My Adoption Story

In the year 1987 we adopted our third child, a baby girl, a full-blooded Indian
baby from the Kuna Indian tribe of the San Blas Islands in the Central American
country of Panama. It was God’s idea and God’s project all the way. But to
explain that I have to back up a few years and generations. Because you see,
the plans of God are like a beautiful, intricate tapestry of events that unfold
quietly over time. We cannot perceive that the unexplainable happenings in our
lives may be a part of a whole larger picture and of strings of events that will
unfold later on in time….

Richard and Nancy Boss, my parents, were married in 1954 in Rhode Island after
a 4-year courtship. They knew before marrying that God was calling them to be
missionaries in South America. Some time later, after having me and my two little
brothers, my mother began having health problems which led to her having
surgery. Now she would not be able to have any more children. She recovered
and we were a happy family. But it wasn’t until a few years later that I learned
that my mother felt that our family was not fulfilled, not balanced. She had
wanted 2 boys and 2 girls. So we began to pray for an adoptive sister. And God
sent her to us, which is another miracle adoption story which my mother has
written. But this beautiful happening in the life of my family put adoption in my
heart forever. And even as a child I knew that someday I would do the same as
my parents, and adopt one or more children.

So in 1973, when I met Nano, the man who would become my husband, I
naturally brought up the subject of adoption as something that I was certain was
in my future. I wanted to see if he was on board. We spoke of having 2 children
of our own, and if they were two girls, we would try to adopt a boy, and if they
were two boys, we would try to adopt a girl. OK then. It was settled. He was on
board and my heart was satisfied.

In 1975 we married and proceeded to have a girl, Samara, then a boy, Nick.
When Samara was 3 or 4 years old and her little brother was 1, she began
asking for a little sister. And I would just tell her to pray for one. In the year 1982
we moved to Panama for a year. Nano had gotten a contract to work on a
research project with the Smithsonian Institute. While in that beautiful, fascinating
country we made many friends and one of them was Patty Will, who with her
husband Bill and their daughter Christina had adopted an adorable little Kuna
Indian baby named Karina. I once had mentioned to Patti that I would love to do
what she did. Apparently she never forgot that casual comment.
When Nick was about 2 or 3 years old, and we were now living in Puerto Rico on
a shrimp farm, I asked my husband if we could begin talking about adoption, or at
least looking into options. His answer was that he was satisfied with our family
just as it was and didn’t feel the need for more children. His cup was full. He did
not want me to look into it at all. And while I understood his position, I was

disappointed and disheartened and felt betrayed since he had agreed with me
back in our dating days. Being a woman, I was not going to let it go that easily. I
would wait a while and then bring it up again, to see if he had changed his mind.
This soon proved to be futile and we even had a few heated arguments about it. I
realized I had to leave the subject alone. But then I had the problem of a growing
resentment in my heart towards my husband for squashing my dream. For not
keeping his promise. For disregarding my heart’s longing. For standing in the
way of what I believed to be my God-appointed destiny.

And that was the very key to the whole situation. If it was a God-appointed
destiny for us, HE would work it out. He gently showed me that resentment
towards my husband was not a place God wanted me to live. Instead, God
invited me to live in a place of freedom to love my husband, my family and
ultimately leave all the details of my destiny up to God. So my young daughter
Samara and I prayed together one night, handing the whole situation to God,
trusting Him to work out His will in the life of our family, and we became filled with
the beautiful, supernatural sense of the “peace that passes all understanding”.
Life went on for the next three years from the night of that prayer, and the subject
was never brought up again. We were at peace and content.

Now Samara was 11 and Nick had turned 7 on September 21, 1987. Two days later on the 23rd we had a normal day of homeschooling and in the afternoon Nick and I took Samara to her ballet classes, and found errands to do to kill time until it was time to pick her up and go home. Ballet was 45 minutes from our home. At 9pm that night we
arrive home, tired from a long day, walk in the door and Nano greets us with a
smile from ear to ear. He says to me: “Congratulations! You’re a mother!” To
which I replied, with a bit of confusion, “Of course, I’m a mother! What are you
talking about?” To which he replied, still grinning, “She was born yesterday; 6
pounds and 3 ounces!” My heart burst, my adrenaline rushed, my face flushed
and my mind raced. The next 15 minutes were a flurry of conversation between
the four of us, learning all the details.

Patty Will had known about this Kuna baby girl who was about to be born and the
family had asked her to find an adoptive couple, preferably American. She had a
long list of her friends who had asked her to find them an adoptive baby, in order
of requests. But she always would pray and ask God to show her who the baby
was to go to before making a decision. She had already mediated 6 adoptions.
We were at the bottom of her long list. But she says that when she prayed about
this little girl, the Lord told her specifically she was for us. Mind you, we hadn’t
spoken to her for about 2 years. But we kept in touch through my parents who
were missionaries in Panama at the time and were also friends of the Will family.
So that night, while we were at ballet class, Patti called my mom and told her to
call us, let us know this baby was available and see if we wanted her. When my
mom called, Nano took the call since he was home alone. The amazing thing is
that he did not hesitate at all. He said to my mom, “ Tell them we’re coming to get her.”

This man who didn’t want any more kids. This man who had not even seen
this baby. This man who God transformed in that moment to open up his heart to
a total stranger to be his daughter for life. Amazing. Unexpected. Miraculous.
That’s so God.

A few moments later the phone rang again. It was my mom to say that the
hospital would release the baby to her in the morning, but they needed a name.
And she wanted to know if we wanted to name her or did we want her to name
her. We said, “We’ll call you in 30 minutes with a name.” And so the adventure
began. The four of us sat in our living room and for 30 minutes threw around
more names than we ever thought we knew, and none of them were right until
someone said Suzanne and Nano said, “That’s it!”

The next few days were a flurry of excitedly making plans, buying plane tickets,
and me doing manual expression of my breasts every hour so that by the time
we got to Panama I would have a healthy production of breast milk going and
would be able to nurse my new baby daughter. In my younger years I had been a
lactation counselor through La Leche League, so I knew all about nursing
adoptive babies, and had a few friends who had done it successfully. The kids
would also help me remember to do it. They were intrigued with the idea of my
being able to nurse a baby I had not given birth to.

A week after that destiny-filled phone call, we landed in Panama and arrived at
my parent’s house to meet our newborn daughter for the first time. She was tiny
and beautiful and sweet, and much darker skinned than our first two. I was
instantly smitten. I suddenly understood the expression of Adam when he first
saw Eve and said, “You are bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” He was
speaking literally, of course, but I was feeling that same supernatural bond that
only God can create. My husband, on the other hand was a little more hesitant
and told me he would need a little time to adjust. I whispered to myself, “Take all
the time you need”, completely confident in the work God was doing in the life of
our family. By 24 hours, Nano was going in to the sleeping baby every little while
to make sure she was still breathing.

A couple of days after arriving in Panama we took the baby downtown Colon so
we could meet her birth mother, Adiliana, and the other relatives.They were
perched on a street corner selling their beautiful and colorful  “Molas”.  My heart
instantly melted when I saw Adiliana because she was so young and vulnerable.
With a sparkle in my eye I told  her, through the translator,  that I wanted to adopt
her too. She shyly giggled as I let her hold the baby. She seemed awkward as if
she had never held a newborn before. My eyes filled with tears as I encouraged
her to marry later in her life and have more children. She appeared to be happy
and drawn to me and wanted us to name the baby Linda, after me, but we
explained that we had already named her Suzi. We took some pictures and then
said our goodbyes to the extended family members, aunts, uncles, cousins, and
promised to take good care of the beautiful child they were entrusting to us.

Communication with them had been brief and limited by a language barrier. They
only spoke Kuna. But the one thing they did say was that they were thrilled that
the baby would be learning English!

The next step in the adoption process was the paperwork that had to be done in
order to get the baby’s birth certificate, Panamanian passport, adoption
document, and lastly a visa to get the baby into the US. I stayed home with the
baby while Nano ran around with our lawyer making all the stops at government
offices, offering bribes in order to get the documents issued in one day instead of
3 months, which is the usual system in all third world countries. At one point we
realized we would need a copy of our marriage certificate and it was back in our
home in Puerto Rico. Getting a copy of it quickly was impossible because we had
been married in Colombia and that could take months to happen. So the lawyer
suggested that we just get married again at a notary there in Panama. So we did,
and it was quite comical. The Panamanian notary who officiated the 6-minute
ceremony eyed us with a bit of suspicion and perplexity as we sat before his
desk looking somewhat stressed, a little brown newborn in my lap that didn’t look
like either one of us, and me with tears steadily streaming down my cheeks. I
was upset at a moment that in his estimation I should have been elated. Just
before going to the notary’s office we realized that Nano would have to return the
next day to Puerto Rico to work, and I would have to stay with the baby in
Panama to finish the paperwork for the visa. Not knowing how long that was
going to take was unnerving for me and I was missing my other 2 children who
were back in PR. Thus, the tears at my Panamanian wedding.

We went downtown Panama City to the American Consulate to inquire about
applying for a US resident visa for the baby to enter the US, and joined the long
line of people with stress all over their faces. Most were bi-national couples,
Panamanians married to Americans, trying to get spousal visas. We watched as
couple after couple walked away crying. Then we found out why. To our
complete horror and dismay they told us that there was a two-year waiting list for
American visas. We begged and argued but there was nothing to be done. As
despair and desperation began to creep into my heart, I realized we needed to
get an army of Christians praying for this situation. We needed a miracle from
God. The lady who was helping us realized how upset I was and told me the only
thing I could do is try to get an audience with the Consul himself, but that it could
take weeks or even months. She told me to call the next day for an appointment.
The next day I made the call, hoping for the best and trying to prepare for the
worst, but God knew I was missing my kids and in His mercy He arranged a
same-day appointment at 1pm. I hurriedly got all of my mom’s Bible study group
praying for a miracle and decided to go meet with the consul by myself, holding
the baby in my arms for a bigger emotional impact.

I entered the Consul’s office and he was a serious, stone-faced American man
about 45 years old. He listened to my plea with no emotion, not even a slightest
flinch. He said he knew the law was harsh on people but there was nothing that could be done about the 2 year waiting list. My heart sank and tears began
streaming down my face as I purposely nursed the baby in front of him, for
impact, and I asked him what was I supposed to do……leave my baby in Panama
for 2 years with who knows who? Or stay in Panama with the baby for 2 years
and abandon my children and husband? Both were impossible for me. He had
nothing to say. All of a sudden and for no obvious reason, my eyes glanced up to
the wall behind his head, and I noticed a child’s drawing there, on the wall. I said,
“Did your child draw that?” All of a sudden his face softened, his demeanor was
transformed into a human father’s and his eyes became cloudy as he told me it
had been made by his adopted son from Romania. Bingo! The miracle! I said,
“Oooooh, so you DO understand what I’m going through.”

At which point he said, “Wait here a minute. Let me see what I can do.” He abruptly left the room for what seemed like a long time, and when he returned he had stamped a tourist
visa into her passport. Halleluyah! Thank you,Jesus! He said he couldn’t
guarantee that the authorities in PR would allow her to enter the US on a B-1
visa which was “irregular”, but I knew God had flung the doors wide open and
nothing would stop us now.

The authorities at immigration in Puerto Rico waved us through and didn’t even
look at her passport! Praise God!
Backing up a few days, I want to share another miracle God did in this process.
When we were still back home, making preparations for Nano and me to fly to
Panama to pick up our new daughter, our just-turned-7-year-old son, Nick, was
showing signs of being less than enthusiastic about the prospect of a new baby
sister. After all, he had been the privileged baby of the family for 7 years, and
somehow instinctively knew he would be giving that right over to her. He was not
happy. His 11-year old sister, on the other hand, was ecstatic. So we tried our
best to comfort him with positivity and persuasion, but when we left the children
with our friends who would keep them for a week, we knew we needed to pray
for Nick’s little heart to be transformed by God from bitterness and resentment to
acceptance and love for his new sister.

During the first week in Panama, I attended my mom’s Bible study group with
her and I asked them all to pray for our son. A couple of days later, while talking
to my children by phone, my eyes welled up with tears as I heard my little boy tell
me that he was planning to give his “Doggie” to his new baby sister. It was
monumental. His Doggie was his tattered constant companion, a stuffed animal
he had carried around and slept with all these years since he was a baby. It was
his inseparable friend and comforter, his most prized possession. I was
witnessing his heart-transformation at that very moment, further confirmation that
this adoption was God’s idea and His project all the way. A small piece of that
beautiful tapestry being woven from generations past and far into the future.

Thank you again for reaching out! If you are adopting or have adopted reach out to please! I would love to photograph your family! Click here to reach out!