Simmons Family Adoption Story

Tyler and Felicia were the first couple I knew to go through an adoption process. I remember seeing their announcement on facebook, hardly a year after they had gotten married and thinking it was such a big thing for people my age to go through. 

I completely believe that sharing stories like theirs helps people become more comfortable with adoption. To someone reading their story today, an adoption from a place like the Ukraine might seem really scary or just plain impossible.

But knowing that newlyweds could navigate the process and seeing Reed's beautiful smile assuages those fears.

Thank you, Simmons Family, for sharing your story. It is beautiful, just like you guys!

 
If you’ve been in the adoption world very long, you know one of the most common questions an adoptive couple gets is -- What’s wrong with you, why can’t you have your “own” children?

Adoption was something we discussed before marriage. We didn’t know when, how, or where our adoption would take place, but we knew it was something we had the desire to do. Surprisingly, two months before our first anniversary we started the journey to our first born.

Once we started researching where we wished to adopt from, we realized sadly we didn’t qualify for much in the adoption world. We hadn’t been married 5 years, we weren’t infertile - at least to our knowledge- we had no underlying conditions that prevented us from having biological children and the list continues. The first country we found that would allow us to adopt was Ukraine.

We chose to complete our adoption independently with the help of a lady from Florida who reviewed our paperwork and hired a translator for us once we were in country.

 In a Ukrainian adoption you do not have a pre-selected child. You specify the conditions of a child in which you would be interested in adopting. Six months after we started our adoption and after much of our paperwork was completed, Ukraine had a major change in their adoption law. You could no longer adopt a child under 5 years of age. At the time, this was devastating. After much prayer and discussion we decided to proceed with our adoption and change the home study to an older child.

Once you send all your paperwork to Ukraine, they review it and select a date and 30 minute time slot for you to come and look at pictures of children. Yes, I did say 30 minutes to select our child!

We sent our paperwork in January and one afternoon in August while at work I received the news that we would select our child on September 13th! We were told to be prepared for up to 12 weeks in country.

Once our 30 minutes began, they brought out several binders with information of children with a small 1 inch square picture in the top right hand corner. As they flipped through the pages they gave us details of each child - in Russian. Our translator tried to help us understand, but it was all happening so quickly.

I remember looking at the clock and knowing we only had 5 minutes. We had seen all the children they had offered, and we hadn’t felt that connection with any of them. We asked for more -- the lady offered us one more binder.

Our story, our world, our son was on the very last page of that binder as our time on the clock disappeared.


The 36 hours that followed this meeting included everything except sleep. Yes, we met our son after 36 hours of trains, paperwork, Ukrainian car rides, paperwork, and a little bit more paperwork! We were given the opportunity to spend 5 minutes with him before making our final decision. The moment he walked into the room and ran into my husbands arms we were his.  
There was no decision to make - God had made us parents in that very instant. 

To this day, Reed is the most talkative, joyful, compassionate, loving, giving little boy. He is the best big brother to his younger siblings.There isn’t a moment that goes by when he isn’t smiling. There are struggles in any adoption, especially older child adoption, but the pros are far outweighed by the cons.

We spent the next 5 weeks in Ukraine preparing to bring him home to his forever family. The judge in his region was very against us being his parents because of our age. The judge felt we were too young to become his parents. Thankfully, we had wonderful advocates on our side and the judge allowed us the opportunity to adopt him.

October 7, 2011 he became ours forever. We became a family of 3.

To this day, Reed is the most talkative, joyful, compassionate, loving, giving little boy. He is the best big brother to his younger siblings.There isn’t a moment that goes by when he isn’t smiling. There are struggles in any adoption, especially older child adoption, but the pros are far outweighed by the cons.
 
Looking back now, I thank God for each step of our journey.

 I clearly see now in all the bumps, struggles, and doubts we encountered in our 13 month journey were what got us to our son.
 
 We would have never been given the opportunity to adopt him if the laws hadn’t changed. His timing was perfect - our son was in the region of Ukraine that has been taken over by Russia. All of this meaning if we had waited just one more year before beginning our journey we wouldn’t have gotten our boy.

So, now when I hear the question - What’s wrong with you, can’t you have your “own” child.? I smile - knowing just as we are God’s own and He adopted us - Reed is our “own”. Maybe I laugh a little knowing after Reed we had two biological boys and neither of them look or act like their Daddy more than him! God truly is amazing in so many different ways and seeing Him shine through our adoption was nothing short of amazing.