National Adoption Month has meaning for Maumelle couple
By Ben Keller/Contributing Writer
Monday, November 28, 2011 4:08 PM CST
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| David and Cindy Collins pose with their adopted children, Sarah, who came to them from China, and Samuel, adopted through Bethany Christian Services of Memphis, Tenn. (Ben Keller)
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For many years, Cindy and David Collins of Maumelle thought they’d never have a child. Now they have two.
November is National Adoption Month, and both of their children are adopted.
Cindy Collins, 42, said she and David, 47, were married in 1994 and went through several miscarriages and infertility treatments.
“It wasn’t easy by any means,” she said. “We had our hard times and our bad days. My first pregnancy was in 1996 and when I miscarried I had several friends who had been through that to help me through it. Looking back now, though, I am resolved about it and I know this is how our family was meant to come together.”
In 2005, the Collinses started applying for adoption through Bethany Christian Services. They also applied to adopt a child from China. Six years ago, the process for adoption through China was supposed to be relatively quick. Collins said she and her husband’s official log-in date for adoption was June 12, 2006.
“What we didn’t know then was that the wait had increased tremendously around the same time we signed up for adoption,” she said. “The wait was closer to two years now because around 40,000 other people had also applied for adoption. We waited for such a long time and began to wonder if it was ever going to happen for us.”
In 2010, the Collinses finally received word about a possible adoption, but it was not from the source they were expecting. Collins said one morning she was relaxing and taking time for what she called her “devotional time.” She said she felt what she believed to be the presence of God and that she was told she was going to have a baby boy.
She didn’t know what to think, so she opened her Bible and began looking at the names of the different books to see if she saw a boy’s name she liked. She found the Book of Samuel, which she had never read, she said.
The Book of Samuel is from the Old Testament and begins with a childless woman, Hannah, who prays to God to deliver to her a son. Hannah’s prayer is answered and she gives birth to Samuel.
When David Collins first heard of hhis wife’s experience, he said, he was a little skeptical, but he was more touched than surprised when it came true.
“She is the more religious one between the two of us,” he said. “I was a little skeptical at first, but then, sure enough, we got the phone call.”
In January 2010, they received a phone call from one of Cindy Collins’ colleagues at a restaurant management firm she works at. The colleague said an employee of his was pregnant and was looking to make an adoption plan. The Collinses contacted the mother, got her connected with Bethany Christian Services, and on July 14, 2010 a baby boy was born in Memphis, Tenn. The Collinses named him Samuel.
The couple spent the first seven days with their newborn baby in a hotel. David Collins said because of the Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children, they were required by law to wait for seven days in Tennessee while paperwork was filed. He added that this also gives the birth mother the chance to change her mind within five days after the birth of the child.
The Collinses did finally get Samuel back to Arkansas and, for almost a year, it was just the three of them. Then June 30 they said they were coming home from a short vacation when they received a call from Bethany Christian Services: They had finally been matched with a child for adoption from China.
The Collinses said they were not sure what they would do, but when they received a photo and the limited information available on the child, their minds were made up. On Sept. 9, they left for Beijing, where they spent three days before travelling to Tianjin, where their daughter, Sarah, was.
David Collins said it was a completely different experience from adopting Samuel, mainly because of the huge cultural and language barrier. It would have been impossible to get anything done, he said, had it not been for their guide, who helped translate for them.
“There is a fairly large language barrier over there,” he said. “There were a lot of legal things that we had to take care of, and had it not been for our guide telling us where to go, we would probably still be over there.”
When they first saw Sarah, he said, it was obvious that she had not been getting the nutrition a child her age should receive.
“I don’t want to say she was malnourished, but she was far leaner than she is now,” he said. “Basically, she was living on noodles and water. As soon as we could, we started her on formula and, thankfully, she took to it. Now she eats just about anything.”
The Collinses spent two weeks in China going through paperwork and legal filings, but on Sept. 22 they left for home, arriving back in Arkansas on Sept. 23.
Their lives have gone through big adjustments since they returned, David Collins said. It is stressful for all of them, he said, not just the adults.
“There is a real big adjustment going on here,” he said. “We are getting used to having two kids around the house, and we are making sure Sarah is adapting well to living with us, which she has been. It’s just a big adjustment for everyone.”
Cindy Collins said that, while she has no plans to get out and promote National Adoption Month this year, she feels like it is something she will do in the future because adoption brought her family together.
“It really kind of snuck up on me,” she said. “It’s gone through my mind and I do want to do something, but for now we are focused on taking care of our children because every day is a challenge and full of adjustments right now.”
National Adoption Month dates back to 1976 when Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis supported a rally to promote adoption. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan declared the first National Adoption Week during the month of November. In 1995, President Bill Clinton officially made the entire month of November National Adoption Month.
According to website childwelfare.gov, National Adoption Month this year has been focusing on finding permanent homes for the 107,000 children and preteens living in foster care in the United States.
