Adoption: A Tale of Two Fathers
“The world may not change if you adopt a child, but it would certainly change that child’s world.” (Unknown)
To adopt or not to adopt. There are no right or wrong answers. Rather, it’s a complicated, emotional conjugal choice driven purely by personal reasons. After all, adoption is life changing. It is a journey of faith with only one requirement: nurturing, unconditional love.
David and Joey are blood brothers. Their combined three children, ages 14 and below, are bound not by blood, but by love.
I am an eyewitness to how they and their wives took a leap of faith to adopt vulnerable children from the orphanage and raised them into well-rounded individuals. Yes, parenthood requires love, not DNA.
Family comes first. Siblings David (standing, extreme left), Joey (seated, centre) and Maria (standing behind Joey) with their spouses and kids
Bound by love, not blood. (L-R) David’s daughter Sophie, Maria’s kids Miguel and Gabby, Joey’s kids Noah and Eve are like peas in a pod
The brothers live in a family compound (comprising three separate houses on the same lot that they inherited from their parents) with their youngest sister Maria, who has two biological kids. Watching these spirited kids goof around during carpools to school and at family parties is such a heartening sight that you wouldn’t have guessed they were not blood related.
They belong to a big Filipino clan of nurturing relatives who believe that “family comes first”. They were raised to cherish family relations. They organise reunions and holidays at the slightest excuse – visiting aunts, uncles, cousins from overseas, Christmas and New Year, school breaks, birthdays, anniversaries etc. These multi-generational gatherings are always animated with 25-30 kinsfolk in attendance, half of who are the young ones. It’s not a surprise then that the brothers have a soft spot for kids, their nephews and nieces, and dreamt of having their own someday. It didn’t cross their minds that they would be going via the adoption route.
When years of trying to conceive and going through a few in vitro fertilisation procedures didn’t work, they considered and chose adoption. It was the best decision they ever made and they have no regrets.
We fell in love with Sophie at first sight. We’re never going to let this one go.
Sophie’s World
David and wife Gold were in their early 40s when they adopted Sophie in 2007 through NGO Kaisang Buhay (One Life) Foundation, which then got in touch with the Good Shepherd Orphanage, from where they adopted Sophie. She was six months then, which is probably close to the earliest age at which they could adopt a child according to the rules set down by the foundation and orphanage. They wanted to get an infant to get as much of the experience of raising a child as possible. Now 14, the vivacious Sophie is in sophomore high school.
David: Sophie was very quiet when we first met her, and when we brought her home – no tears, no drama – it seemed as if she was just taking it all in with her big round eyes. But she got used to us real quick, and before too long was laughing and crying and doing all the things that infants do.
Adopting wasn’t an easy decision. First, we had to accept that we couldn’t be biological parents; then we had to decide that we wanted to be parents anyway, and that adoption was the way to go. And then you had to get over all the worries about adoption… whether you were ready for this, how you’d react to an adopted kid, or how they would react to you… all natural enough worries to have at the time, but in retrospect they do seem a bit overblown.
My first advice to those considering adoption is: make sure you’re adopting for the right reason, which is that you want and are ready to have a kid in your life. Don’t do it for any other kind of reason, peer or family pressure, or because you think it’ll fix some problem in your life that really can’t be fixed by adoption. And if there are two of you, make sure you both want this. Above all, realise that adoption is a lifetime commitment, just like biological parenthood - there’s no backing out once you’ve got your child.
My second advice is: don’t let your fears or self-doubt stop you. There are so many orphaned kids out there that desperately need someone to love and take care of them, it just seems ridiculous to let your worries stand in the way. Of course, that’s easy enough for me to say now. There were so many times during the adoption process when we asked ourselves: Are we doing the right thing? Will we be good parents? Will the fact that she’s adopted be a problem? But all those worries just melted away when we first got Sophie. Without being too sentimental, we fell in love with her at first sight, and our thinking immediately changed to: never mind, bring on the problems, we’re never going to let this one go.
You’ll get all the joys and pain and heartaches that come with raising any other kid. Except, I guess, now you’ve actually got a kid, which might not have been possible before; and that’s a pretty happy feeling.
We decided to change her legal name. Aside from the legal complications of having a different family name from ours, we did want her to feel that she was our child. Although we did tell her what her original name was, and as much of her birth-mother as we knew.
Sophie knows she’s adopted. We were advised by the orphanage to tell her as soon as she could understand what this meant, and it was the best advise they could have given. Hiding her adoption would not only unfairly stigmatise her, it would also make her lose trust in us if (and more likely when) she’d found out that she was adopted.
I told her when she was about 4 or 5. My wife had gone out with her friends for the evening, and had sneakily told me to read Sophie this new book she’d bought - which turned out to be all about this girl who’d been adopted, though I didn’t know that until we were about halfway through it. By that point Sophie had started asking so many questions that I simply bit the bullet and told her she was adopted, explaining as simply as I could what that meant.
Her reaction was very grown-up. ‘So I had another Mom who gave me up?’ ‘Yes, Soph, but only because she couldn’t take care of you. But she did love you, as much as we love you now.’ She was silent for a while and then turned her back on me - we were lying in bed by then - and was silent some more. ‘Are you ok Soph?’ I asked, and gave her a hug. ‘You know we love you very much, right? And that we’ll never leave you?’ ‘I know, Dad,’ she said. Then she sighed… and five minutes later was asleep. Of course, I stayed up half the night worrying…
After that we talked it over some more, but never made it appear like it was a big deal; until in the end it was just one other thing about her, like the fact that she sang Disney songs, or really liked chocolate…
One time, when she was in my office and sitting with our receptionist, one of our staff asked where she could find a plug adaptor. Sophie perked up at that and said, ‘Hey, I’m adapted!’ And before too long she was telling her friends that she was adopted, like it was no big deal - which it wasn’t.
Like any parent we have the usual fears about our child’s future, but none that relate specifically to her being adopted. We’re sure Sophie will want to know more about her birth parents in the future, and we’ll do what we can to answer her, or help her find out more about them; after all, it’s only natural for her to be curious. But we’re not worried that she’ll somehow want to replace us with them, because we’ve always loved and considered her as our own - and she feels the same way towards us. Sure, there’ll no doubt be other problems that’ll come up, but we don’t think that’ll be one of them.
As for Sophie feeling inferior, no, I doubt that’ll happen either, mainly because we, and she, have never treated her adoption as anything to be ashamed about. We’ve never hidden it, tried to justify it, or been weird about it, simply because there’s really nothing wrong with it. It’s just another fact of her life […] Sure, her friends might have been initially surprised when they found out she’s adopted (‘no way, you’re so much like your parents’), but to their credit, they soon forget […] and move on to other things, like music, Harry Potter, Marvel Movies, and Timothy Chalamet (sigh)…
Sophie’s in high school now and doing well; not a straight A student, but she does get good grades; more importantly, she’s interested, studies hard, participates in class, has her friends, and seems generally happy. She’s still at the stage where she’s sorting out her interests, though she does like to read, write, draw and paint; maybe she’ll develop an artistic side. Music was a pass, she dropped her piano lessons, which was hard for me to accept; and she gave up on Taekwando, which was maybe more understandable. Not a great chess player, though I’m trying to encourage her; but she’s getting to be fiendishly good at Scrabble, beating both me and her Mom on an embarrassingly regular basis.
The joys of parenting, I’m sure, are the same as any biological parents’ - and, obviously, they change as Sophie grows older. From her first steps to first words, from making her laugh to playing silly games, from helping her out with schoolwork to watching her develop new interests, it’s all there. What’s great is seeing how much she is, or isn’t like us; favorite subjects, fashion sense, music, creativity, her sense of humour, I think there’s a lot she gets from us, but also a lot she picks up on her own. But maybe just watching her grow into being herself is the best experience of all…
Eve’s and Noah’s Ark
Joey and wife Priscilla brought home six-month-old Eve in 2009 and one-year-old Noah in 2019. Both were adopted from Gentle Hands orphanage. It was not planned as legal adoption. It was handled by a sort of matching process between social workers of prospective adoptive parents and orphanages. The couple likewise did their adoption through Kaisang Buhay (One Life) Foundation.
Parenthood requires love, not DNA. (L-R) Eve, mom Priscilla, Noah and dad Joey
Joey: That one moment we knew that adopting the kids was worth the journey... With Eve it was the first meeting. Pris picked her up and Eve instantly hugged her. For Noah it was when we realised he was no longer the anxious kid that couldn't sleep through the night.
Eve knows she’s adopted. The advice given to us was to tell the kids as soon as they could comprehend the concept of adoption. We will tell Noah at the appropriate time also.
I am ready for the kids asking about their parents in the future. In fact, with Eve it has already happened to a certain degree. I answer her questions as unbiased as I can. Apart from that we notice Eve is very shy performing in front of a crowd and does shy away from something that might challenge her in the future. Not sure if it is adoption related or just a normal thing that kids go through.
Adoption was not a difficult decision. In fact, it seemed natural after our failed attempt at conceiving. We were raised in a family that never really had an issue with adoption and although people bring up issues like rebelling, traits and characteristics inherited from the biological mom and dad we always felt that these issues would come up whether or not the kids were ours biologically.
Provided both of you don't have any hangups on adoption (forget what others say) just do it, especially for Philippine residents, it is so easy. Our 3-5 months waiting time (shorter than a normal pregnancy I might point out) is nothing compared to other applicants who have to wait years and spend considerably more. Once you adopt, forget that you adopted. These are your kids now, all the joys and laughter and all the pains and sorrows are because of you as a family, not because "they were adopted". Also, like marriage, nothing ever prepares you for kids so do it and enjoy the ride.
Pris and I were adamant about doing the whole process of legally changing their names to avoid any future problems. We also felt that a change of name was appropriate because we are their parents now.
No real perils in adopting so far since everything we've experienced would be experienced with a kid who was biologically ours. Luckily, we haven't experienced anyone who is in-your-face against adoption, although some people have mentioned it wasn't for them. Also, once in a while, we bump into someone who says the kids are so lucky to have us, kind of in their minds we saved them, which can't be further from the truth. In the whole balance of things the kids give so much more to us than we give to them if that makes sense. As for joys, nothing different from the joys of having a biological kid.
Part of the joy of parenthood is discovering our kids’ traits and differences. Eve, for instance, was the sweetest baby ever. Perfect for first-time parents, she was well behaved, slept through the night almost instantly. Now that she's grown up she's a little bit more independent and brave (like when she needed stitches). Noah, on the other hand, is a handful. When we first got him he would have unrestful sleep for the first 6 months. Being a bit older when we adopted him, he seemed a little slower to adjust to us. Now, however, he's sweet and likes reading books. He does have a temper however, and will get into a mood if something doesn't go his way. Also, discovering how we as parents handle these traits.
Eve goes to Poveda. As much as I wanted to turn her into a tomboy who would go camping, biking and diving with me, she has turned to k-pop, make-up and other girlie stuff (not bitter....much). Noah, on the other hand, is also going to pre-school (although online only), Montesori. He likes transformers, construction vehicles, biking (with training wheels) and the beach. So there is hope…
I have a deep filial connection to David and Joey. As I was writing this article I looked back to the years I’ve watched their kids grow up. There’s no doubt that Sophie, Eve and Noah belong to our family and nowhere else.
Debbie | ws
Useful info: Gentle Hands | Kaisang Buhay Foundation | Guide to adoption in the Philippines