Success Stories

Seven years ago, my husband and I welcomed the birth of our son, Hagan. The pregnancy and birth were difficult, and I had some after-effects that took a while to go away. When Hagan was about three years old, we discussed the possibility of an addition to the family, and with much thought decided to adopt and forego the possible physical complications. Once the decision to adopt had been made, our hearts were filled with love of the prospect of a new child.

We began the investigation on the internet, as most people do. I work as an Operations Director at a large Drug Treatment facility and saw too many times where domestic adoption had gone awry, when the birth mother would get clean and sober and file an injunction. From my personal and limited experience with domestic adoption, we opted to go the international route. The other appeal was that we could reach out and help a child who may not otherwise be adopted.

I contacted (via email) about six agencies, and thought I would interview each one and decide. Within a day or so, Diana Skaggs at Faithful Adoption had emailed me a response with a contact number to call her if needed. I am a reasonably compulsive person and emailed her a list of questions I had about international adoption. We had not chosen a country or agency and were so new to the process, we had so many questions. Diana sent me an email filled with information. I was so impressed. She offered to call me on a prearranged time. She called and we talked on the phone for over an hour while I fired questions at her and she answered them all.

Over the next week or so, we received packages of information – a corporate marketing package in one form or another – all from the other agencies I had contacted. No phone call and no emails. Meanwhile Diana and I were burning up the airwaves with emails. Going with Faithful was an easy decision. They were responsive, and immediately felt like family! To this day, she is the only “live” person that contacted us about the adoption.

Originally, we decided upon Ukraine for our country of adoption. We knew we wanted to get a child younger than our son, who was now four. We did not care about race, or gender. Soon, we read that boys are less likely to be adopted – so we felt compelled to adopt a boy. Soon after that, I had read that boys over the age of two that are not adopted will likely spend their lives in an orphanage, and it saddened us so much that we decided to adopt a boy aged 2, 3 or 4. Our son was happy, too, as he really wanted a brother.

We chose Ukraine because Diana had a lot of recent experience, and most importantly it required only one trip to the country. Neither Wade nor I could handle the thought of going and meeting our children, and then leaving to return a few months later. Wade knew I wouldn’t be able to do that! So we purposely chose a country with one trip. With Ukraine, you receive your referral in country, not before you go, so that was going to be difficult, but we knew we could do it.

Just after we started the process with Ukraine the country underwent many changes politically, and during the chaos within their country the process ground to a halt. I sum our experience up in one sentence, but it was a year and a half of waiting, doing paperwork, hearing one thing and then another… it was taxing, and sometimes it didn’t feel like it was worth it. I shed many tears about the disruption and delays and at many times I lost hope. Diana was there for us each step of the way. She let us know what was happening and helped us out all along. I am so grateful to her for that.

Finally, after over a year of the Ukraine process starting and stopping and taking every turn, in late April of 2006 Diana called me on a Saturday morning with devastating news. Our dossier was on hold and Ukraine was shutting down its international adoption to reorganize!

I was upset, but also sensed that this might happen. Diana stated there were other countries, and started listing the pros and cons of each. She mentioned China was another one trip travel, and that appealed to us, but boys were difficult to come by. Then she mentioned that there was a new referral in the special needs category for a little boy aged 3 years. I wasn’t sure if I was prepared to do a special needs child, but she told me he had a cleft lip and palate and had already had the surgery. It was near the end of our conversation, and she stated she would send the medical file to us via email and his photo. The second I opened that email and looked at him, I knew he was ours. I busted into tears and wanted to go get him. My husband was at work and I had to discuss it with him. That night when he came home I told him of the conversation, the bad news and showed him the referral photo and paperwork. He too knew instantly that was our son.

And so, the process to switch countries and start the dossier process over again – from the beginning started! Whew! Daunting task, but Diana assured us, and introduced us via email and telephone to our China contact Cyndi Peck. Cyndi worked diligently with us to get the paperwork in order and sent off as quickly as we could.

Cyndi Peck was, and is, exceptional! She helped us with understanding the country we switched to. She is an expert on China adoption and answered all questions, returned emails and acted as our counselor! She stayed on the phone with me one night for almost an hour while I asked her questions. There were many nights driving home from work and talking to Cyndi on my cell phone to get ready to travel. Our paperwork was started in May 2006, finished in July 2006 and in November 2006 we received our notice to travel to China!!!

I don’t think I can describe the joy of getting the final approval to travel. We were nervous and excited! Cyndi sat with us on the phone for two nights before we left, and reviewed everything. Diana was cheering us on!

On November 16th we left for China!! I was nervous, and although prepared, a bit worried about overseas travel, plane changes, transportation etc. And all of our fears were without merit! The trip was wonderful, organized, and safe!

The group that Faithful Adoption works with in China is incomparable - OCDF (Our Chinese Daughters Foundation) is above and beyond anything we could have expected. We will never travel like that again! It was like being rock stars! They take such good care of you. The entire experience was dynamic. They were so friendly, helpful. There were glitches along the way, as expected, but they always made things right. Our facilitator in China, Michael was so wonderful. See our photo album and travel blog for all the details! (located on the China page)

On November 23, 2006 we met our son Quinn for the first time! He is such an amazing boy. Very happy and loving. Within moments of meeting us he was call in me Ma Ma and Wade Ba Ba (Chinese for Daddy) and Hagan Ge Ge (older brother). He has brought so much joy to our lives. The transition has been easy. I keep telling people that and I don’t know if they can believe it. We are just meant to be with him and so naturally a family of four. We love Quinn as we love Hagan, we are enjoying getting to know him and can’t wait to see him grow up as our son. I am so grateful that he is in our lives and we have our two boys!

Thank you so much Diana, Cyndi, Michael, Chen, Naomi, Sergey and EVERYONE at Faithful Adoptions and OCDF for your support through our adoption. Without your guidance and help, we would never have been able to meet our wonderful son and complete our family!

Please log onto our blog any time - found on the China page - and see our trip and our family!

With Gratitude,

The Kleiser Family