By Judy Halone-The Courier-Herald
For Sean and Jennifer Bergsma, big blessings come in small packages. And that package was signed, sealed and delivered last week in the form of a new family member - their son.
Sean Bergsma, 33, and his wife, Jennifer, 35, welcomed the arrival of their 16-month old son on Friday during National Adoption Day. The formality of the judge's signature, along with a little pomp and circumstance, became the fruition of the couple's dreams since taking the boy into their home as a 20-day old infant.
“To us, he's always been our son,” Jennifer Bergsma said. “But now, it's finally done.”
The couple began looking at adoption after hearing other couples share their foster-adopt experiences through the Children's Home Society.
“Ever since I knew I was going to have a child, I just knew I was going to adopt,” Sean Bergsma said. He hoped Jennifer would share his sentiments.
“Sean said I was meant to be a mother,” Jennifer Bergsma said. “When we were thinking of adopting he told me I was supposed to be a mom; I never thought anymore about that.”
The Bergsmas attended agency-sponsored classes that addressed the issues of special-needs children and background ranges, then completed an extensive homestudy, Sean Bergsma said. Through the process, the couple understood the state's top priority was to reunite foster children with their biological parents when at all safe and possible.
“The process in and of ourselves has its ups and downs for those who want to adopt,” Sean Bergsma said. “Our job as foster parents is to support reunification as much as we can. When it comes to the point where the state feels that (the child) won't have to go back to the birth parents, then the state goes through a termination hearing to let the court decide whether the biological parents' rights can be terminated. We can then petition the courts and attain an attorney.”
Their understanding of the system - and their love for their foster son - paid off.
“Then we got a call that there was a baby boy who was 20 days old and needed a home,” Sean Bergsma said. “We fell in love with him when we first saw him.”
The Bergsmas went through visits with the birth parents and met with a volunteer court-appointed special advocate (CASA). “They do the work the judge can't do; they act as a liaison for the judge and answer to the guardian ad litem,” he said. “She was great because she really looked out for our son's best interests. And it was helpful to know that if I didn't get the child, I knew the case worker would place him in a good home.”
Over the next 14 months Sean and Jennifer kept their emotions in check. “I had to look at the fact that my happiness was someone else's misery,” Jennifer Bergsma said.
Then the news came: The adoption would go through.
With the adoption now finalized, the Bergsmas will have special reason for saying their prayers of gratitude this Thanksgiving.
“God had a plan,” Sean Bergsma said. “Once we got (our son), we knew why we walked the path we had to walk.”
“Sean kept telling me, ‘keep your eye on the prize,' Jennifer Bergsma said. “There is nothing better, in my eyes, than being a mom.”
Judy Halone can be reached at jhalone@courierherald.com.
