Services
Two by Two by Two
The Weber family contacted Catholic Charities International Adoption Services when they wished to expand their family via adoption. They received a thorough assessment, extensive training, and ongoing support during the entire adoption process. They have also served as mentors to other families who are going through the process.
Written by Michelle Weber
Yes, we’ve adopted siblings –two by two by two. Our first set of toddler and pre-school girls came from Korea in 1988, followed by infant twin boys from Korea in 1995 and then grade school aged boys from the Philippines in 2006. We have been truly blessed, and just like Noah, as he loaded the animals two by two on the ark, it has taken a lot of faith, hope and love to follow God’s plan for our lives.
Our girls, Jill and Holly arrived in 1988 at ages 3 ½ years and 16 months. We had decided to adopt siblings, instead of an infant because after so many year of infertility, we wanted to get a jump start on our family. We had always planned that I quit my job as an engineer and stay home with the kids when they arrived and I figured I could handle two from the start. Well, it was a bit harder than I imagined. When you give birth to a baby, they can’t run away from you in the parking lot when they first arrive!
Even so, from the beginning we could see how beneficial it was to adopt two at a time. The girls had each other and knew that they were not in this alone. This made their adjustment to our family much easier. Jill looked at the entire adoption process as an adventure and Holly went along with her. Jill learned English very quickly and learned to love American life. Sure, she had bad days when she would cry and babble things in Korean, but for the most part she was a happy, energetic little kid. Holly almost always seemed happy. She was a bouncy, precious little toddler and she and her sister loved to play together. We filled our days with playgroups, story time, meeting friends at the park, and trips to the mall.
When the time came for us to adopt again, our girls were older, so we thought it would be best to adopt two at a time again, so that they would have each other to play with. We applied to Korea, thinking that we would be matched with toddlers/pre-schoolers as before, but Korea was only releasing babies for adoption at the time. Although we didn’t specifically ask for twins, on March 28, 1988, exactly seven years from the day we were assigned our girls, we got a call from Margie at Catholic Charities telling us that they had infant twin boys for us. We were all ecstatic! Jill and Holly were ten and eight-years- old when they arrived, and they each had their own baby brother to hold.
Caring for infant twins was a lot of work. They did not sleep well at night, and most of the time I felt as if I was walking around like a zombie. They were fussy babies, and Nathan especially cried a lot. Looking back, I know now that he was grieving because of the huge changes that he had to make in his short life. Andy was a generally happy baby, but having to share when you are an infant is pretty tough. In spite of all the work, it was a joy to have two little babies to care for. Jill and Holly were such a big help, and we all had fun playing with and caring for our new additions to the family. The boys became the best of friends.
At this point we thought, with two girls and two boys, our family was complete. We were busy with homeschooling, gymnastics for the girls, and soccer, karate, and basketball for Andy and Nathan. The girls grew up and went off to college, Jill on a gymnastics scholarship to Ohio State University in 2002 and Holly on a gymnastics scholarship to Michigan State University in 2004. Jill got married to David and we had our first grandson. Our second grandson had just arrived in 2006, when our family was to grow again.
I call our third adoption our unplanned adoption. We had just put a big family room addition onto our old farm house, but that was not the only addition that God wanted for us. I remember that cloudy Saturday in March, as I walked to the mailbox, thinking that nothing but bills and junk mail come in the mail. Well, that day, the Heartbeat magazine arrived. On the back cover were pictures of several older Filipino children which Catholic Charities hoped to bring over for their summer program. Joey and Hector’s pictures and story tugged at my heart. They were nine and eight year old cousins living in an orphanage for the past two years in Manila. I mentioned it to Dan, saying I really hoped that someone would come forward to adopt these boys. We spoke no more about it the next day, but early on Monday morning, as Dan was leaving for work, he told me to call about the boys to find out more information. After two weeks of talking it over and
taking it to prayer, we decided (on March 20th, the feast of St. Joseph that year) to make Joey and Hector part of our family. Again, it was the end of March, the 25th this time, when we met with Margie to begin the adoption process for Joey and Hector.
They came for three weeks in July along with the other summer program children, to visit with our family. Since we had already decided to adopt them, I questioned the purpose of the visit, but now I can see how beneficial it was for all of us. When they finally came home for good it was so helpful for them to already know who we were and what they were coming to after they left their home-land.
Adopting older children has its own unique challenges, but adopting siblings made things easier both for us and for them. It certainly takes some of the scariness out of joining a new family if you have someone with you to share the experience. Also I think it was much easier for the two of them to come into our family with our twin boys, than adopting one child who may have become the “odd man out”. Even so, blending the four personalities of our four unique sons has been our biggest challenge in this third adoption. Andy and Nathan were the youngest for so long, and to suddenly have to share everything with two more brothers has been a tremendous growing experience. At times there was a lot of tension in the house, as they all found their new places and new rolls in the family. But it has definitely been worth the work. Our sons are now all good friends even though they might not admit it!
Through the years, we have surely seen the hand of God on our family. I do not believe that it was a coin-cidence that we found out that Korea had twin sons for us exactly seven years after we were assigned our Korean daughters. I also know that God certainly had more in mind for us than an addition to our house in 2005. We just had to trust that God knew what was right for our family, just as Noah did. Somehow though I feel that Noah had it a bit easier- he didn’t have to teach the animals to read!
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