Becoming a Family

 The first few months after John was born was characterized with trips to visit family and friends.  We made a big trip to Seattle in July!  We went via IA, NE, CO and finally Washington!  We had such wonderful visits with everyone and everyone loved seeing the kids for the first time. Don't you even believe the date on this picture. Our friend's camera had the wrong date set on it.  This was July, 1997.


Visiting friends in Iowa.  Alicia had the cutest t-shirt that said I'm the big Sister!

We got to visit Milton's Uncle Howard and Aunt Timmie.  

Which one is my daddy?

Our small group was great at OSEFC our new church home. 

The Wright family. Bill and Milton were good friends in seminary.   

Montreal Here We Come!

It was August 1997. John was only a couple months old. This was our second long trip but we had not left the country before. We needed to leave the U.S. in order to process Alicia's paperwork for her immigrant visa. We wanted Vancouver, closer to Milton's brother in Seattle but INS once again refused to cooperate. We had to go to Montreal. Thankfully we had a supporting church in Toronto who wanted to see us and we had missionary friends in Montreal--we had not seen them for quite some time b/c they were never home when we were! We headed out and got almost to Detroit when we discovered that we did not have John's birth certificate. We had brought everything we had on Alicia but this newborn little boy was forgotten! Well at least we didn't leave him behind! So we drove back to Chicago and the birth certificate was sitting on the desk where I had left it. Did I ever mention that both of us tend to be absent minded!?

Alicia and Jordan Lee the son of one of our Toronto friends. The second picture is of the Qwan kids and Alicia and John.

We drove all the way to Toronto the following day. The border crossing was not anything to get excited about and we were soon visiting our dear friends at Chinese Gospel Church. We were able to meet with a number of people and show off both our babies!

Then we headed to Montreal. What a trip! I don't even remember details of how we found our friends, but we must have had really detailed directions. I don't remember getting lost, and I just remember their lovely home and their hospitality. The next day Wes took us to the American Consulate and to get the medical exam. Now at this point I had been working for three years in French and had had a year of language study. The Quebec accent really threw me for a loop. For example they wanted a urine specimen from Alicia and they asked me if she could do peepee in a cup. But I did not understand them. Finally they got it across and the answer was no! She could not pee on command! Sorry!

We got the necessary documentation and off we went. I think we were in Montreal 2 nights. We then headed for the American border, handed in our dossier and got Alicia's passport stamped. It was finished! Well not quite! We still had to do her citizenship papers but this was the first step towards that!

We stopped in Massachusetts and spent a few days--maybe even a week with Milton's sister and family, introducing them to the newest members. I'm not how sure Alicia was about eating a lobster, but she has since linked lobster and corn on the cob with Aunt Diana and Uncle Tom.

Tom had been the first to see John and Alicia. A few weeks after his birth, Tom was in Chicago at Loyola Hospital on business and we got together for a couple of hours. At this point we still had not visited my family in Oklahoma nor Milton's Mom and stepdad in Florida. But it wouldn't be long before we would head that way. But in the mean time TEDS the seminary Milton was attending was starting and we would soon be taken up with Seminary life.

Alicia gets readopted!

One of the pieces of advice that we received was to readopt Alicia so that she could have a birth certificate in English. We were given the name of a local attorney that we called. All we had to do was send a copy of the adoption decree and the attorney prepared everything. I don't remember even seeing her until we arrived in court. It was more stressful driving down town Chicago and finding a parking place than the actual process. Alicia had to be served--the sheriff actually touched her with the papers. He then gave her a deputy's badge! We went upstairs to the court and met with the attorney and the judge presiding over the case. We were asked a couple of questions about our family and our work. The adoption was then finalized and in a few months we would receive our Certificate of Foreign Birth for Alicia. This was just one more step in the process of Alicia becoming an American.

November, 1996--We have to go back where?

When we entered the U.S. in Atlanta we were told, "You have to go back." We asked, "Back to where, Benin?" "No just to Immigration." Whew! We were really wary, because Alicia had come in on a tourist visa! Off we went to the US Immigration office. We were told our daughter would be put on a Humanitarian Parole and were given an appointment to meet with INS in Chicago. We had no idea what a humanitarian parole was! We just knew that we could not take Alicia out of the country during this time.

We came home to no place to live. A young man in our church allowed us to live with him for a month. I was sick every night. There was only one bathroom in the house and it was across the hall from Dan's bedroom. Later he said he felt sorry for me, because he did hear me puking my guts out almost every night!

While we were staying at Dan's house we got word that there was a widower who wanted to meet with us and it was possible that we could live with him. He had a big old house in Western Springs, around the corner from our Pastor. Chuck was recently retired and his wife had died the year before from complications during surgery. We went to see him and low and behold Milton knew him. He had spoken at Chuck's church and they had given him a love offering for his ministry!

He offered his home and Chuck gave us the master bedroom and a smaller room for Alicia. I don't remember where we got her crib, but soon we were settled in with Chuck and we began the home study process. We met with our social worker, Judy Stigger who was at the time with Lutheran Social Services of Illinois. This was an agency I had worked with before Milton and I were married.

There were a couple of things that I did not appreciate. I remember in one of our first meetings she seemed upset with us because I was pregnant. I remember her making a statement like, "That's why we tell our adoptive parents to use birth control!" I was ecstatic that I was pregnant and she wasn't going to take away my joy! God had given us Alicia and also this baby.

There were some really weird requirements that Chuck had to go along with. He was more than willing to get fingerprinted and off we went together to the nearest sheriff's off to get that done. He had a little dog, Cricket and we had to make sure his vaccinations were up to date because we were living in the house with them.

These were great times. I learned a lot about flexibility and living together with someone you don't know. Chuck was great. We have remained friends all these years and try to see him and his wife when ever we are in the Chicago area. We have some great memories of teaching Alicia to come down the stairs without falling for example!

I was involved in a Bible study at church and it was a great time of bonding as a family. We kept pushing the home study forward and at one point we had a difficult time getting the paper work we needed from DCFS. I had worked with them before. I called our social worker and she asked us to handle it rather than her. We carried more clout as parents than she did. Besides she had to work with them. DCFS lost our file twice and we had to resend information to them. Finally I found out who our senator was and I contacted her. She lit a fire under them and we got some movement on our case.

Remember that African Baby face leather brooch?

Sandwiched into the adoption story is another story. Our African adoption story would not be complete without telling the whole story.

Just before our final adoption hearing on September 5, 1996, I got pregnant. We had not planned this, it truly was a God thing. Remember that African baby brooch that had been given to me 3 years before? I had asked this question when everyone said,"It's a sign from God." I had asked, "Does this mean I will adopt an African baby or that I will get pregnant in Africa?" God has a sense of humor because both happened.

In mid-September after I had not had a period for two weeks, I talked to one of the doctors at the hospital. I told him I had not had a period so he suggested that I come down to the clinic and he would give me a prescription to get a pregnancy test at the lab. We had to wait two weeks before getting the test for it to be a valid test (for some reason). Those had been a long two weeks. God has an even greater sense of humor, because as I had counted back, I knew the date of conception--my birthday! That was the best birthday present ever!

I walked from the clinic over to the lab promising Dr. Chris Healey that I would return with the results! As I waited outside the lab on a wooden bench, my thoughts were a jumble! But again, I wondered if I would miscarry, if I was in fact pregnant. As David the lab technician handed me the slip of paper and I looked at the + sign, I heard, "Felicitations! Vouse etes enseint!" Wow! I really was pregnant. I walked back to the clinic and handed the slip of paper to Chris for him to experience the same joy I was feeling. He wanted to call his wife and tell her, but I convinced him to wait until I returned home to tell Milton the news. That was some walk as I reveled in God smiling on me! He really does love to give good gifts to his children! He just kind of heaps it on at times! We were careful who we told that I was pregnant, because I had always miscarried at around 2 months! So we wanted to make sure this one took! We did share the news with our pastors and they were just as happy as we were. After all they had walked this journey with us the past 3 years we had been in Benin.

The last six weeks in Benin was spent nauseated every stinkin' morning! Susanne would arrive to take care of Alicia and would find me in the bathroom puking my guts out! Each time I talked to Dr. Chris, he reveled in my nausea. I had not been nauseous with the other pregnancies, so he told me this was a good sign! Crackers and cheese became my friends while in Benin. Throughout the whole pregnancy I experienced the nausea and eventually the papaya enzymes that my friend Mary had recommended didn't work, ginger tea became a close friend until even that did not work. The last couple of months of my pregnancy I was on a prescription medication for the nausea. It was worth it!

When we were in the process of doing our home study, our social worker gave us the statistic of 3% of adoptive parents experience pregnancy after adoption. When we shared our story we would hear time and time again of how often that occurs! It's not that common. We just hear the positive stories. You don't hear adoptive parents talking about not getting pregnant after adopting for obvious reasons.

I had a normal pregnancy, and my son was born on May 23, 1997. There are 15 months between him and his sister. They can fight like cats and dogs but I have some great pictures with their arms around each other so I know they are good friends too! I was 42 when I gave birth to John without an epidural. That in itself is another story in this whole saga! Tangled all together with our home study in the States was my pregnancy with John!

September 5, 1996--Final Court Hearing

We got word that the hearing had been scheduled for September 5. When we got ready to go to the hearing we walked over to the church offices and discovered that Saka Solomon had been called away to Sinende to handle a crisis at the Bible school. I walked into Daniel Gassary's office and asked if he might help us out. I explained how lost we were at the last hearing and would he please go with us. He did. As we got out of the car at the court, Daniel seemed to know exactly where to go.

As we walked in the door he began greeting people. One of the first persons was the Bariba consultant. He introduced us to him. It was his cousin! Someone asked where the birth father was. Wasn't he there? Were we supposed to bring him? I asked Daniel my question and he told me to be quiet to not volunteer anything. They probably did not need him since he had signed the papers. Where was the judge? Another judge had been appointed since the one who had held the first hearing of our case was out of town. All of a sudden we were all called into the court room. And then we the adoptive parents were asked to stand. Alicia Ruth Watt was now officially our daughter!

After we exited the court room we asked Daniel about getting the adoption decree typed up quickly. For an extra amount we were able to get it expedited. We were so grateful for the ladies who spent the extra hours typing up the final decree. From the court house we asked Daniel about getting her birth certificat. He took us to the government office that handled them and within an hour or so we had that taken care of. The next day we started the process of her Benin identity card and finally the process for her Benin passport.

When we got down to the last days before we were to fly out of Benin, we were requesting prayer because they had lost Alicia's passport. Our business manager in Cotonou was required to go down and get that straightened out and literally sort through passports until he found hers and got it processed.

We still did not have a visa for her and we needed to translate her adoption decree into English.There was a missionary from France who helped Milton with the translation and he had this man's signature notarized. We later learned that it was not a good idea to translate your own adoption decree, but back then there were not many options.

We had a heck of a time figuring out what kind of visa Alicia could come to the States on. She was our legally adopted daughter, but we had not jumped through enough hoops to get that coveted immigrant visa. They gave her a tourist visa but did not bother to explain to us what they were doing. We did not know until we got to Atlanta, that we would have to have the home study, and all the checks done in the States. We were just happy to be going home with our daughter.

The plane ride was cramped. It was full from Brussels to New York! We hardly had any room and my daughter was heavy to carry on one's lap the entire plane ride. But we did. Once I laid her on the floor on a blanket and she slept and so did I.

Our first Court Appearance

I don't actually remember a lot about the first court appearance. I just remember that I was having a hard time figuring out who was who. Usually you would have a state's attorney, guardian ad litem for the child, and then various and sundry other people who make up the court. Everyone was in black robes! From the roles that each one played we could kind of figure out who was who. Benin's legal system is based on the French system and that is totally different from the American system.

We did know that someone had been appointed as a cultural consultant for our case. We would have to meet with him and with our attorney. I didn't even know if this was the filing of the petition or severance of parental rights. We knew that for the final hearing we wanted someone there who could explain things to us!

That Dreaded Phone Call

One day we got a phone call from Saka Solomon and all he said was, "Alicia's father is here. You need to come to Parakou and bring her." Oh my goodness! We were petrified! We had no guardianship papers, nothing giving us legal custody, etc. We thought for sure we would lose her! That her father wanted her back. He had every legal right to her that we understood.

That was the quietest trip we had ever made to Parakou. All I could think of was that I was going to lose my daughter.

As we walked in to our pastor's home, I heard, "Bake! Bake!" and her aunt took her from me. We came in and I thought, "I'll never see her again. This is it!" Then Saka Solomon said, "Did you bring your camera?" I knew then that all would be o.k. In the African culture you are expected to know what is going on and no one is going to tell you otherwise. Especially not as soon as you walk in the door. If you are told bad news it will be just before you leave to go home. I breathed a sigh of relief. Then the explanation came. The paperwork the father had signed had to be redone because it was the aunt and not the father who had signed with her thumbprint. The judge knew it was not a man's thumbprint and so had questioned it. The birth father came in to sign the papers and what better time to call us and have us meet for the first time!

So we took a few pictures of Alicia and her birth father and with her aunt.

When we talked to our pastor about what had happened he thought it strange that we thought her father would break his promise to us. He had given his word and when a Bariba man gives his word it is as good as gold! He will not go back on it. That was good to know.

So we reviewed what we still needed to do. We gave our paperwork that we had completed to the pastor and it was then given to the lawyer handling our case.

The Benin Home study process

The home study for Benin was a joke! I don't even remember how we got the social worker's name or how to contact him. We lived not far from the middle of Bembereke town so it wasn't too hard to find him. We arranged to pick him up for the home interview. We had to provide proof of our monthly salary, and proof of employment, and he had to interview us in our home. We picked him up and took him to our house. We had our interview, he inspected our house, and he wrote up his report. He then said he would have to type it up and it could take awhile to do that. I told him that I was a social worker and if he liked I could type up his report for him and would print it out and bring it to him the next day. I believe that we also had to get it approved by the community representative (we don't have an equivalent in English. Milton and I had to hunt him down but we finally found him and got what we needed from him. Our social worker also said he would need to make home visits for the next several months. In the end I would see him every week at the market and we would visit. His family had a house in Djougou near where the mission was so we always talked about visiting Djougou. He never did make another visit to our house but we figured that seeing him in the market was sufficient.

The next day I took the home study to the social worker and that was the last formal visit with him. He signed the document and off we went again to Parakou to meet with our pastor and lawyer who was getting close to filing the petition. All we needed was the signed and notarized release papers from the birth father.

Life at Bembereke and the Beginning Paper Chase

Life settled into a routine for us. Milton found a young Fulani man--Delphine's younger brother and he worked on learning Fulfulde with him. Gooda would eventually move to Niger to study nursing and would re-enter our life there. Alicia was growing and becoming very expressive. She loved wrinkling her nose at everyone!
She had a few friends her age that she hung out with either at our house or theirs! She was growing and was quite a charmer!

I loved fiddling with Alicia's hair. It was so soft and so easy to take care of

We found a young Fulani girl, Susanne, who came every morning to help with Alicia while I tried to do some language study.

I got involved with an outreach ministry to a nearby Fulani village and went each week with Vreni. She was really good in the language and I wondered if I would ever be able to communicate like her! We also visited different Fulani villages with a group from the local church. While at Bembereke we rotated between the French church pastored by Pastor Djima and the Fulani outreach in one of the local villages nearby. It was a time of solidifying relationships, rest and ministry.

We had asked the UEEB leaders to help us with Alicia's adoption. Only one missionary family had recently adopted but they weren't Americans so we wanted to make sure that we followed all the steps in the process in order for Alicia to immigrate to the U.S. We actually tried to contact a couple of adoption agencies in the States--Bethany Christian Services where I had worked before becoming a missionary had turned us down in 1992 because we did not meet their age requirements, so we crossed them off our list! It was difficult communicating from Africa with anyone in the States. I had worked with Lutheran Social Services in Illinois so I contacted my former supervisor and she put us in contact with the adoption specialist. She would be the one to guide us through the maze of paper work once we arrived in the U.S. We had little or not contact with her while in Benin. We focused on the paper work for the Benin adoption. We wanted to make sure that the right language was used, that we would have a full adoption and that the parents rights were irrevocably severed. That was about the extent of the guidelines we had. It seemed impossible at times to get everything completed on time.

We began the paper chase--the process of completing the dossier for her adoption. We had to track down the death certificate for the birth mother. We were given clear instructions wher to go--the hospital she had died in, then to get it legalized. We went to the Catholic Hospital--St. John de Dieu outside of Parakou and got a copy of the death certificate but it had to be legalized by the local magistrate. Our pastor's brother just happened to be the magistrate so we tracked him down at his farm and explained what we needed. We did not have cell phones back then and could not call ahead. We found him in his field planting yams and brought him back to his house where he completed the paper work. We noticed an error before leaving and got it corrected. Off we went with that piece of paper.

We had a list of the necessary documentation for the dossier. By this time our pastor had taken us to meet with an attorney who would give us assignments and we would get the necessary documents and bring them back to complete the dossier that eventually would be filed as a petition for adoption! It was a good thing I had worked as a social worker because this was totally unfamiliar territory for all of us! At times we weren't sure what we needed to do, but we kept at it and we had the Lord on our side. He was our guide when all seemed dark and uncertain.

Moving Day!

After our directors left, we knew that I could not remain in Kandi even for two weeks. I was exhausted and becoming depressed (I didn't know at the time the depression was setting in). I felt as though no one but Milton cared what happened to me. I felt like a failure as a mom, as a missionary--well at just about everything. I felt sure that we would be allowed to move to Bembereke--if not we would have to leave Benin. It had come to that, at least in my mind. I knew I would be o.k. if we were at Bembereke but if I had to remain in isolation any longer I would crack! I started packing up our house. We didn't have all that much stuff! We had never shipped anything out from the States and it was our first term. We had come out with about 30 boxes, but that was it. Most of those were Milton's theological books! We had managed to buy a few things from missionaries leaving the field, but over all it would not be hard to move.

Milton had two weeks of work--he was providing transportation to Christian Fulani women to attend a Fulani women's conference in a remote setting in Benin. It wasn't unusual for pastors to attend this women's conference and it would be good language practice. We decided that I should check into the Guest House at Bembereke and stay there with Alicia while he was away. I had friends there and it would give me a chance to rest.

One of our friends, Pastor Djima was in charge of the cash office for missionaries. We had first met Pastor Djima in Djougou where we had lived for the first 9 months of our time in Benin. I had helped him buy books on counseling so that he would be better equipped to deal with the needs of the staff at Bembereke. His wife and I were friends and I had helped her with a sewing project that continues today. They taught us a lot about hospitality, about the local culture, and we had an easy, comfortable relationship. I remember walking into the office one day to get cash. He asked me how I was doing and I burst into tears! Not only was he a friend but he was my pastor. I could talk to him, so I bared my soul to him and he prayed with me. I explained our situation in Kandi and how difficult it had been.

I spent a lot of time just resting and reading and visiting my friends during that two weeks. Milton and I had talked and had made a plan to get through the remaining time that we had in Benin. There are times in a crisis situation where you have to lower your expectations. No one had talked to us about transitioning with our daughter, I had no extra help and I was expected to learn Fulfulde! It didn't matter that I had not planned to work in Fulfulde, and SIM's expectations were unrealistic for a first term missionary and new mom! I went back to Myron Loess' thesis and reread it. Not once did my husband say or do anything that conveyed higher expectations of me. If anything he was the rock I needed at that time. He was the steady one and I could lean on him.

By the time he returned from the women's conference we had the greenlight to move. A house was waiting for us. It was a remodeled shipping container! It had two bedrooms and the living room and kitchen were one room. The bathroom was off the kitchen. Not ideal by any means, but we could handle it for the remaining six months! It seemed like heaven to me! Neighbors were close.

The hardest part was telling our translation team and friends in Kandi that we were moving. We shed so many tears with Isaac and Marie-Claire, and Pastor Jeremie and Fazi. This was not going to be easy! We had some wonderful memories with these dear ones---couples outings, Easter services, New Year's Eve and the evangelistic outreach to 10 Fulani villages in the region!

We were going to miss the fellowship at Tissarou church--the little Fulani/Baruba church that had become home for us.

Bembereke hospital sent a big truck to Kandi for our move and soon it was loaded and ready to leave the following day! We said our goodbyes, had a last meal with Pastor Isaac and his family.

A new chapter in our life was about to begin. Hopefully, we would see God's hand even clearer in the days to come as he lead and guided us through the maze of making Alicia our forever daughter! At this point we were still like a guardian to her, actually even less because we only had the father's signature on on a paper releasing her to our custody, but nothing official had yet been done.

Post-Adoption Blues--April 1996

No one told me that adoptive moms go through something similar to postpartum depression. I thought there was something wrong with me. I had been counseled to not live in an isolated situation because of my high need to be around people. We had been home less than a month. We had temperatures in the 90's every day. Nights were unbearable! The nights did not cool down. I would take shower after shower trying to cool off! Our house was the oldest house owned by the mission and it was in pretty bad shape. This shows the shower! Later someone scraped all the blue paint off and that was a lot better. I'm not much of a fixer upper and neither is Milton so we kind of did the minimum amount of work to make the house livable! Paint and ceilings replaced in one bedroom so the bats couldn't get into the rooms! We had bats in the attic, but we didn't want them swooping down into our beds! Thankfully I had a baby bathtub for Alicia. I'd put her on a towel in the bathtub!

Alicia would not sleep through the night and my sleep was interrupted every night. Students were asking me every day why Alicia was crying. They didn't understand that that's what babies do! In most of the cultures in Benin you do not allow a baby to cry for very long. I learned to dance with my daughter in my arms to get her to sleep. Some nights I put her in bed and left her to cry herself to sleep. I was exhausted and I was beginning to spiral downward. I had laundry every day to do. I had no one to help me in the house. I could not keep up and it was so hot that I didn't know how much longer I would be able to stay in Kandi. We began to make more frequent trips to Bembereke, but even that was not ideal. They only had electricity during the day and if there was an operation during the night they put on the generator.

On one of our visits to Bembereke we talked to their housing committee and found out there was space if we wanted to move down. I could have househelp--Fulani house help and Milton could continue Fulfulde language learning. There were plenty of Fulani living at and around Bembereke. It seemed like a good solution but would the mission hear us out?

There are no coincidences and when our UEEB/SIM leadership was making a tour of Benin with our international director responsible for Benin we took advantage of their stop in Kandi to talk openly about our situation and request to move to Bembereke. We also offered them our very hot bedrooms to sleep in. We had no a/c and nothing but ceiling fans to cool us. Expecting our cries to fall on sympathetic ears, we were surprised when we were told that we would have to wait until they had met with the Bembereke board. It almost seemed as though administrative procedure was getting in the way of taking care of our needs. We had gotten used to this though. On another one of our trips to Bembereke we had read an article by a SIM missionary and author Myron Loess. Actually it was an unpublished thesis with a title like, "First term--crisis in self-esteem." This short thesis hit the nail on the head for us. We were in language learning, living in a remote location and trying to survive our first term. People would travel to Kandi and take a left turn to Banikoara! They seldom stopped at our house. Our language supervisor would walk in and correct whatever we had written on our black board. This was not an easy language to learn. We did not know that many of the words were Bariba words mixed in with the Fulfulde. Rather than being encouraged we felt like babes learning this difficult language. People traveling to Niamey would zoom right on through--I think we had visitors only three or four times while we lived 16 months in Kandi! We did have wonderful relationships with the two pastors living in Kandi. Those relationships have continued to this day! Each time we made our way to Bembereke or Parakou I felt like a flower in the dessert after a rain--refreshed and open, flourishing. Then I would return to Kandi and the drying up process would start again.

Easter that year was quite an adventure with a baby! We were supposed to bring something to share at the potluck. I remember making riz au gras--jollof rice, but I had no meat, so I used tuna. Everyone raved about how good it was! We met in a mango grove, and some Fulani women came by and talked to me. They wanted to know if they could have some of the milk I gave Alicia so their babies would be so fat! I explained that they had good kossam--endam--mother's milk! They didn't need powdered milk!

The relationships with Pastor Isaac and Pastor Jeremie along with their families made it difficult to leave Kandi when we finally got the green light to move. However, we would soon see how necessary it was to leave in order to get all the paperwork done. God would make a way! We just had to trust him.

Making our way Home--March 1996

Most people who adopt internationally usually live in the U.S. and travel to the adoptee's country. The adoption is finalized and they travel home with their child. Not usually that smooth but that was the scenario 15-20 years ago.

We were missionaries living in Kandi learning Fulfulde. As we made our way 3 hours north we made two important stops.

Pastor Daniel Gassary, a very close friend lived in N'Dali and we stopped to say hi and to show off our new daughter.

Although his wife Elise, was not there he sent his sons out to the market to get something to eat to celebrate. Daniel was the first to pray a prayer of dedication for our daughter. Daniel played a very important role in our daughter's life and continues to be an important member of our extended family.

Traveling with us was our pastor's wife and I remember stopping to buy yams along the way. She got out of the car to pick out some yams and came back to the car laughing. I had taken advantage of the stop to feed Alicia. I had formula to make up and filtered water. So I just poured it into her bottle and shook it up. The kids in the village were talking about us and saying things like, "White women can't breast feed so they give them this milk stuff in a can." I was quite the entertainment for the kids!

Second stop was Bembereke Hospital. Dr. Chris Healey, a pediatrician who had treated Alicia two weeks before for an infection and thrush, did a pediatric exam and declared her healthy with good reflexes. Mary, Chris' wife gave me a special little quilt she had made for Alicia. A purple giraffe!

I remember arriving in Kandi and being welcomed by everyone. Over the next weeks friends would come by to greet Mama Alicia! Along with the greetings, students would stop on their way home from school to see why Alicia had been crying as they passed by in the morning on their way to school. The honey moon phase was about to end and the stress was building.

Gotcha Day! March 12, 1996

When I returned to Parakou after the retreat, I expected to be able to pick up our baby and begin our life with her. That's what I expected but the Lord and the foster parent wanted us to wait a couple more days. The Lord had told me to not say anything when we met the evening before we got our baby. This was most difficult for us because I so wanted to connect with Ruutu immediately.

We arranged to meet at the director's home on March 12 for the hand over. The director's wife weighed Ruutu and we took pictures, reimbursed the foster mom for all the expenses she had had, and she was ours!

We took her to the clinic in town to have her ears pierced, changed her name to Alicia Ruth and began our journey together. Friends found a crib for us, someone else gave us cloth diapers, etc. You might wonder why the first thing we would do is get her ears pierced. In Benin and West Africa, baby girls have their ears pierced within a day or two of birth. We lived on an African compound with about 6 or 7 high school students, and a pastor and his wife. It would make life easier for all of us if her ears were already pierced.

The journey north to our home proved to be quite full of interesting little events--significant ones to say the least!

More are the Children.....

We went home to Kandi and waited. The following week heard from the foster mom that the family had decided Ruutu could be adopted. We were ecstatic. We had planned a trip down to Parakou so that I could attend a woman's conference so we arranged that we could pick her up after the conference. So many things were going through my mind. Could I have her at the conference or would that be too awkward for the foster mom? What did I need to do to prepare for her arrival? We didn't have a crib, car seat, stroller, nothing! We were starting from zero! Not even any cloth diapers.

Little did we know that all our friends would pitch in and provide many of these needed items. When we arrived in Parakou, I went directly to the women's retreat at Dassa. The Lord used that retreat in a very special way. We stayed at the Auberge there. The retreat speaker was an adoptive mom, and she was my roommate. Can you imagine how my mouth must have dropped open when I found out that bit of info? I do not remember anything that we talked about but I am sure that I peppered her with questions about her experience!

Then during the prayer time the next morning a lady stood up and said that she had a whole chapter for me! The Lord had used Isaiah 54: 4-8 in my life before and here it was again. This time it was the first three verses!

"Sing, O barren woman, you who never bore a child;

burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor;

because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband," says the LORD.

Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back;

lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.

For you will spread out to the right and to the left;

your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.

The lady who gave me those verses did not know me and did not know my story, but I had shared that we were in the beginning process of adopting and planned to pick up our baby after the retreat. Several people prayed for me and it was the best way I know to prepare for what lay ahead of us!

Seeing Her for the First Time

She was about two weeks old when we saw her.  We came into Parakou for the February Day of Prayer--I believe everyone came in for this one.  As we came in, Mary a midwife from Bembereke and a good friend who knew we were looking to adopt said to me, "You have to see this baby.  L. is taking care of a Bariba baby, but she is beautiful.  You have to see her.  She looks like she could be Fulani!"  When I found she was Bariba I wasn't really excited to take a look at her, but Mary insisted! I walked over to the baby bathtub that had a small pad in it to make it into a comfortable little bed for this precious looking little baby girl.  As I took a longer look, I fell in love with this two week old baby girl.  She was gorgeous--wavy dark hair, long legs, and toes.  Just the most precious thing! 

The devotional that day was the story of Ruth and how she refused to go back to her home land to stay with her mother-in-law. She chose to stay with Naomi!  Here was this tiny baby named Ruutu (Ruth) and Milton and I talked the whole afternoon about this tiny little thing.  She had been brought to the mission by her family, after her mother died.  Pasteru Bio Saka had brought her to the mission. She was wearing a sweet little lavendar dress wrapped in a blue towel. He walked in with her and said he needed to find someone to take this little one.  She was a week old.  M.B. who usually took in orphans was on home assignment and L. said she would take her.  L. was a single older lady who not only spoke Bariba and could communicate with the family, but made sure Bake Ruutu was well cared for.  She made sure she got the medical care she needed. She had some really cute little rompers made for her that matched a couple of her outfits. As we listened to Ruutu's story that evening at a restaurant, I itched to get my hands on her.  I wanted to take her home then.  We told L. that if the family was willing for Bake Ruutu to be adopted that we wanted to adopt her.  We had seen two other babies who were staying with other missionaries on the Parakou compound but we did not feel the attraction to them that we did with Bake Ruutu. It was very difficult to leave the next day and return to Kandi, not knowing if we would be able to get her or not. We didn't even know what we were getting ourselves in for.  God was not finished showing his will for us.  He wanted us to know beyond a shadow of doubt that this adoption was his will! If I didn't know so, I soon would!

From France and the leather African baby face, an article in Moody Monthly, a meditation on Ruth.  What else would God use to overwhelm us with His will?  Have you have similar experiences in your life or through your adoption experience?  Share those with us!

Miscarriage Number 2--1995

We had been in Benin for about a year and a few months and I found out I was pregnant. I was only two months along so I did not announce the news to anyone. When I started spotting while we were on vacation in Niger and miscarried in the SIM Guest House I was devastated! Again, 4 years after the first one. We came home from our vacation, and I was still bleeding. When I saw the Dr. at Bembereke, he recommended that I have a D&C there at the hospital. We drove down from Kandi for the procedure and stayed in the guest house. What I remember was the strange dreams I had from the anesthesia! Oh man! Was it wild! It was like I was on a space ship--like in Star Wars! It was really vivid and very frightening. Five years later when I had a breast biopsy at Galmi Hospital, I found out that they don't use that drug at Galmi. And that in some countries it is considered a street drug!

In November of 1995, we traveled up to Niger and flew home for Thanksgiving. We spent Thanksgiving with Milton's family in Florida and discussed with them the possibility of adopting an African orphan. I then flew home to Oklahoma for a week with my family and discussed the possibility with my brother and tried to talk to my mom about it. Instead I ended up saying something I regretted saying. My mom always fought with me when I was ready to leave. She would always say something really mean about my loving Africans. This time I told her she would see how much I loved Africa and Africans when I adopted one! Oh wow, it was out of my mouth and I could not take it back. That comment would haunt me!

While I was home I also picked up all my past mail that my mother had not bothered to send to me! There were several Moody Monthly magazines that had accumulated. One article in particular caught my eye. I have kept it all these years. It was about international adoptions. A Christian family--I believe he worked at Moody Radio had adopted. This family and other families stories really spoke to me like nothing else! Wow! I began to get excited to see what God was doing!

Our families (other than my mom) was for our adopting. We prayed about a decision and when we returned to Niger (another story in of itself of almost missing a flight because no one told us to reconfirm the flight with Air Maroc and arriving at New York and finding we were put on stand by! We got on the flight but it was a miserable flight to Casablanca in the smoking section with all the college students returning home for the holidays, smoking and drinking before they got home! We had our heads under a blanket most of the trip in order to not breathe the smoke filled air!)

Back home in Benin we put the wheels in motion to pursue an adoption. We knew one or two African families who had adopted, and we knew of abandoned babies so we figured it would not be too hard to find a baby! We talked to the mission leaders and they were o.k. with us adopting.We had to get permission from our home office and they too were in favor. Our pastor at home was fine with our plan to adopt! All green lights! Stay tuned for the rest of the story!

Good News/Bad News

August, 1991. We had been married only two months and I was ecstatic when I found out I was pregnant. We were 36 when we married and we wanted a family right away! Then one day I was sitting in my French class at the community college near us, and I had started bleeding. I called the doctor when I got home and he basically told me to get my feet up and we would see what happened. Cramping started that evening and I went to the doctor the next morning. When he came in to tell me the news that I had miscarried, he had tears in his eyes. Although we tried every month to get pregnant, I didn't. My biological clock was ticking away! We went to an infertility specialist. We were preparing to go to French language study in just a few months so we were hoping to find answers before we left for France. We tried all the techniques. Boxers instead of briefs, temperature every morning and charting ovulation. We had done a lot of reading and talking and had come to a consensus on what treatments we would pursue. Our specialist even told us that in five years we might have a baby! When it was time to leave for language study, we left confident that God would give us a baby in his time.

While at Les Cedres, my teacher was pregnant and I was reminded of my loss each time I saw her. One week I did a meditation on infertility and adoption. My teacher called me in to correct my grammar and to encourage me not to give up hope. She assured me that once the stress levels were down I would get pregnant--once I was on the mission field and life reached a normal level, she was sure I'd get pregnant. I believe that God's timing had all to do with when I would get pregnant and not getting pregnant had nothing to do with the level of stress I was under.

One weekend we went to Lyon for the weekend to visit a friend of mine from Iowa. She was a nanny and the family she worked for was out of town. We stayed the weekend and went to an art festival with her. I saw this beautiful leather brooch that I kind of liked, but couldn't afford.

About two weeks later I received a gift in the mail from my friend in Lyon. It was the brooch I had admired at the art festival. But it was not just a leather brooch, but a tiny black baby's face carved in leather with a brown blanket surrounding it's tiny head. I had not shared with her that I could not get pregnant, that I had miscarried. She knew nothing of these struggles. Yet it was as though God was speaking through her. I was at a loss as to exactly what he was saying. Adopt an African child or get pregnant in Africa?All I knew was that God saw me and saw my pain of not having a family. That leather brooch gave me hope!