The Cocco Adoption Journey

To fully appreciate our adoption journey, I must take you back to the fall of 1992. My last semester of college I lived with a single mother, Caryn. At that time, Caryn had three adopted children through the Michigan Foster Care System. In the four months I lived there two other boys came through their home. Funny, I hadn’t thought of this until now, but my favorite was this black boy about seven. I forget his name.

One day Caryn pulled out a large, white book. It was volume one of a set of four. It listed pictures and brief write ups of children available for adoption through the Michigan Foster Care System. One picture grabbed me. It was a picture of three little girls, ages 7, 4 and 2. The oldest wrote about their hobbies and interests, how they longed to have a family and to stay together. Had I been in the right stage of life I would have adopted them right then and there. I set out to pray for them regularly. I wonder if they were ever adopted? That began my adoption journey and my heart’s desire to adopt siblings.

Fast forward. Pete and I are married in 1993. By 2001 we have three biological children. Pete and I had talked about adoption vaguely but nothing specific. We had lived overseas and visited many different countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. We even visited an orphanage in Romania in 1991. But we did not have a pull to any specific country or nationality when it came to adoption. One day, I remember it well, I said to Pete, “I have this picture in my head of two little black boys. Does this mean anything to you?” His response was, “That’s the first time you’ve said anything that has appealed to me.” Great! Let’s go with that!

In August 2003 we attended the “If You Were Mine” Adoption Conference at Eastview Christian Church. It was a wonderful day dedicated to adoption. That conference did two things. First, it convinced my husband of God’s heart and our responsibility regarding adoption. Secondly, it convinced me that we needed to wait; that our family was not ready.

My only disappointment with the conference was that a substantial amount of time was devoted to statistics and the orphan crisis in Africa. But then nothing was mentioned about how to adopt from there. No agencies, no information, nothing. In doing LOTS of research I quickly realized our options were pretty much limited to Sierra Leone, Liberia or Ethiopia. We considered all three but in the end landed on Ethiopia, perhaps because the children are so beautiful, perhaps because of the deep, historical significance of this country, perhaps because that is where our children were and the Lord wanted us to find them. After several years of research and waiting, we decided in October 2005 to pursue an Ethiopian adoption.

My oldest daughter, Micah, turned eight on February 6, 2006. She had asked as a birthday present to know who we would be adopting. On Monday, February 6th, we accepted a referral of a seven year old boy, Yared. We looked at ten different boys and sibling groups but Yared had a sparkle in his eye. He even looks like our six year old son! I have been praying for several years that “Judah” would have hope. We love the story of Judah being born to Leah and Jacob. After give birth to three sons, trying desperately to gain her husband’s affection, Leah gives up and names the fourth son, Judah, saying “I will praise the Lord”. This boy was happy and looked as though he had hope. We knew he needed to be in our family. I knew he was our Judah.

At that point we were also considering another little boy, aged 3-5. But something held us back. We told Micah on her birthday that we knew who we were adopting. She said, “Is there a girl, mommy?”
“No, sweetie, there is one boy and possibly two.”
“That’s okay. But I prayed this morning for a seven year old sister.”

On Tuesday we get an email from CWA saying they do not recommend people adopt two children the same age, but since this other boy is younger it should be fine. But we still were not convinced. On Wednesday I had an email saying, “I know what I just said about adopting children the same age, but I’m wondering if you are only interested in boys. I have a seven year old girl whose family backed out because they cannot come up with the money. I have other families interested in her, but I wanted to ask you first. Her name is Bethlehem Daniel.” Why ask us? Because the Lord was answering a little girl’s prayers!

I FLIPPED OUT! I recognized this girl’s name. A month and a half earlier Micah had seen Bethlehem on a DVD and had been begging us to adopt her. I had told Micah that Bethlehem has a family so let’s be happy for her, that we were not adopting a seven year old girl (Micah was still seven at this time). I told her that if she wanted a sister she’d have to ask God for her. Apparently, she did! I called Pete and exclaimed, “We have to consider this. This is Micah’s girl!” It didn’t take us long to realize that Bethlehem was meant to be in our family also.

We pulled Micah out of school early to tell her the news. Through tears I asked her, “Micah, what have you been praying about?”
In her very stoic manner, she answered, “That we’d adopt a girl.”
“That’s right. (More tears.) And who have you been praying for?”
“That girl on the video.”
“She’s going to be your sister, Micah! Bethlehem is going to be your sister!”

We had talked about the name Mattea for a girl. Mattea means “gift of god”. Gift of God. That describes Bethlehem to a tee!

And there you have it. Our adoption journey to find Judah Yared-Ketema Cocco and Mattea Bethlehem Cocco. I can’t wait to tell them the story from our perspective and to ask Bethlehem what it was that she had been praying for.

Paulette Cocco