So they turned to family. “We would need help with this,” they
told their parents and siblings. With everyone on board, Tessa
wrote the first $500 check to an adoption agency in June 2014
and crossed her fingers that the rest of the money would come.
What seemed like overnight, Tessa’s inbox exploded with
paperwork. She and Justin were required to take 10 hours of
parenting classes. For the home study, a social worker visited
their house to ask seemingly a thousand questions.
The hardest part was reading the online case files of
waiting children. Brief descriptions of the children’s physical
challenges
—
a heart condition, spina bifida, a neurological
disorder
—
were counterbalanced by adorable photos. The
Palmers were supposed to choose whom they wanted to bring
home, but passing up any child agonized Tessa.NEW HOPE
In May 2015, Tessa clicked on a file for a 3-year-old boy who
lived at an orphanage in Harbin, a city in northeastern China.
He had hemophilia, a genetic bleeding disorder in which a
missing protein keeps blood from clotting normally. For those
with hemophilia, internal bleeding can happen in response
to even the slightest injury (and sometimes to no injury at
all), and this can damage joints and muscles and cause pain.
Without adequate treatment, many of the one in 5,000 born
with hemophilia die before adulthood. His file also described
him as clever and extroverted. He loved playing with other
children. He could count to 20. He was a picky eater whose
favorite food was dumplings. He loved toy cars.
After talking it over with Justin, Tessa wrote the adop-
tion agency to say they were very interested. By the end of
May, they got the news: The little boy would be theirs. They
planned to call him Harbin in honor of his hometown. Now
they just needed to come up with the rest of the money.
The Palmers had already paid about $6,000 in fees. They
would need almost $35,000 to complete paperwork and cover
travel (China requires adoptive parents to spend two weeks in
the country) and other expenses.
Some people in the Facebook adoption groups Tessa
belonged to mentioned organizations that offered grants. She
and Justin would fail to qualify for as many as three-fourths of
them because they weren’t members of a specific faith.
They did receive a few, but one grant maker was truly excep-
tional. Becky Fawcett had battled infertility and ultimately
adopted two children. She and her husband could (barely)
afford it, but she recognized that few other families could. In
response, she created Helpusadopt.org. Since its inception
in 2007, Helpusadopt.org has given away over $2.7 million to
more than 300 recipients of all kinds. “Our doors are open to
everybody,” Fawcett says.
Tessa filled out Helpusadopt.org’s paperwork in August
2015, when she was panicking about $4,500 in upcoming fees
they’d need to cover before traveling to China. In October, she
learned that she and Justin had been granted the full amount.
In February 2016, Tessa and Justin flew to Beijing, then on
to Harbin. On a frigid morning, they were shuttled into a non-
descript office, where they waited with a translator. In walked
a couple of orphanage staffers, carrying their boy: Harbin.Tessa and Justin in China before
bringing Harbin home.MEETING THEIR NEW SON
Someone handed him to Tessa, who pulled out a toy truck.
Harbin sat happily in her lap and zoomed it around. That was
that. The outgoing boy known as “the mayor of the orphan-
age” didn’t really look back, she says.
Until then, Harbin had been given hemophilia medica-
tion only occasionally, not the regular prophylactic infusions
that are standard in the United States. To keep him safe from
bleeds, orphanage staffers “pretty much put him in three
layers of clothes, and they carried him a lot,” says Justin.
Before they left China, Harbin, then 4½, took a spill at the
zoo. When his arm kept swelling late into the night from
internal bleeding that wouldn’t stop, they headed to the
emergency room. It was a small sign of what life was like for
a boy with basically untreated hemophilia.
Home in Pennsylvania, however, the treatment was acces-
sible and relatively simple. Harbin began a regimen of IV
infusions of a synthetic clotting factor every three days. There
was a learning curve
—
and lots of tears. But now, three years
later, “He has no fear,” Justin says, laughing. Harbin is now
an Energizer Bunny–style 8-year-old who swims, plays soccer
and has two volumes: loud and louder.
That adding Harbin to their family hinged on a little more
than $40,000
—
and that they always managed to write the next
check
—
amazes Tessa. “Obviously we’d been putting money
aside, but it was hard to keep up. That’s why it was such a relief
when Helpusadopt.org came through at the end.”
Her own family complete, Tessa tries to contribute to
other adoptive families’ fund-raisers. She knows what a big
difference a few dollars
—
and a sense of optimism
—
makes: “I
definitely believe it will just work out if you start the process.”DO YOU HAVE A STORY TO TELL?
Send it to us at [email protected],
and you may see it in a future issue!Discover reader story
62 GH OCTOBER 2019