Wrapped up in Love

Power and love flow from the adoption community

by Amy Ostertag

I remember clicking on the Holt International website at the beginning of our adoption journey, and finding the Holt forum. They were a huge comfort and guided us as we navigated the piles of paperwork and felt the anticipation and worry.

This group of adoption community friends rejoiced with us as we shared the joy of finding Joo-sung on the list of children in the Waiting Child program. His face and story seemed to call to us—telling us that we were meant to be together. We had a sense of quiet reassurance that he was the fourth son who was meant to complete our family…and he has!

On the flight to Korea to receive Ben, we met another family who was also on the message boards, and we bonded immediately. We traveled together, met our children on the same day, and flew them home together. We have had play dates in the years that have followed and feel a love and bond that will last a lifetime.

Then, our world changed forever. We stood in the ER hallway and heard the words “large brain mass,” “tumor,” and “emergency ventriculostomy“. In the days that followed the news worsened. Our son had a very aggressive form of brain cancer. Life moved at warp speed as he was rushed to the ICU and embarked on many months of in-patient care and a brutal protocol of chemotherapies.

We received so many messages on Ben’s care page from all the friends we had made through the years on Holt’s website. We received notes, gifts and cards that buoyed our spirit. Our close friends, who had traveled with us to Korea, now traveled up to UCLA hospital to sit with us and reassure us that we were not alone. But nothing could prepare us for the most amazing gift of all.

Bren, a Korean adoptee and adoptive mother, made a quilt pieced together from squares sent from adoptive families from all over the United States. The families sent fabric and cards to accompany each square, with stories of the significance and meaning behind their quilt square. There was a piece of a child’s favorite baby blanket, a square with vegetables on it, because they know how much our Benny wants to be a chef someday, and a square with a map of Korea on it.

On each corner the words “love,” “happiness,” “hope,” and “faith” were stitched in Korean. It was Ben’s very own “100 Good Wishes Quilt”…with 100 pieces of fabric, 100 well-wishes and 100 prayers. Accompanying it was a beautiful scrapbook of all the stories and little pieces of the squares.

As two moms came and delivered it to his hospital bed, we wrapped him up in all the love that was being sent to him from all around the globe. The colors brightened the drab room, and we spent hours snuggling under that quilt in the months to come-pointing to the squares and telling stories.

Ben’s chemo and stem cell transplant are now complete, and he is home and in active remission. Every night we tuck him in under the quilt and feel that all the love brought us to this point, and we thank God for the support and prayers of the adoption community.