Adopted Kids, Completed Families

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The Klopfenstein family. Photo provided by Jack Klopfenstein.

Over 135,000 children are adopted in the United States each year. Of those, 46 percent are private adoptions, 41 percent are from foster care and 13 percent are international.

Spencer Stringer and his wife Veronica adopted their son Ajay from India, a culture they love, when they lived abroad in China. Ajay was 11-months-old when the Stringers first met him. Spencer Stringer said it has felt like Ajay has belonged since the beginning.

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The Stringer family. Photo provided by Spencer Stringer.

“I think when we came back to the states to finalized everything, that was when he clung on,” Stringer said. “Honestly, at the point when we finally started clicking there, I literally forget that he’s not my biological kid. And he’s brown and dark as night and I literally forget that he’s not a pasty white kid from us.”

Lissa Anglin and her husband Shawn have been trying to adopt a girl from China for over three years. They have almost completed the long process and hope to have their new daughter home early next year.

She said that the worry and fear is starting to set in, but that the excitement makes up for it.

They are adopting what is considered a “special needs” baby, a term that varies country by country. A “special needs” child from China could mean the child is dealing with anything from asthma to a cleft pallet.

“We were okay with saying, ‘You know what, a biological child could be born with a special need and we would be okay with that,'” the mother said. “So why wouldn’t we be okay with that for an adopted child?”

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The addition of the adopted girl will turn the Anglins, who have two biological children already, into a family of five.

“I wish more people would consider adoption as a normal part of family planning,” Anglin said. “I see a lot of people really removing themselves from that picture,” she said.

Jack Klopfenstein, a junior electronic media and communications major, is one of many who have benefitted from being adopted. He and his three biological siblings spent years in foster care before being adopted together when he was 10-years-old.

“I don’t regret anything,” Klopfenstein said. “I don’t regret that I was in foster care because it’s helped me be where I am now. It definitely motivated me to be who I am and my work ethic as well.”

He said he is extremely grateful for his parents because life in a foster home was much different than in a forever home.

He said in foster care he felt like he needed to impress his caregivers and did not want to be too needy, since the foster parents had other children to take care of as well.

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The Klopfenstein family. Photo provided by Jack Klopfenstein.

He remembered vividly the first time his mother told him they were going on vacation.

“Over my ten years of living I didn’t know what vacation was,” Klopfenstein said. “So when she told me we were going to go on vacation, I thought that vacation was like going to New York, not just going anywhere.”

The Klopfenstein family continues to go on many vacations, since Jack and his biological siblings missed out on that when they were younger.

When he was six, Klopfenstein and his brother were almost adopted, but it fell through, causing them to close themselves off to the world.

That experience made him even more appreciative of his adoptive parents who kept him, his brother and his two sisters together.

“Sometimes you just have to say thank you and just appreciate it,” Klopfenstein said. “And, hope that what I’m doing now is enough.”

About Blaine Hill

I am the community reporter and a Junior journalism major. I'm an avid book worm and I know how to make pies from scratch.