Church, has mentored and prayed daily for our family. Our children have shown extraordinary acts of patience and generosity. A beloved Uncle taught us unconditional love when he was asked if any of his children were adopted and he answered “yes, but I can’t remember which ones”. Our heart and arms are full because of all of you.
With many thanks, Kay and Brad Montes, Anne, Micah, Taylor, Samuel, Isaac, Sydney, Joel and little Josiah
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