My story is unique but I believe anyone's family's story is unique. I was one of the first children adopted from FANA in 1975. My parents saw an ad in a Minnesota adoption newsletter to adopt children from Bogota, Colombia. They completed the short application for adoption and wrote a letter of interest. A few weeks later they received a letter from Mercedes Martinez, Director and Founder of FANA, that FANA would indeed work with them for an adoption. Four months later they received a phone call from Mercedes Martinez, stating I had been born and they would need to travel to Bogota to get me. While they prepared for me, they received one little black and white wallet sized picture that they carried around and proudly showed everyone and anyone who would look. "Look, this is our baby!" At the time, my parents didn't know anything about FANA. No one in Minnesota had ever worked with FANA before my parents. My parents bravely traveled to Bogota, Colombia, praying the entire way that there was indeed an orphanage called FANA and they would be able to find FANA and take me home. Well, they did find FANA and Mercedes Martinez. They were real! Their stay in Bogota, Colombia, was short - only three days, however; they returned to Bogota and to FANA two additional times for my two brothers.
I am the oldest of six adopted children. Three of us are from FANA, three of us are from the US with domestic adoptions. My parents also worked with Barker to adopt my sister nearly 20 years ago. Today, my husband and I, are adopting our first child with the help of the Barker Foundation and FANA. The wait has not been easy. The paperwork is endless...the wait beyond words. We have a picture of Benjamin and we proudly show everyone and anyone who will look. We pray each night for hope. My hope lies in the fact that my parents have adopted infants six times. My hope lies in our family stories. Stories my parents have told us and pictures they have shared with all of us from the visits to the orphanage, the Colombian decorations they saved for us that hang in our home, to stories about the wild cab rides in the Andes mountains that I just can't wait to experience myself.
My husband and I actually now know what my mom and dad were feeling as they waited oh so patiently for "The Call". I now understand what my mom and dad meant when they said they wore my little picture out. Benjamin is my screen saver on my computer, our wall paper on our cell phones. Now I understand that feeling completely when they said they couldn't wait to hold me in their arms. They said the wait was unbearable. Soon Matt and I will feel what my parents felt 35 years ago, when, as my dad recently told me, he watched as Mercedes carried me to them. He kept telling my mom, "That is Alissa. That is her. I know it." Then Mercedes placed me in my mother’s arms for the very first time. We recently came across this amazing quote:
Natural Child: Any child who is not artificial.
Real Parent: Any parent who is not imaginary.
Your Own Child: Any child who is not someone else's child.
Adopted Child: A natural child, with a real parent, who is all my own.
"Rita Laws, PhD"
Matt and I want children. It is not important to us where they are from or their background or how they were made. We want children to love and call our own. I replay the stories of my family in my head over and over as I look at the pictures in my baby book or look through the box of beautiful mementos my parents and grandparents brought back from Bogota and I am in complete awe of how God has worked in the lives of my family. I ask myself, how can people not believe in God? He has had a tremendous impact on my family - how could I not believe in Him. He has had his hand on us since the very beginning. Adoption is kind of amazing isn’t it?
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