Our Adoption Adventure

We were married in 1983, and have always talked about having two children – a son and a daughter (in that order). God decided to make us wait for the birth of our son until we were married 9 ½ years. Nathan was a definite surprise and our little miracle for us (who thought that after 9 ½ years, we would never become pregnant).

During the years to follow, we longed for a daughter. But it looked like another pregnancy wasn’t going to happen. So in September of 1999, we decided it was time to start looking into adoption to find the daughter that we longed for. After a lot of discussion and prayers, we decided that God was leading us to Russia (Or should I say “we thought!”). We both agreed that we didn’t want a baby, but a little girl between the ages of 4 and 6 years old – so not only could she keep up with our son, Nathan (who was 6 years old at the time), but he could as the oldest child in the family.

Our next step was to locate the perfect adoption agency to help us find our daughter. We searched the Internet daily, and contacted multiple agencies for information on what they could do for us. One agency that stood out as being very professional, and extremely helpful was Christian World Adoption. Not only did their information packet look qualified, but so did their video. Anytime we had questions (before we even chose an agency), they went out of their way to help us even though we were not yet their clients. So, needless to say, we chose to work with CWA – and we are glad that we did!

Within days of sending our application in, we received a Russia planner and a phone call from a CWA representative, explaining that the road head would be a rough one. We understood that, and continued on because we knew that’s what God wanted us to do. Several days later, we received another call that our Russia Case Manager. She was very helpful and informative, and she answered all of our questions.

In January of 2000, on the same day that we received our BCIS approval, we received a phone call from our Case Manager with a referral for a set of Russian siblings – a boy who was 5 years old and a girl who was 3 years old. A day later, we received a video of the children, and after reviewing it and their medical reports, we decided to accept the referral. Now came the busy part of preparing our dossier! That March, all the paperwork was finally complete, and was sent to Russia. We were just waiting for our court date.

During the next long 5 months, and after being in almost daily contact with CWA, we kept being told of delays in travel due to political and legal issues in Russia. To top that off, during our wait, the Russian laws regarding adoption were changing. After a lot of headaches and prayer, we decided that God wanted us to search elsewhere for our daughter.

After talking to CWA about our decision, we were assured that our daughter was somewhere out there, and we decided to switch to Peru. Within 3 weeks of that decision, we received the referral of three different little girls. But the minute we saw the picture of Maria Rosa, we knew she was our daughter, and that we needed to do what we could to bring her home. We didn’t even get a complete medical on her until later. We rushed to change and complete a new dossier for Peru, and finally had it ready to send by the end of October. On November 10th, we received the email from the Aguilar family (the attorney family working with us in Peru), that said “Congratulations! You are parents again!” We were approved by the Office of Adoptions to adopt Maria Rosa, and make her our daughter forever. We immediately began making traveling plans and doing last minute shopping for the trip and for Christmas when we came back home as a family of four.

On Saturday, November 25th (two days after Thanksgiving), all three of us (including our son, Nathan), boarded a plane to Lima, Peru. When we arrived at the airport, we were welcomed with hugs and kisses from our attorneys, Alfonso and Maria Elena Aguilar. They drove us to our apartment in Mira Flores, which would be our home for the next 3 and ½ weeks. The next morning, we traveled by plane with Alfonso and his eldest daughter, Maria Elena, Jr., to Piura to meet our daughter. When we arrived at the orphanage at about 10:30 in the morning, we were greeted warmly by the nuns and were given a tour. It wasn’t until about 11:00 that we got our first peek of Maria Rosa from a distance. She was beautiful!

At first, she was scared of us, and didn’t even want to look at us. But after about a half an hour or so, she warmed up, and finally let us hold her. We fell in love with her instantly! We weren’t allowed to take her out of the orphanage permanently that day, but the head nun was nice enough to let us take her out for four hours, as long as we had an attorney and two social workers with us at all times. We took Maria to lunch that day, where she experienced her first drink of Sprite. She loved it, and still loves it today! Even though we knew she didn’t understand English, she seemed to know what we were trying to say to her. She even said her first words of English that day, “good girl,” and we will never forget. We hated having to return her to the orphanage that afternoon, and she didn’t want to stay either. But we didn’t have a choice, and had to keep reminding ourselves that it was just for one more night.

The next morning, we went back to the orphanage and the moment Maria Rosa saw us, she came running and gave us huge hugs. She wouldn’t let us out of her sight. We left that morning with her, but the nuns wanted us to return with her for one last visit. As soon as we returned to the orphanage that afternoon, Maria Rosa saw it, and held onto us as tightly as she could. She didn’t want to go back. We traveled back to Lima the next morning with Maria (who loved her first plane ride!).

During the next three weeks, we were busy with social worker visits, obtaining her birth certificate, completing all our paperwork, getting her Peruvian passport, and applying for her visa. On December 6th, we got a call from Alfonso, and he told us the adoption was final, and that Maria was officially and legally a member of the Das family forever. God worked everything out for us with getting Maria home before the U.S. Embassy closed for the holidays, and we walked through the door of our home in Virginia at 1:10 in the morning on December 21st, 2000 as a family of four.

Little did we know at the time, but God put us in the Russia program temporarily so we could wait for our daughter, Maria, to become available for adoption in Peru. She has definitely changed our lives, and has truly made our family complete. She is so full of love and happiness that we can’t imagine our lives without her. We want to thank everyone at Christian World Adoption for their help and understanding during our long adoption adventure, as well as the Aguilar family in Peru for helping us find our daughter and legally making her ours. But our biggest thanks goes to God, for sending us to another adoption program so we could wait for Maria. We would definitely do it all over again if we had to, but not without Christian World Adoption on our side!

Willem & Robyn Das

Maria Rosa Das (age 9)

Maria, and her brother, Nathan in July of 2005.