by Robin Munro, Senior Writer

By his late 40s, Thomas Park Clement was, inarguably, a huge success.  As founder and CEO of an established medical device company, he had touched the lives of millions of [...]]]> After surviving the streets of post-war Korea, Thomas Park Clement was adopted by a loving family.  Today, he’s honored around the world.

by Robin Munro, Senior Writer

By his late 40s, Thomas Park Clement was, inarguably, a huge success.  As founder and CEO of an established medical device company, he had touched the lives of millions of people.  He held 24 U.S. medical patents (now 32), three college degrees, and an appointment to the Advisory Committee on Unification by the South Korean president.  He was also a happily married father of two, a trapeze artist and a Tai Kwon Do expert.

No longer was he a “vulnerable tuki” – a half-Korean, half-Caucasian boy, surviving on the streets of Seoul at 5-years-old.

But once, on a humanitarian mission to North Korea, he glimpsed this younger version of himself.

“We were going to dinner, and right next to the front door was a 5-year-old orphan kid.  He had no shoes and no socks,” says Thomas.  “I thought, ‘that is my protégé.’”

How, he wondered, did I go from where he is to where I am now – training surgeons at the Ministry of Health?

“It was all through adoption,” he says.

Thomas Park Clement was born in war-torn South Korea – his mother Korean, his father an American GI.  For the first four or five years of his life, his mother kept him in her care. Then, one day, she buttoned his coat tight and walked him into the busy streets of Seoul.  She hugged him and kissed him and told him not to turn around.  When he finally looked back, she was gone.

The first family to adopt him was a gang of street kids.  Outsiders themselves, they overlooked what, at that time, Korean society could not.  “In spite of the fact that I was obviously a biracial ‘tuki’ and they were pure Korean, they adopted me,” Thomas writes in his memoir, The Unforgotten War.  Tuki, in Korean, means “foreign devil.”

“As a child in Korea I learned to think of myself literally as a devil … I was taboo,” Thomas writes.

Thomas survived on the streets until, one day, a Methodist missionary took him to a local orphanage.  In 1958, June and Richard Clement adopted Thomas and brought him home to the U.S.

Overnight, his life upturned.

It was “Christmas every day.”  Not only did he have his own bed, but his own room. He learned the meaning of “seconds” at mealtime, and that rainy days meant bicycling in the garage.  Overnight, he had a mother, a father, a sister and a brother.  He had an Aunt Edie, Aunt Nettie and a grandma.  Overnight, he had a family.

Thomas and his father on the day he arrived in the United States, in May 1958. Thomas holds the toy jeep his father brought him.

As a small boy in a foreign place, he had many fears as well.  The TV shootouts between cowboys and Indians were all too real for Thomas.  Often, he woke up screaming from nightmares about the war – a war he could not, and never would, forget.

But nothing in his new world scared him as much as the prospect of returning to the old one.  “I did not want to go back to the orphanage,” he writes.  “I did not want to go back to the war.”

Breaking the Silence

Thomas eventually overcame his childhood fears.  But although he had love and security and more food than he could ever eat, secretly, something was always missing – a “sadness” in his heart.  He never voiced these feelings – not with his family, not with his friends.  Older generations of adoptees share a common understanding that “you did not talk about adoption in the family,” he says.  This left many feeling voiceless, in “silent conversation.”

Not until his 40s did Thomas find his voice – after typing “Korean adoptee” into a search engine.

“It was the most incredible feeling in the world,” he writes. “After 40 years of being in the United States it occurred to me that I hadn’t ever known or seen or met another KAA.”

He discovered a huge, vibrant community of international adoptees, living all over the world.  By “surfacing” in this community, he could share the feelings he thought no one else could understand.  “That’s the coolest thing about adoptee gatherings,” he says, “the commonality.”

After breaking the silence, Thomas found he had much more to say.  He began writing.  “That was one of the biggest motivations,” Thomas says of his memoir.  “We have a voice, and we can talk about it – about adoption.”

Thomas’ voice proved powerful.  The Unforgotten War sold over 20,000 copies. “Some of them said it sounded like I was talking directly to them,” he says of his fellow adoptees.

In many ways, he was.  After surfacing in the community, Thomas began counseling adoptees and their families.  During 3 a.m. phone calls, they shared their frustrations and fears, their feelings of alienation, encounters with prejudice.  In many passages of his book, he directly addresses the issues he’s helped adoptees work through over the years.  He emphasizes the importance of connecting with other adoptees, and explains how he copes himself.

Feeding the Fire

Thomas considers himself a “testimonial of the positive outcome of adoption.” Of his success, he writes, “the most important influence was the love and support I received from my adoptive parents and family.”  He also recognizes the complexities, and imperfections, of international adoption.  Fellow adoptees have asked how he can be so positive – how, having endured so much hardship, having been called  “‘roundeye’ in Korea and ‘slanteye’ in America,” he is not bitter.

For this, he also credits his family – his birth mother, who cared for him during the critical first years of his life, giving him an “essential confidence in people,” and his adoptive parents.  “If I think about the Korean War, living on the streets and the orphanage, I could be ‘totaled’ by these thoughts,” Thomas writes. “Or I can use these life experiences to feed the fire…to make the world a better place for our children in the future.  This attitude I owe to my parents.”

Thomas supports humanitarian efforts in Africa and North Korea – where, in recent years, he helped build a research center for drug-resistant TB.  Through an organization called First Steps, he also supplies food for children living in the country’s orphanages.  For children like his “protégé.”  Children, once, just like him.

As well as his beloved mother and wife, Thomas dedicates his memoir, The Unforgotten War, to his “wise and supportive adoptive father, Richard Clement.” Here, Thomas and his father are pictured in California, 2009.

Over the years, many more adult adoptees have broken the silence.  In April, adoptees from around the world gathered in Washington D.C. to celebrate and reflect on 55 years of international adoption. On the opening day of this international forum, eight adoptees shared their stories at the National Press Club. Click here to listen.

Interested in sharing your story with Holt International?  Contact Holt’s senior writer at robinmunro@holtinternational.org.

Startled, I thought, ‘how could I not be?’  I was adopted. But this wasn’t about me.  This was about our commitment to become a family. With that question, adoption was no longer an abstract idea but our unambiguous decision to transform lives.

Like many of our friends, we [...]]]> “Are you okay with adopting?” asked Judy.

Startled, I thought, ‘how could I not be?’  I was adopted. But this wasn’t about me.  This was about our commitment to become a family. With that question, adoption was no longer an abstract idea but our unambiguous decision to transform lives.

Like many of our friends, we married later in life, established our careers, traveled and lived well. But we also discovered that conceiving a family wasn’t easy, nor was it fun trying to conceive through procedures. Ultimately, it mattered less to us how we became a family, so long as we did.

And so, on a warm Sunday evening in June 2008, we sat at the kitchen island, completed our application with excitement and trepidation, and embarked upon our adoption journey. In our hearts, a baby boy was waiting for us, even though he had not yet been conceived.

Family and friends could not have been more genuinely excited and supportive. My mother cried joyfully while my father reflected upon their decision decades earlier. Judy’s mother smiled such that we knew she had long reserved room in her heart only to be filled by her new grandson.

Time has stood still twice in my life – watching the sunlit silhouette of Judy approach the wedding altar, and on an otherwise unremarkable July 2009 afternoon when my iPhone pinged, alerting me to an incoming photo and call from my wife. Our son was waiting for us in Seoul.

The vibrant colors of fall signal metamorphosis, and so it was fitting that in November 2009 we expectantly flew to Seoul. Taking no chances for delay, we made a subway trial-run to the nondescript Holt building a day before our appointment. (Then we enjoyed the city sights and sounds). The next afternoon, when escorted into the nursery room to meet our son and his foster mother, the entirety of Judy’s body ached to hold him.

Upon returning to the hotel with Gordon, our list of things to do was pretty basic: bottle, diaper, sleep and repeat. Later, in the small quiet hours of daybreak, like every parent before us, we exchanged unspoken glances — “Now what?”

Gordon is our miracle and it is unfathomable to imagine life without him. From first steps to first words, reading and beyond, his nature is one of eager discovery and engagement. One morning, he proudly declared “birds eat dirt” after watching finches in the yard. On a recent vacation, he gleefully marveled at brightly colored fish swimming around his feet while he collected hermit crabs and clam shells along the white sand beach. Without doubt, he is all boy — playful, inquisitive and joyful — and we truly are his parents as he is our son.

Before returning from Seoul, we spent an illuminating day with Molly Holt, the woman who signed my adoption papers 40 years earlier. She surprised us by producing documents from my file and described candidly the challenging future awaiting orphans, then and now. Unquestionably, I have been granted the gifts of family, education, marriage, profession and social mobility. My parents’ love transformed not just one little boy’s life, but now two. Serendipity? Divine providence? Who could have foreseen the impact of Harry and Bertha Holt’s ministry?

As an adult Holt adoptee, I occasionally wonder how it informs my approach to fatherhood. Will my experiences be relevant to Gordon? Should I be more intuitive about identity issues? Of this I am certain: just as I was lovingly raised, Gordon will always know of his beginnings – not as a reason for solicitous gratitude, but to understand the richness of family and the blessings of life.

For Judy and me, our hope and charge is that Gordon will grow in body, mind and spirit. If we do this right, he will grow in the security of family love, he will chart his own course in life, and he will be prepared to serve others. Perhaps, one day, he too will be okay with adoption.

Learn More about Holt’s 55th Anniversary Celebration in Washington D.C.!

“This event is going to help renovate the buildings at the Ilsan center in Korea,” said Celeste. “They have [...]]]> This morning on Omaha Morning Blend, a local talk show, Celeste Snodgrass, Holt’s Midwest branch director, discussed Holt International’s upcoming gala and dinner auction. Adoptive parent Juliet Brown and her son, Gavin, joined Celeste during the interview.

“This event is going to help renovate the buildings at the Ilsan center in Korea,” said Celeste. “They have fallen into disrepair…the children need a safe place to live.”

The Omaha event will commemorate Holt International’s 55th anniversary of serving homeless children — a legacy of love that began at the Ilsan center. Since Holt’s beginning, many children with special needs at the Ilsan center have gone home to wonderful, permanent families.

Molly Holt, director of the Ilsan Center and daughter of Harry and Bertha Holt, will be the honored guest at this year’s auction in Omaha.

Click here to see a video of Celeste Snodgrass, Juliet Brown, and her son, Gavin, on Omaha Morning Blend….

Click here to RSVP to the Omaha event or contact Sandi Mehl at sandim@holtinternational.org

by Robin Munro, Senior Writer

In 1958, David Kim (right) oversaw Holt's first adoption program, in Korea. Here, Kim shares a copy of his memoir, Who Will Answer, with early Korean adoptee Joey Ko. [...]]]> Fifty-two years later, an early Holt adoptee reunites with his “first father,” Holt President Emeritus David Kim

by Robin Munro, Senior Writer

In 1958, David Kim (right) oversaw Holt's first adoption program, in Korea. Here, Kim shares a copy of his memoir, Who Will Answer, with early Korean adoptee Joey Ko.

Over 50 years ago, in the aftermath of the Korean War, a young boy took his mother’s hand for the last time. Together they walked away from this boy’s childhood home – a one-room shack beside the Han River, a room he shared with his mother, his grandmother and his baby brother – toward the Holt childcare center outside of Seoul. On that day, this boy began a journey that would take him from South Korea all the way to Texas, where a new life awaited him in an adoptive family.

This past May, he traveled to the Holt headquarters in Eugene to revisit that journey.

“It’s just wonderful, man, just wonderful [to be here],” says our visitor as he stands in the lobby, studying photographs of the Holt family. He is Kim Joey Ko, a name that captures in each part a piece of his heritage – “Ko,” a Korean name given by his mother, “Joey” from his American GI father, and “Kim” from the man who accepted his small hand as his mother sought to give her son a better future.

That man is Dr. David Kim, President Emeritus of Holt International. He is also here today.

“Mr. Kim is a legend. He is a blessing to so many children,” says Ko, smiling reverently at the 80-year-old Korean man who in 1956, at the age of 25, Harry Holt entrusted to manage Holt’s first adoption program, in South Korea. In that role, Kim oversaw the adoption of thousands of orphaned and abandoned children. Instrumental in developing the early process of intercounry adoption, he also sought ways to expedite the adoption of the many weak and malnourished children in Holt care. To that end, he became the children’s first legal guardian, a move that authorized him to sign immigration and adoption documents, attaching his name to theirs.

“I was so many children’s first father,” he says as one of those first children, now grown, stands beside him. Many of those children only briefly carried the Kim name, replacing it with the American name of their adoptive family once home in the U.S.

But Ko never took to the name his adoptive family gave him. For a good part of his life, he held onto the name Kim. He’s since pared it down to just Joey… Joey Ko.

Joey Ko’s journey began in 1958, when his mother relinquished him into Holt care. But his journey is forever intertwined with another journey – a journey depicted in photographs throughout the Holt building in Eugene. Moved by the images he saw of malnourished orphans, Harry Holt embarked on an historic voyage to Korea in post-war 1955. That year Harry and his wife, Bertha, urged an act of Congress enabling them to adopt eight Korean children, opening the door for thousands more. With this act, they began a revolution – a revolution in the concept, color and composition of family.

Three years later, Joey Ko became one of 600 Korean children adopted to the U.S. in 1958 by Holt International, then titled the Holt Adoption Program.

“I’m so thankful for the Holt organization,” he says today, 52 years later. “It gave me a new life.”

Ko is a joyful man. Tall and slender, his stance is stooped from a recent back injury. But when he laughs, he throws his whole body into it while still clutching his walker. After attending North Texas University on a scholarship to study music, he became a celebrated jazz trumpet player and bus driver living in Hollywood, California. And like his “first father,” David Kim, he is a devout Christian.

“I’m glad I know Jesus,” he says, a little silver cross shining on the bill of his black cap. “I was angry at my mother for so many years. I didn’t know why she left me.” He says God urged him to forgive his mother for abandoning him.

Over the years, he’s come to not only forgive, but also understand his mother’s decision. “When you’re an African-American Korean in that time, you’re so rejected,” he says. In Korean society, a culture that places tremendous value on bloodline and great stigma on out-of-wedlock births, Ko’s foreign features and dark skin made him an easy target. He became an outcast, and regularly got into fights with other Korean children.

In David Kim’s memoir, Who Will Answer, he writes of the discrimination “GI babies” experienced in post-war Korea. Even at the early Holt center in Seoul, children fell victim to disapproving eyes: “All day, people in the neighborhood stood outside the fence, like watching animals in the zoo, as if to say, ‘Seed of sin and shame,’” he writes. “We tried everything to make them go away…”

In 1958, the Holt Adoption Agency relocated to a two and a half acre property outside of Seoul, a less populated area surrounded by rice paddies and fields. It was here that Ko’s mother relinquished her son – a place where he would receive loving, attentive care while awaiting adoption to the U.S.

Finding a permanent, loving family for all the children was then, as it is now, the ultimate goal. International adoption in particular seemed the best option for orphaned and abandoned children of mixed-race heritage in 1950s and 60s Korea. “I often prayed they would leave Korea as soon as possible, before the scar of discrimination was ingrained in their hearts,” Kim writes.

His official age uncertain, Ko left Korea somewhere between the age of 6 and 8 – old enough to retain vivid memories of his early childhood. He was born in Inchon, but because his family viewed the birth of a mixed-race child as a dishonor, his mother and grandmother brought him to Seoul. They lived in poverty, marginalized from society. He remembers putting grasshoppers from the field in whiskey bottles – the main source of protein for his family. He remembers running away from the first orphanage where he stayed.

And he remembers the long walk with his mother to the Holt care center outside of Seoul.

Visiting Holt gives Joey Ko the opportunity to view his archived adoption documents. Here, he looks at an article published upon his arrival in the U.S., 52 years ago.

“It was in the forest, way outside the city,” says Ko. “That’s where we met Dr. David Kim.” The young Holt director seemed surprised that Ko’s mother made the journey out to the care center, miles outside of Seoul.

“That was a very courageous act,” says Kim, remembering Ko’s mother. “She made a decision for him.” A decision that enabled Holt to find Ko an adoptive family in the U.S., unleashing waves of opportunity not available to him in Korea.

Here today, Ko stands surrounded by the family he’s created, including his son, who listens with rapt attention as Kim explains why the war produced so many “GI babies,” as well as the cultural pressures that compelled Ko’s mother to relinquish him for adoption.

“We don’t know his history,” says Ko’s son. “It’s very cut off.”

“We’re so glad you came here. We can offer a bridge,” responds Kim, whose own son and grandson have joined the group in the lobby. David Kim’s son, Paul, also works for Holt. Today, Paul holds his baby in his arms as he listens to Ko and Kim reminisce. The atmosphere is that of a family reunion, which seems fitting, as Holt caregivers become temporary family of children awaiting adoption in their care.

When Ko came into care, it was Harry Holt and his second oldest daughter, Molly, who embraced him into their family.

“You’ve got a picture of Molly? Let me see, let me see,” exclaims Ko, as we tour the Holt building. The crowd parts so he can see a picture of the young nurse, holding a child in her arms. “Molly was very special,” says Ko. “She always looked after the little kids.”

Our tour guide informs Ko that Molly Holt still looks after the children at the Ilsan Center in Korea, where children never “age out” of care. Those not adopted, most of them disabled or with other special needs, live out their lives at the center near Molly’s residence on the Holt grounds. They call her unee… elder sister.

Though busy managing Holt’s growing program, David Kim also became a parental figure to the children in Holt care. “I gave the boys haircuts in my spare time,” he writes in his memoir, “and often had the chore of spanking the boys who had misbehaved.”

“He was skinny,” Ko says, laughing, of Kim – a still slender man, with warm eyes and a gentle expression, professorial in a tweed jacket and cap.

“You were always in my heart,” says Ko, more earnestly. “This is a very special man.”

“I’m an 80-year-old man,” exclaims Kim. “I’m lucky to see you before I die!”

Photos of Harry and Bertha line Holt's walls. Here, Joey Ko points to a classic image of Harry Holt trailed by several children.

As we pass the hallways lined with photos, Ko leans in to identify Harry. “Mr. Holt was just a gentleman,” Ko says of the man the children called aboji, or father. “We loved him. He was wonderful.” Ko remembers Harry feeding the children oatmeal, a foreign food that became a staple of their diets in Holt care. He remembers receiving his own treasured pair of shoes, which children often refused to take off at bedtime for fear of losing them. He remembers sliding down hills at the Holt care center, and sleeping in bunk beds. He also remembers the day he came to the U.S.

Holt staff would often take the children on field trips, he recalls. “Then they said, ‘We’re going to America.’ I thought it was another field trip,” says Ko, laughing. “I didn’t know it was permanent.” If Ko were adopted today, he would know; as children available for adoption are increasingly older, Holt created a curriculum to prepare them before they join adoptive families. They study cultural differences, learn coping skills… and learn to say goodbye.

Ko never said a proper goodbye to Korea, a place he still hopes one day to visit.

“I came here on a miracle,” Ko says as he looks through records of his past – his picture in the paper, which announced his and his fellow adoptees’ arrival in Texas, and a picture of when he came into care. In this photo, he wears the same glowing smile as he wears today. He bears no apparent scars of discrimination, as Kim had so feared for the mixed-race children in Korea. But he talks of his early struggles as a Korean adoptee in the U.S. In the African-American community where he grew up in Texas, he encountered racial prejudice for his Korean heritage. Outside that community, he experienced discrimination for being African-American.

“It was really hard,” he says in a phone interview. “[But in] Korea, it was worse.” Worse on all fronts, he says. The discrimination. The poverty.

He also remembers crying for his biological mother. And of feeling, at first, like an outsider in his adoptive family.

“I wasn’t sure about love in my adoptive family,” he says. “I felt a black sheep.”

“That’s why we have adoptee gatherings today – so they can share experiences and see people who share their features and history,” says our guide, referring to adoptee camps, picnics and the other gatherings introduced over the years.

“You needed to see other adoptees,” Ko’s son says.

Here today, Ko has the opportunity to meet a fellow Korean adoptee of his generation – Susan Soon-Keum Cox, Holt vice president of public policy and external affairs. They share a heartfelt discussion in her office, a corner room filled with pictures of her family.

Toward the end of their visit, Kim steps in to say goodbye. Kim and Ko embrace, and pray together. The bond they share feels authentic, and it is. In Kim’s memoir, he wrote how much he loved visiting the children once home in their adoptive families. “They were in my heart and soul, having worked with them closely every day at the center,” he wrote.

I wondered if Kim had ever given young Joey Ko a haircut, or a spanking. He gave him the surname he carried for much of his life, that we know. And as director of the Holt Adoption Program in Korea in 1958, David Kim gave Joey Ko one more very special gift – the gift of a new life.

“I’m so thankful,” Ko says later, over the phone. “I’ve got a beautiful family.”   

Interested in connecting to other adoptees or adoptive families?  Holt International and Adoptees for Children present an international forum in Washington D.C!  This meaningful forum seeks to build on 55 years of international adoption experience, moving forward to strengthen the collective intercountry adoption community.  Adoptees and adoptive families are especially encouraged to attend this historic event!….for more information and to register, click here

As you read the title of this blog, you are probably thinking, what in the world is she going to talk about? Adoptive parents might be offended by this title, implying that somehow adoption was a “second-best” option. That is not what [...]]]> Adoptive parent Jane Ballback discusses internationally adopted children’s need for perfectionism

As you read the title of this blog, you are probably thinking, what in the world is she going to talk about? Adoptive parents might be offended by this title, implying that somehow adoption was a “second-best” option. That is not what this blog is about, but it is a serious topic.

This title, “The Good Enough Child” is actually a book I read several years ago by Brad E. Sachs. It’s an outstanding book and I learned a great deal from it. The subtitle, How To Have An Imperfect Family and Be Perfectly Satisfied, says it all.

How did we get to the point in our culture and society where we needed to have a book like this? How did we get so obsessed with being perfect? There are a lot of answers to this question. Parents who are older, better educated and wealthier than ever before, are raising the bar on the whole issue of parenthood. Parents are generally more likely to have been taught that they have an enormous impact on their child’s future success. And while that’s true, as usual it’s how you go about it that is so important. Many parents feel like if their child does not go to the right school, play the right sport, or evidence some unusual talent or skill, then they will not have a successful life. When I first heard the term “competitive parenting”, I wanted to drop out of the race as fast as I could.

I am one of those parents who believe that I’ve had a huge impact on my children’s lives, but I did it in a way that kept us all sane and centered. The reason this is so important for adoptive parents is that most adoptive children feel an enormous need to be perfect without any encouragement from us. In Patty Cogen’s brilliant book, Raising Your Internationally Adopted Child, she writes, “Internationally adopted children feel more strongly and dramatically than other children the pressure to be good and do what is right because deep down they still fear that they did something wrong that resulted in their relinquishment.” Because young children believe that adults cannot make a mistake, this leads them to believe they did something wrong, or they would not have been relinquished.

I saw perfectionism in all three of my children, but this story is about Stacee. Her perfectionism showed up first as she was playing board games as a small child. In the game of Sorry, she would often get to the game first and shuffle the cards so she would have the best ones first. I waited for that behavior to extinguish itself, and it did.

Her need for perfectionism then showed up every time she did something she had never done before. Prior to kindergarten she told me, in a very serious voice, “Mom, I need to learn how to read before I get to school.” No amount of me telling her that wasn’t so did any good. Her answer to that was to take a series of books called Bernstein Bears, and read every one of them until she had them completely understood. Along the way she did teach herself how to read, so she met her goal.

When my husband took her on her first camping trip with Indian Princesses, she learned that everyone would be doing the hula hoop. This created a great deal of anxiety for her that my husband could not talk her out of. She disappeared for two hours behind a deserted building, (my husband knew exactly where she was), and practiced until she mastered the hula hoop.

No matter how many times both my husband and I told her we loved her — no matter what she could do or not do — it didn’t seem to matter. The last time this behavior presented itself she was away at camp where she chose to learn how to tap dance. I know she worked very hard at this, and I would imagine she felt a great deal of stress, but I wasn’t there to talk to her about it.

When we arrived for the end of camp Tap Dance Show, I wondered how it would all turn out. At this point Stacee was nine, tall, and had very thin arms and legs. When the curtain came up and I found Stacee on the stage, she looked like a frenzy of arms and legs. I was absently amazed that she did the entire dance correctly, but was a half step off the entire time. I was mesmerized by how she even managed to do that so consistently, but she was concentrating so hard, she could not hear the beat of the music.

I wondered what kind of issue I would be facing. I guess my husband and I had told her enough times we didn’t expect or need perfection because this time, she was well aware she was off time, but didn’t seem terribly upset. When she said, “Mom did you see how badly I did”? I said, “You were a little off the beat, but, you did the dance perfectly, and I have never loved you more.”

That seemed to do the trick. Stacee still tries to do many things perfectly, but at that point she seems willing to let herself off the hook, and always do her best — but not obsess over perfection.

Read more of Jane’s post-adoption blogs, click here

Learn more about Jane, click here

As an adoptive parent or an adoptee, can you relate to this story?  Share your story for one of Holt’s online or print publications…email Managing Editor Ashli Keyser at ashlik@holtinternational.org if you are interested and for more information.

by Jane Ballback

My friends were too polite to say that to me, but [...]]]> Through candid (and often funny!) observations and heartwarming personal stories, a Holt adoptive mother shares the challenges and joys of parenting adopted children. Read more of Jane’s post adoption blogs by clicking here.

by Jane Ballback

My friends were too polite to say that to me, but I am often asked why I adopted twins? There are several good reasons for that. The idea first came from the social worker who knew I wanted more than one child. She probably got the idea because I am a twin myself. I was, and remain very grateful for this suggestion.

When I first began to think about adoption, I only thought about adopting one child. I figured I could handle that. As I was beginning the adoption process my own mother died. As usual my twin sister and I comforted each other a great deal as we went through the process of loss and grieving. That’s when I began to think about how incredibly alone this one adopted child would be — especially since our family was small, older, and mostly childless.

I never regretted the decision to adopt twins. The first night my husband and I brought the boys home we were greatly overwhelmed and not sure if we were up to the task. It was my “twin experience” that helped us through that first night.

By the time we got the boys home after picking them up at the Los Angeles International Airport, it was 10 p.m. and they were of course tired, bewildered, and anxious. They had been relinquished by their birth mother, spent time with their foster mothers, and then put on a plane with two new strangers for a very long flight. When we got them home, we did everything we knew how to do…we fed them, changed them and tried to rock them to sleep. Nothing was working, they cried and cried. My husband and I looked at each other at midnight and said, “Do you think we will ever sleep again?”  It’s then I remembered that my twin and I slept together in the same crib because my parents could not afford two cribs.

Twins Brandon and Jaik, with mom, Jane, and her twin, Jan

I said, “Let’s push the cribs together and see what happens.” We pushed them together and in about 10 seconds they reached between the bars, held each other’s hands, and promptly fell asleep.

As I think back about my boy’s adoption experience, I can see that they had a different experience than other adopted children because they always had a member of their birth family right with them. I do think that it made their transition, adjustments, and lives easier than it is for most adopted children. They remain today, each other’s best friend.

Are you a Holt adult adoptee? We want to hear from you!  If you are interested in sharing about your adoption experience, please contact Managing Editor Ashli Keyser