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Four Tulsa families share their adoption experiences, and the benefits and challenges of bringing a child into their home.
The Halve Family
Like many households, the Halve home features a variety of family portraits. There are typical family photos — Kimberly and Lance Halve with their two young sons, Max, 8, and Zack, 5. But pictures of two other women and their children also appear around the Halve home.
These are not Kimberly and Lance’s siblings or even family members; rather, they are the birth mothers and siblings to the Halves’ sons.
“Both of our adoptions are open adoptions,” Kimberly Halve says. “We don’t really have any restrictions on our adoptions in regard to the birth moms being able to see the kids … It’s just very relaxed and very open. It truly feels like an extended family.”
Halve says she and her husband tried to conceive children of their own, and she decided that in vitro fertilization wasn’t a process she wanted to endure. She says she felt she was supposed to adopt a child even before she knew she was unable to conceive.
The Halves found Hannah’s Prayer, a local adoption agency that has since closed. They waited about nine months before receiving their first son, Max — the same time it would have taken to carry a baby to term, Kimberly Halve says.
After their positive experience with Max, the Halves began researching a second adoption. They eventually landed on an agency in California, where Zack’s birth mother was also searching for an adoptive family.
“You’re led to where your baby is supposed to be,” Kimberly Halve says. “… I feel like God actually puts you all together.”
Since the births of Max and Zack, the Halves allow the birth mothers of each boy to maintain a relationship with them.
“Both of those girls are like younger sisters to me,” Kimberly Halve says. “… It’s not uncomfortable. It’s very defined that I’m the mom, Lance is the dad and there’s never been any question about that. I don’t think there can ever be too many people to love a baby.”
The Halves are open about their adoption with Max and Zack. Not only are pictures of their birth families in their bedrooms, but they also visit each other a few times each year. More recently, a few members from Zack’s birth family traveled from Texas and stayed with the Halves for an entire week, which the Halves welcomed.
Kimberly Halve recalls one of her most enlightening moments, which occurred during her first adoption experience.
“I had difficulty when Max was about 6 months old because every time I looked at him, I saw her,” she says. “I saw her face because he looks just like her, and every time he did something cute, I wanted to tell her about it … I started resenting it because I thought, ‘I want him to look like me. I want to see me when I look at him’ … and I shared that with her because we were close.
“ … She said, ‘But when you walk into a room, his eyes light up and when somebody says ‘Mommy,’ he looks at you. And he may have my eyes and he may have my face, but he has your heart.’ And she said, ‘It really felt like you were in there with me with him. Your spirit was in there with him the whole time. He always belonged to you.’
“And I guess that’s how we all look at it. These boys were always ours, they were always meant to be ours, and it was just facilitated through somebody else.”
The Scalet Family
Anne Scalet devotes her life to educating and raising children. Not only is she the principal to 300 students enrolled at All Saints Catholic School in Broken Arrow, but she’s also a single mother to four children ages 6 to 13.
In her office, she proudly displays a collection of pictures of her three daughters and one son. But, upon closer inspection, it’s obvious that the four smiling faces are quite different, looking neither like Scalet or one another.
This is because Scalet’s family came together somewhat untraditionally. She adopted all four children when she was a foster parent to each one through the state Department of Human Services (DHS).
“For folks in my situation who aren’t married and for people who cannot have children, if they can go beyond ‘I want this child to look just like me,’ it’s a blessing,” she says.
Scalet became interested in fostering children 13 years ago when she heard a DHS representative speak about a dire need for foster parents. Soon after, she completed the nine-week training course, filled out the proper paperwork and became a foster mom to infant girls.
After fostering eight girls who eventually were returned to their birth parents or relatives, Scalet adopted her first foster child, Jasmine, now 13, whose birth parents terminated their parental rights when she was still an infant. The parents of her following three foster children, Loren, 12; Abby, 9; and Matthew, 6, also terminated their rights when the children were under age 3, so Scalet decided to adopt each child.
“By the time it came to put them into the adoptions unit of DHS, I was already Mom as far as they were concerned,” she says. “Not only had they bonded with me, but basically, they were mine.”
After adopting Matthew, Scalet stopped serving as a foster mom. Not only does her busy household of growing kids require more of her attention, but she must also care for the needs of Loren, who has fetal alcohol syndrome. Scalet says she knew about Loren’s slow physical and mental development before adopting her, and, thanks to physical therapy and lots of hard work, Loren now attends Town & Country School (her siblings attend All Saints).
Although she has no plans to adopt more children, Scalet wants to foster again. She says that, as her children grow older, she wants them to have a better understanding that “we’re just taking care of these kids until their parents can take care of them.”
Scalet’s home may now include more activity, noise and laundry, but it’s this busy lifestyle and her role as a mother that make her most happy.
“Adopting has been a gift,” she says. “The kids have given me so much. I don’t know how my life would be if I didn’t have my kids.”
Alicia Cannon
When Alicia Cannon’s three young sons ask to see pictures of her as a child, she doesn’t have one to show. She has no pictures, few mementos and no one to tell her whether her three young sons look like her when she was at their ages.
When Cannon was 12 years old, her parents abandoned her at a friend’s house in Ada, Okla. As upsetting as this may seem, Cannon was already all-too familiar with family instability. When she was 10 years old, her 14-year-old brother was abandoned and put into foster care in Chickasha, Okla.
Cannon later discovered that her parents had moved to Kiowa, Okla. She never again saw her father, who died in a drunk-driving accident, and she hasn’t spoken to her mother in many years.
Fortunately, Cannon and her brother have remained close through their family struggles.
“My brother walked me down the aisle,” she says. “We’re still really close.”
After her parents’ departure, Cannon stayed with friends’ families for about three years until she was 16 and entered foster care at the Area Youth Shelter in Ada.
Cannon says her move into foster care was scary initially, but a woman at her church made her transition easier.
“The first time I went into foster care, it was a little intimidating,” she says. “I was going to church at the time, and luckily one of the ladies at church worked for DHS and she made it a little bit easier. It was scary.”
With her insecurities, Cannon started to rebel, fighting at school and even getting suspended. She says she knew she needed direction. She finally found help when she moved in to her second foster home, where she says her foster mother helped turn her life around.
Not only did she enroll Cannon in sports and other school activities, but she also encouraged her to attend church regularly.
“She put so much time and effort into my life that I feel like that’s where I got most of my groundings,” she says. “She taught me about living life.”
When Cannon became a mother to her first son, her whole world changed.
“I realized what my foster families had done for me,” she says. “They had planted a seed in me to know that it’s important to take care of a child, and I think that if I’d never gone into foster care and I continued to live the life I was living, I wouldn’t have been a good parent.”
Now a mother to Ethan, 11; Kaden, 8; and Bodi, 1 1/2, Cannon and her husband, Heath, plan to foster a child and maybe adopt one day.
“We are so blessed that we have three smart, healthy kids,” she says. “It’s something that God has placed in our hearts and, eventually, when the time is right, that’s what we’re going to do. Whether it be tomorrow or a year from now, it will be good. God will let us know whenever it’s time.”
Cannon says she hopes to provide a home for an older child because those children are rarely adopted or placed in foster homes, as it’s difficult for the families and children involved to adjust to their situation, she says.
“There are children out there who need a family, and they need care and guidance, and they need a stable environment,” Cannon says. “And I think now that I have that, it’s my job to provide that. Not all foster children end up being horrible children … I try my best to succeed, and I’m a good person for the community, my friends, family and church. Any kid can have that chance if we just let them.”
The Szabo Family
When 3-year-old Piper Szabo looks at the picture taken of her 4-month-old self, she squeals in delight.
“That’s me!” she says, clapping her hands.
“That was you as a baby, wasn’t it?” her mother says and smiles at her daughter.
“I was getting bigger,” answers Piper, almost in thought.
The baby picture they’re viewing holds a special meaning to the Szabos. Not only was it the first image Piper’s parents ever saw of her, but it also represented the beginning of Karen and Gary Szabo’s new family.
After trying to conceive children of their own, the Szabos looked into adopting through Tulsa-based Dillon International, which specializes in international adoption, after speaking to families who adopted internationally and domestically.
“It took a long time for me to warm to the idea of adoption,” Gary Szabo says. “And once I was finally at that point … our hearts were naturally pulled towards China.”
From filing paperwork to waiting for China to refer them a child, the Szabos waited patiently for a year anticipating the good news from Dillon International: Their daughter was coming.
Karen Szabo says she remembers a mother talking about her experience during a pre-adoption meeting at Dillon.
“‘If you have faith going into this process, at the end of it, it’ll be stronger,” she recalls the woman saying. “‘If you don’t, you will have some form of faith at the end of it because you’re amazed at how things work out.’ And she was right.”
Along with six other adopting families, the Szabos traveled to the provincial capital of Nanchang in China to meet their daughter — six weeks from when they first received their referral and her picture at 4 months old.
Piper, originally named Wang Fang Qin in Chinese, which means “revered musical instrument” (and, according to her mom and dad, she enjoys singing), was found at the gates of an office building the day after she was born. Because of China’s one-child-per-family policy, birth parents often leave children in a public place to be found and taken to an orphanage. Children are later declared legally abandoned and are put up for adoption.
“Piper was phenomenally young and her (adoption) process was fast for her age,” Karen Szabo says. “We were just shocked and amazed that we got her so young (8 months).”
Since Piper’s adoption, the Szabos have remained active with Dillon International. Karen volunteers on Dillon’s Lunar New Year committee and helps coordinate one of Dillon’s Chinese heritage camps.
“They have a strong post-adoption service,” she says. “ ... You really do need to maintain their heritage and maintain an awareness for them of their homeland.”
Dillon not only offers heritage camps for adoptive children and their siblings from preschool to sixth grade from across the country, but it also provides birth land tours, support groups for adoptees and post-adoption education for adoptees and their families.
Although the Szabos haven’t closed the door on adopting again from China, they are happy to watch their daughter grow.
“Every waking moment, you’re thinking about this little thing, and how cute she is, and what she’s up to, and how much she’s growing in a myriad of different ways,” Gary Szabo says. “She’s just been a blessing.”
