EP35 - Gotcha Day

[00:00:01] Hi, everyone. This is Dawn Klemm, and you are on my podcast, Milkweed and Monarchs. I'm recording this episode on November 16th and November 14th. Every year is our Gotcha Day. Gotcha Day is a day that's celebrated by adoptive families everywhere. It's the day that you bring your children home from wherever they may be to join your family. [00:00:32] And in our case, it was Romania. [00:00:36] So today I thought I would share my adoption journey with you as a way to celebrate our Gotcha Day. [00:00:47] So I had started working at Maine Medical Center. I was working the 3 to 11 shift. I was on the oncology unit. [00:00:57] And at the same time, my husband and I had decided that we wanted to go through infertility testing, and we realized that I had a problem with my fallopian tubes, and so I was probably going to have to go through in vitro. [00:01:15] So we started that process of in vitro while I was working there. I didn't know anybody. I. I was new to the job, and I didn't really want to talk about it because I knew there was a chance that it would fail. And then you have to explain it, and I just didn't want to get into it, especially since I was new there. [00:01:38] So I had to take hormone injections to get my hormone levels up in order to be able to harvest my eggs and then subsequently put fertilized eggs back into my womb. [00:01:55] So I would go upstairs to a different section of the building to a bathroom in a hallway that nobody was there. I think it was offices during the day, and I would give myself my own shots. [00:02:12] And that's really how I started on the process. [00:02:16] Craig and I went through it in vitro procedure three times. [00:02:22] The. We were living in Portland, Maine, but we had to go to Boston in order to go through the process. [00:02:30] And the first two times that went through, it was a. It failed. But on the third time, I did get pregnant. And of course, we were overjoyed. Now. Now, I was 41 at the time, and I did start to tell people that I was pregnant, which in some ways was unfortunate, because I remember a lot of people saying to me, did you do this on purpose? You know, you're 41 years old. [00:03:01] I mean, people have kids late all the time now. But I suppose when you think about it, why would I put myself through that at 41? I don't know. I wanted to have kids, and so did Craig, so it was worth a shot. [00:03:15] So anyway, we were so happy. Our families were very happy, and we were all excited about it. And you had to have your blood tested. I did every week to make sure that the levels were high and it was remaining a viable pregnancy. In other words, it was going to continue to go forward. So I got to about the 11th week, and the level started to drop. So they told me that I would probably end up having a miscarriage. But they recommended, why don't you just go see your ob GYN doctor in Portland and have a dnc, which they would go in and actually evacuate the uterus so that you didn't have to go through a miscarriage. It was more like a mechanical miscarriage, let's put it that way. So I did, and Craig and I were really upset about it. [00:04:19] But then we started talking, and we're like, well, we're older. [00:04:24] Why don't we try to go through adoption? [00:04:28] When we first got our daughters from Romania, you would not believe how many people asked me, why didn't you get an American child? I heard that question so many times. So I'm going to clear that mystery up for you right now, because we actually did try to adopt in the US First. [00:04:49] It's quite the process, let me tell you. First of all, they want you go through counseling to make sure that you're going to be okay. They get a social worker involved. The social worker interviews both you and your spouse together and separately. Then they interview friends of yours to see if the friends think that you're going to be good parents. [00:05:12] And then you have to have, like, your home inspected. So the fire marshal had to come and inspect our house and make sure that it was going to be okay to have children in that environment. [00:05:25] And then they wanted me, as the mother to write a letter to the birth mother explaining why I thought that my husband and I would be good parents for the baby. [00:05:42] The program had been set up for this particular adoption agency in Maine that you would send pictures of the child to the birth mother through the age of six. [00:05:59] And there were times that. That you would be set up that she would be able to come and actually visit with the child. I remember the whole time I was saying to Craig, are we adopting the child or are we renting the child? Because it really felt like the birth mom was going to be way too involved in the situation. [00:06:25] Now, I know if you step back, think about it from a different point of view, they are trying to protect the child, because believe me, I've watched all those television shows where an older adult is looking for their. [00:06:44] Their birth parents and they get reunited with their birth parents, and it's all emotional and everybody's so happy and you know, but sometimes it's not so happy when they get reunited. [00:06:58] And I feel like, I don't know, maybe if you adopt a baby, you could have the information about the birth parent and be able to tell that to the child right from the time when they can understand it so that it's not so much of a mystery and people aren't seeking that out. But I don't know about having the birth mother actually really involved in the child's upbringing. I just didn't really know how I feel about that. [00:07:34] But nonetheless, it took me a little while because I was struggling with that whole three theory. I finally wrote the letter and I remember I wrote the letter and the program director called me up and said, this is one of the best letters we've ever gotten. We absolutely love it. What took you so long as I had to really think about it, you know, so we moved forward and there were a lot of children, I'd say, you know, like not necessarily newborn babies, but six month to maybe two year old children that were being given up for adoption. [00:08:16] And most of the women, so they read your profile, they read your letter, and a lot of them I think were not choosing us maybe because we were older. And that's understandable. I totally get that too. [00:08:31] So they were looking for someone more their own age to be able to raise the child. [00:08:37] So we got turned down a lot. And then there were a couple times when we were hopeful, but then we didn't think it was going to be right for us. There were a couple times where the child was disabled and Craig and I didn't know. I mean, we were both working professionals. Were we going to have the time to really put into the child and would it be fair to the child? So I think it went both ways. But there was one really particularly awful time, and I'm just going to share this with you, that kind of turned me off to adoption altogether. I was working and it was before the time we had cell phones. So I came home. It was in December, I'll never forget it, because I was excited that this was going to be like a Christmas present for us. Right. I came home from work and I had a message on my answering machine that said, oh, please call us as soon as you can. We have twins that were born today and we think you and Craig would be the perfect parents for them. So I was elated. I got on the phone right away and called Craig. And Craig was on his way home. [00:09:54] He was going to be leaving Work shortly. And you know, so he was going to, he wanted to be there when I called him. So he gets home, we call him up and she says, oh, forget about it. We tried to call you, but we couldn't get a hold of you. So we made contact with another adoptive family and looks like they're going to take the twins. We just thought that you would be a great mom because these truins are going to need a lot of medical attention. And since you're a nurse, we thought you would be the perfect person to adopt these children. [00:10:30] I was like, what the heck? [00:10:35] I said to Craig, I don't know. I don't know if this is going to work out for us. I really, I don't feel good about it. I think he was pretty much feeling the same way I was. And so in the meantime, the social worker would come to our house like every other month to see if anything had changed in our home that would make it not eligible for us to bring a child into our house. And they charged us fifteen hundred dollars every time they did a visit. So I'm like, Craig, this feels like a racket to me. I mean, I don't really like this idea. I, I'm, I'm kind of over it. I think he felt the same way. [00:11:25] So we talked to both of our moms respectively, and we decided that we were gonna not adopt in the United States. So we talked about doing a foster child, but the social worker said by the time that child is 2 years old, they're already probably have so many problems that you're asking. You know, she basically discouraged us from adopting a foster child. So you see, there are so many more variables to this whole adoption thing, I think, than people really understand. [00:12:08] And I just wanted to tell you from someone who has gone through the process what it was really like. [00:12:16] So we get, we go through the whole next year, spring, whatever, and our friend, my friend who was a physician had gone to Romania and adopted a baby boy. And she was encouraging us to adopt children from Romania. And Craig and I were like. But we decided, let's just at least go through all the classes and see what we think about it. [00:12:46] His mom, more than my mom, was really pressuring us. She wanted us to have children. So we said, all right, we'll just go through all the classes and everything. We had to go to Massachusetts for that meet with the adoption agency. You had to pick the country where you wanted the children to come from. [00:13:08] It could have been the Ukraine, I think Romania. And I can't remember the other country, Russia, maybe. I think it was Russia, Ukraine or Romania. [00:13:21] And so we picked Romania, basically because of our physician friend. [00:13:27] So we. We finished up with the classes and everything. And in the meantime, she had gotten her son home. Valentine. So cute. [00:13:37] And we decided, after going through all the classes and everything, this is ridiculous. We're not going to have kids. This is. I just don't want to do it. And Craig said, I agree with you. This is ridiculous. Let's just call it quits. [00:13:54] So the fall had come, and I always went home in the fall to see my mom. And we drove back to Hillsdale and I told my mom, we're not going to adopt. I think my mom. My mom was really devastated. [00:14:10] She knew I'd been saving all that stuff. You know, my Nancy Deer books. Those are like a prize possession. Why? I don't know. I mean, when I cleaned the house, my mom would let me go buy a new book. That was my reward. And I remember they were a dollar and 56 cents per book. And that was so exciting to me to be able to go and buy a new book. And I go in the vintage stores now, and they're $6 a book. So I guess there's a little good, a good return on the investment. [00:14:41] But I think it's just the memory that's attached with those books. I just couldn't let them go. And I was excited, if I ever had a daughter, to be able to hand down some things to her that I thought she might enjoy, which I'm sure she would not. Okay. But at the time, I didn't realize that. [00:14:59] So I said, you know, mom, there's that family in Ohio. You know how we drive by them all the time on the way to Grandma's house down there, and they look like they're in need. So let's box all this stuff up, and then when you're going down there, you can just drop it off. So we boxed up all the stuff. We actually boxed it all up. We were going to give it to them. [00:15:21] And then Craig and I finished with our visit with her, and then we drove back to Maine. Well, when we got back to Maine, I had a message on my answering machine from the physician. So I called her up, and she said, we heard about these two little girls over in Romania. And I said, oh, that's too bad, because Craig and I just went home and told my mom, and we've already told his mom, and we decided we're not going to adopt. [00:15:52] And she's like, oh, really? Let me Just send you the picture. [00:15:57] So it was at a time when we could at least get pictures scanned in and sent through email. So they sent us the picture of the little girls. And I took one look at him. I'm like, these are our daughters. My gosh, they look so much like Craig and I. I couldn't even believe it. Both really dark hair, big smile. [00:16:18] My oldest daughter looks so much like Craig. You would. You would never know that he wasn't her natural father. And my youngest daughter had really dark hair like me, curly, curly freckles. She was like a little image of me. So I'm like, this is kind of exciting. So Craig gets home, I show him the pictures. He goes, we're not going to adapt. I don't know. I think these might be our girls. I said, the girls were 7 and 9. [00:16:47] So in my mind, I was thinking about it, I go, we're Now, I am 44 years old, Craig. I had just turned 44 and I'm like 7 years old. I would have been 37 if I were to give birth to her naturally. And the nine year old, I would be 35 years old. And in my mind, that seemed okay. I didn't want to be this older parent with children. And I thought there would be a lot of moms right around my age that were having children. So I thought, this, this is gonna be. This will be good. I'll go to the parent teacher conferences and I'll fit right in. So it just so happened one of my friends was having a baby shower that night. So I went to the shower, and when I came back, Craig came up to me and he said, I thought about it, and if you want to get the girls, I think we should proceed. So we decided to adopt them that day. [00:17:52] And we were so excited. We were sending their picture everywhere and telling everybody about it. [00:17:59] It just so happened that Romania was in a lot of trouble at that time for their adoption practices. I think there was actually even a special on 60 Minutes talking about the abuse that had occurred in Romanian orphanages and what they were doing. If they would get a baby, let's say the baby would be put in the crib, and then the baby was never taken out of the crib. I mean, they would change them and everything, change their diapers and all that, but they never really let the babies out of the crib. And two year olds that were still in the orphanage couldn't even walk because they were leaving them in these cribs. [00:18:45] So the Romanian leader at that time said, we are Closing our country to adoptions until we can get our act together, this is not the right way to go about it. [00:19:00] Oh, excuse me. [00:19:03] So we. [00:19:05] They said from the adoption agency, in order for you to be able to proceed with this process, since adoption is closed in Romania, you need to get a letter from your congressman and have them send it to the Romanian consulate. [00:19:23] So I was like, okay. It just so happened that it was an election year. You can imagine that. [00:19:32] So the Senate, the senators were going up for re election in Maine for the federal court, and then we had the local senator and house of Representative from Maine for the state, and then we had our town office representative. [00:19:55] So I just sent a letter to every single one of them. I figured, what do I got to lose? You know, if one of them writes a letter, I will be happy. Well, because it was an election year and it didn't matter if they were Republican or Democrat, I sent it to all of them because it was an election year. Every single one of them responded and wrote a letter to the Romanian consulate. When I look back at that, I crack up every time. We still have all the letters. And I can imagine being on the receiving end in Romania to get those letters. They must have thought we were royalty or something, because here they have all these senators, state and local, House of representatives, state and local, and then sending these letters asking that we be able to come and get our daughters. And so we got approved to adopt those girls. [00:20:54] They were living with a foster family at that time. [00:20:59] So their mom died when Georgie was probably six and a half. Or G. I'm going to call the oldest one will be G and me. It'll be the youngest one in this taping. So G was probably six and a half at the time, and me was four. Okay, so. Or four and a half, probably close to five. [00:21:27] So they. Their mom had died. Their father didn't feel like he was going to be capable of taking care of two little girls on his own, so he sent the two girls to live with their uncle, their mother's brother. [00:21:44] They went to live with him, but unfortunately, he already had two little children that were right around their same age, and they didn't feel like they could manage to. To have four chill, you know, little children in the house. It was impacting their family financially, so they decided to put them up in an orphanage. [00:22:11] So I don't think they lived with their uncle very long. And then he put him in the orphanage. [00:22:17] They lived in the orphanage about a year. The oldest one always tells me stories of how horrible it was because they would get the kids excited when a potential parent was coming to the orphanage to adopt. And she remembers vividly always being turned down because they were older kids. [00:22:41] And I'm sure that lives with them. You know, just that rejection. I can't imagine you lose your mom, your uncle doesn't want you, and you're getting rejected for adoption. [00:22:54] So finally a family came to get them to be their foster parents, and they took them to their house and they lived on a farm, and basically they had the girls there to work the farm and help them out. That way you don't start to school till you're seven years old in Romania. So Georgie started to school. I think she made it through her first year, or G, I should say. And me only got about half a semester, and she had just turned seven when we were going to be picking her up. [00:23:36] So these were the two girls? Well, the. The situation was not great in that household. They lived there for 15 months, but they also had. So there was a mother, the father, the father's mother and father. So the grandma and the grandpa, and they had two small children as well. [00:24:02] So the mother was quite abusive to the girls. If they did anything wrong, like if they got their clothes dirty while they were at school, they would get punished. There were a lot of things that were not great about the situation, and it upset the grandmother very much. So the grandmother went to the adoption agency in town and said, you've got to get these little girls out of here. They have so much to give in life, and them living here is not going to be good. It's not going to be a good thing for them. [00:24:40] So that's how the girls ended up on the adoption list. [00:24:46] So we found out about him on September 3rd. [00:24:53] We sent all the letters over from our congressmen, and along with our own letter to the consulate, we were approved for adoption. And on October 16, they took the girls to court and they legally changed their name to Clem. [00:25:12] So within six weeks, they were officially our children in Romania. And then on November 3rd, Craig and I went to Romania to pick them up. Craig and I had determined in advance that we were going to stay there at least a week. We wanted to really understand the country as much as we could in that short amount of time. And we thought it would be good to keep the girls with us and kind of do some sightseeing and make them feel more comfortable with us before we brought them home. So we had gotten a hotel room for a week over there. [00:25:56] You know, it went so fast. And when things go that fast like that, you can't help but think, that's a destiny thing. That's the way it should be when it. All the things fall into place. Like every congressman wrote a letter in six weeks. They. They were eligible to have our name in the court. I mean, there were so many things that just. It just all fell into place like it was meant to be. [00:26:25] We get over there, and they had told us in advance, they want a picture of you and your husband, and then you need to bring them a gift. Most people bring coffee or things like that over. So we had gotten some really good coffee to bring over there, and we got a. We took a picture of ourselves and had it framed. So we were kind of excited. [00:26:49] I'll never forget, when we got there, we were in the hotel room. So the social worker came to the hotel room to get us. His name was Andrew, and so he could. He was from Romania, and he could speak Romanian, but he was fluent in English as well. [00:27:08] He drove us to the house to pick up the girls. [00:27:14] I mean, it was just like any old house. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary. It was a brick house. It had a brick front walkway. It had a yard. You could tell that they were, you know, working on the farm there. [00:27:33] And it had oil fireplace. I remember that. Not fireplace, but that was their heating system. So everything smelled kind of oily, but it was really nice. They had tapestries on the wall and very European looking. [00:27:50] So we get to the gate of the brick walk by the house, and there is the oldest one, G, waiting for us. [00:27:59] And I had gotten a Romanian CD before we left. And I had been practicing, you know, how to talk a little because I wanted to be able to converse with them at least a little bit. [00:28:11] It worked out good because I had taken three years of Spanish in high school. And Romanian is a Romance language. So many of the words are very familiar to me because of Spanish and also Italian, and my dad spoke Italian, so there was a lot of similarities there. So we walk up to the gate. Oh, my gosh. She was so. She was adorable. She really was. And I put a big smile on my face and I said, buna. Oh, my gosh. She just giggled and burst out laughing and ran right straight to the house, talking a mile a minute like, they're here, they're here, they're here. They're finally here, you know? [00:28:57] So they came to the gate. They let us, and we went in and we talked, and we gave them the coffee and everything, and we went Back to. We took him back to the hotel and we were going to get to know him. [00:29:13] Well, before we left for Romania, the people that I worked with at Main Medical center were over the moon about us adopting. [00:29:26] And they threw us a huge shower. I mean, I think the shower was like three hours long of us unopening gifts. And I am not kidding you. [00:29:38] So they were so excited, and we were so grateful that they did that because we had clothes, we had gift cards, we had everything we needed for those little girls. Matter of fact, I put a lot of stuff away and I still had Christmas presents I was giving them three years later that I had gotten from that shower. That's how generous and caring the staff was to Craig and I. Craig and I opened. Was. Came with me to the shower, and we sat there and opened the gifts together. And it was really such a happy day in our lives. Something I will never forget. [00:30:23] So when we were going to Romania, they had informed us that I needed to bring all their clothes with us. So socks, underwear, shoes, coats, hats, mittens, scarves, and, you know, blue jeans, sweatpants, whatever. Because the clothes that they were wearing would not leave the country. They didn't leave the country with anything. [00:30:53] They said that they will go to the next foster children. [00:30:58] So they didn't give us the sizes of the girls. And I just went from there. I knew how much they weighed and I knew their age. So I kind of went to Target and I had all those gift cards and I bought clothes for them. They eat. We bought them each their own little suitcase from L.L. bean, and we bought their shoes from L.L. bean, too. That was another thing. Shoes, you know, that's hard to. To do without having the child there to try them on. [00:31:29] And so when we got them back to the hotel room, each one of them had their own suitcase to open up. And they opened up those suitc cases and they proceeded to dump all the clothes on the floor. And they were so excited that there were blue jeans in the suitcases. They called them blues, blues, blues. They were so excited, beside themselves. So they quickly took off their clothes and they put on their new clothes, which fit them perfectly. Thank you, God. Another thing that happened that was so great, and. [00:32:11] And we said, okay, we're gonna go out. So the. Really, the girls, the oldest one was very savvy. She knew how to go to the market. Everyone over there goes to the market daily to get fresh bread, fresh produce. So they go to the market daily to make their meals. And the family had been generous enough to give us A big round of smoked cheese and a jar of homemade jam. [00:32:42] So we would buy fresh bread from the market every day, and we would have that cheese and jam and bread for dinner. [00:32:52] The cheese was called kash kabal. [00:32:56] And we just. We had such a great time. We'd set up the coffee table in the hotel room, and we'd make a little spread. And the girls were loving it. They absolutely loved it. And for breakfast every day, we would take them to the hotel restaurant. Another thing they absolutely loved. [00:33:16] One of the. My favorite memories, though, is we were going to check out of the hotel after being there for a week, and we got stuck with this big, huge bill. And Craig and I are looking at each other. Well, apparently, they had stocked our mini fridge with fruit, apples, and such, and they had also filled it with candy. And when Craig and I weren't looking, they were sneaking the candy out. They emptied out the refrigerator every day. And so we had to pay for a week's worth of chocolate and fruit. And Craig and I are like, oh, boy, lesson learned right there, right? [00:34:00] So we're on our way to go to the airport to fly back, and. And we're in the lobby of the hotel, and all of a sudden, G, the oldest one, starts screaming at the top of her lungs. [00:34:18] Well, the social worker wasn't there. He was gone. So we had to call him to come back. All the hotel workers came running over like they thought we were beating her. It was. It was a nightmare. We didn't speak a word of Romania, and we couldn't converse with that. And finally the social worker gets there, and they find out she has a toothache. Okay. [00:34:43] So he helped us get her into a dentist on an emergent basis. And she had an abscess on her back tooth. And the dentist said, probably because she was eating better than she'd been eating, and we had brought toothbrushes and toothpaste for them. So they were brushing their teeth regularly, too. So he thought that that had started something and that he drained it and said, just get her to a dentist when you get back. So we're like, okay. [00:35:13] So we get through that tragedy. We get over to the airport, we get all checked in. The first plane was going to be going to the bigger airport, so it was just a small plane. And the girls wanted to sit by themselves on the plane, so we let them sit by the. [00:35:35] By themselves, two seats on either side. And when the plane took off, they started clapping and yelling and hooting and hollering. And then everybody else on the plane started Clapping, because they were all excited. Because the girls were so excited. [00:35:54] They gave them the wings like they used to on Delta for the children. They gave them wings there. So they each had a pin from their first airplane ride. We get to the next airport, we get loaded onto that airport. And on that plane, they set us, the family, in the middle section. So there were the outside lanes. And then we were in a row of five seats Craig had made. Craig's mom had made these little fleece knapsacks for the girls if they got anything and that they wanted to bring back. So we had brought them to give to them, thinking, yeah, that's a good idea. [00:36:38] Well, we. We made it through the ride. The youngest one got nauseous, but she made it through. And we made it through the ride. It was quite a long ride. I think it was like five hours. And we flew into Washington, D.C. [00:36:54] and we landed the plane. And Craig and I are exhausted by now, believe me. We get them lined up, we get everything. We're ready to go, and we pick up those knapsacks. My God, they must have weighed 10 pounds. And Craig and I are like, what the heck? They were completely empty. What is in there? Well, they had taken all of the magazines and the cardboard inserts that give you emergency instructions from every single seat in front of them. [00:37:31] So all five seats in front of us with their pockets. Those pockets were completely emptied. And they were in the knapsack. [00:37:42] I'm like, just get the knapsack. Let's get the heck out of here. I'm exhausted. Okay, so we get out of there. And we. We had gotten a hotel room for that night, and then we were flying back to Portland the next day. Everything went fairly smoothly. We get back to Portland, we get our car. [00:38:05] It was so funny. Every single thing that had a motor in it they called a machina. A washing machine was a machina. A car was a machina. [00:38:16] A refrigerator was a machine. It was. It was. It was interesting when I look back, but we fly into Portland, our cars there, we get them wrestled into the car, and then we drive to our house. Now, the whole time I'm thinking, oh, you know, they're going to be timid. They're not going to really want to do much. No, not these two. We open the door, and they ran into the house, and they ran to every single room in the house. They opened all the cupboard doors, all the closets. They went into the garage. They went everywhere they could. They inspected that house from top to bottom. And I remember looking at Craig going, this is going to be our life now. [00:39:07] And that, my friends, was the beginning of the Clem family. [00:39:13] Our friends from work, the same friends that had giving us all the gifts for the girls at the shower, had put up a huge poster on our garage door that said welcome home to the Clem family. And they provided a big, huge pot of soup. Thank God, because I was completely exhausted. [00:39:40] But going forward, we would do the same thing all over again because it's been a spectacular ride. [00:39:53] Thank you very much for listening to my story today. I hope you enjoyed it. [00:39:59] If you have a story that you would like to share, please contact me. You can go on my website, milkman.com M I L K M-N.com Leave me your name and your either your email address or you can leave me your telephone number. Either way, I'll get a hold of you and we can talk about your story. If you want to call me directly, I'm fine with that. 616-843-1392 and I would love to share anybody's story out there. We have so much our lives that we can share with people and I hope that my stories are inspiring to you and they make you think about your own lives and how we're so lucky and blessed to be here together. [00:40:55] Until the next time.