Search Goes Global

Wendy and Mike Cummings lived to give life.

When that was no longer possible, they went to the ends of the Earth searching for it. Their quest for a family takes surprising twists as hope turn to despair in the third of this four-part series.

BY JESSICA D. MATTHEWS THE SUNDAY TIMES

Numbness overtakes Wendy Cummings when she sees the infant boy with his young mother, standing behind her in the checkout aisle.

The baby is about the right age -- 2 months old. So is his mother -- in her mid-20s.

Wendy stops in her tracks.

"Is that our son?" she thinks.

It was two months ago that she and her husband, Mike, had their lifelong dreams to start a family crushed by a 25-year-old pregnant woman. The couple had turned to domestic adoption after five years of infertility treatments that resulted in their losing two sets of twins. Wendy was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome, the leading cause of infertility in women.

The girl, the older sister of one of Wendy's math students in the Old Forge School District, had agreed the Scranton couple would adopt her baby. For months before giving birth, she had assured them she would go through with the adoption because she could not afford to keep the baby and had no support from her boyfriend, the baby's father.

Wendy and Mike did not learn that she delivered a baby boy until two days after she had given birth near the end of April 2001.

The girl told the couple's adoption lawyer, Barbara Casey, that she changed her mind.

Wendy later learned through friends that the girl never intended to give her baby up for adoption. They suspected it was a ploy to get back at her boyfriend, who she said did not visit or pay child support for their first son.

The Cummings never met the woman, having only talked to her and her mother over the telephone.

Wendy caught a glimpse of the woman when she picked up her sister after school. But in her mind, this baby and young mother standing behind her could easily be them.

"The pain is unbelievable," she tells Mike. "It's a death but we have nothing to bury. I wonder if she thinks about what she did to us."

Wendy starts to have nightmares, waking because she hears a baby crying in the room that will be their nursery. Mother's Day and Father's Day bring breakdowns.

"I think about the twins we lost and now this baby," she says. "It breaks my heart."

Mike reasons with her, but his heart breaks too not just for the losses but for what his wife is going through.

"We have to go on," he says. "We did everything we could have done. It was out of our control. Maybe this is for the best."

It had taught them to be more cautious -- with their questions and their hearts -- and to look for early warning signs. This girl had never filled out the adoption forms their lawyer sent her. That was a red flag they did not consider earlier.

Mike cancels their order for a crib. He puts away the car seat they had just purchased, along with other items for the baby. It had all been sitting in a room near the front door so they could grab it on their way to the hospital to take the baby home.

Mrs. Casey e-mails them more leads of birth mothers interested in adoption. The couple also decides to advertise on their own.

A few leads sound promising -- a 16-year-old in Ohio pregnant with twins; a pregnant college student in Texas; a 34-year-old pregnant mother of five in Arkansas; an eighth-grader in Texas.

They start to recognize ones that seem questionable.

One girl seems only to care about getting money.

A referral agency keeps sending them leads, but they notice a pattern. The agency often relocates the pregnant girls to Utah -- a state that has no restrictions on what adopted parents can spend for the birth mother's expenses.

Then there is the girl from Georgia who has been pregnant 12 times and has six children all living with relatives or friends. The Cummings learn from the woman's sister that she is also addicted to painkillers.

They continue their quest for a family.

They sign up with the Lackawanna County Children and Youth Adoption Program. Wendy visits online chat rooms and message boards for adopting parents. Mike advertises in more newspapers.

Their babyline -- a toll-free number the couple had set up for birth mothers to contact them -- rings again.

"My heart jumps every time the phone rings," Wendy says. "I'm more guarded now because of what happened. But you just want to say to them, 'Pick us, pick us, pick us.'"

Wendy jots down notes. They mail more profiles.

Sometimes there are multiple phone calls with the same birth mother. Those are the ones that get Wendy's hopes up the most.

Then the phone stops ringing.

The waiting becomes tortuous.

They rarely get to know the outcome and are left wondering. Did that one get our profile? Did she choose another couple? Was she really pregnant?

"It's a roller coaster," Mike says. "But I would rather be on the roller coaster than not on the ride at all."

Then comes an e-mail they can't ignore.

"For $37,000, we could have a baby next week," Mike reads. "The birth mother is in Oklahoma."

The price -- which includes medical bills, maternity clothing, food and other pregnancy-related items -- is out of their league -- no matter how many ways they try to come up with the money.

If we wanted to spend that much, we would have done an international adoption, Mike reminds Wendy.

"This is basically like selling a baby legally," Wendy says to Mike. "But I can't stop thinking that this is a solid lead. We can have a baby. You think with your head. I think with my heart."

They try to remain positive when deep down they both are feeling beat. It's already August. They are no closer to adopting a baby then they were 10 months ago when they first met with their adoption attorney.

The babyline rings. Hope creeps back into their hearts.

"So you're due in six months," Wendy repeats back to the Hispanic woman on the other end of the receiver.

She grabs a pad of paper. Mike stretches across their dining room table to try to read what she is writing.

Wendy tells the woman about the torment the couple has been through, from unsuccessful infertility treatments to the young woman who strung them along.

"She sounded nervous," Wendy tells Mike after saying goodbye to the woman. "But she said I was the easiest person to talk to so far."

The woman, who is from Texas, lives with her family and has other children. They cannot afford another baby. Her mother does not know she's pregnant again.

Wendy and Mike mail her a profile. She calls them when she receives it and then regularly after that. She wants to know if the Cummings will come to Texas for a visit before she gives birth. She is excited to meet them. She asks questions about their parenting plans. She promised to send them a copy of her pregnancy test and to get prenatal care.

Wendy believes she is sincere. Mike remains cautious.

"She's not due until six months," he says. "Anything can happen in six months."

The next two months seem to fly by. Wendy can hardly believe it is already Oct. 12 -- their 10-year anniversary.

Mike has big plans. He will surprise Wendy with a tanzanite ring. He noticed her admiring the purplish stone a while ago. So, he had a tanzanite ring custom made for her. While Wendy was in the shower, he scanned images of her wedding rings onto their computer so the jeweler could determine the correct size.

"You mean the most to me," he says when he gives her the ring that night.

She cries.

Most couples would feel the stress and tension pulling them apart after years of heartbreaking losses and daily struggles just to go on. The Cummings' love grows deeper.

A little more than a week after their anniversary, they decide to attend a seminar on international adoptions being held at a Wilkes-Barre hotel. They had already been to a similar meeting in January and decided they had no interest in adopting overseas. And now they have the woman in Texas. She is their best hope. But, they figure the evening might be worthwhile to do some more networking with other area couples who had adopted, just in case.

Nearly a dozen people sit at tables in the hotel conference room listening to a presentation by representatives of

, a nonprofit, licensed adoption agency out of Rosyln, near Philadelphia.

Wendy glances at a display in the front of the room. There are photographs of children and babies up for adoption in countries like Cambodia, Guatemala, Kazakhstan and China.

Kelli Myers-Gottemoller, a supervisor with the agency, explains the steps to adopt internationally. Couples -- and in some countries, single parents -- fill out the agency's adoption application. Then they take a parenting preparatory training class, which she runs. They must have a home study done and apply for Immigration and Naturalization Service approval to adopt internationally. Then the agency matches them with a baby or child and the couple travels to pick up their new addition.

Wendy takes notes.

When Mrs. Myers-Gottemoller says the costs for international adoptions with her agency range from $18,000 to $28,000, Mike flips through a packet of information on the table to read more about the fees.

She also reviews the restrictions and time frames in various countries.

"We just adopted in August from Cambodia," she tells the group. "It was very fast."

Her baby was just 3 months old.

Wendy puts down her pen.

Her main reason for not considering international adoption was because she had read that the infants are as old as 12 months by the time they are adopted. She was worried that at that age, precious mother-child bonding time had passed.

But 3 months is not bad, she thinks.

The back door in the conference room opens.

Five couples and their children walk to the front of the room. They talk to the group about their international adoption experiences.

Mike's eyes are glued to a spitfire little girl wearing a floral sundress and matching hat. She was adopted from Cambodia.

"She's beautiful," he says to Wendy.

Each couple talks about how long it took to get their child and the regulations in the countries from which they adopted. Ukraine took about a year to do, one couple says. Russia required two trips, another couple adds. And another says in less than five months they were able to adopt their 10-week-old daughter from Cambodia.

As a second couple describes their good experience adopting in Cambodia, the look on Wendy's face gives away her thoughts. Mike's face has the same hopeful expression.

They are sold. They will adopt from Cambodia.

Looking closer at the couple, Wendy recognizes them. They sat in front of the Cummings at that January meeting on international adoptions.

"That could have been us," Wendy would later tell Mike.

After the meeting, the Cummings talk with Mrs. Myers-Gottemoller and the couples who had adopted from the Third World country in southeast Asia. They share their painful journey that led them to this meeting. They listen closely to the explanations on how adopting from Cambodia works.

"If you filled out your application right away and get your INS approval, you would probably be going to Cambodia in February," Mrs. Myers-Gottemoller tells them.

When the Cummings get home that night, they start the paperwork. They begin to have doubts about the woman in Texas. She still hadn't sent them documentation that she is pregnant.

They decide to play it by ear with her and put their faith in adopting from Cambodia. If the woman did give birth and still wanted them to adopt her child, they could put Cambodia on hold for up to a year without losing their deposits and application fees.

"Cambodia is a sure thing," Wendy says. "I say let's go to Cambodia and anything else is a bonus. God will help us figure it out if he wants us to have both. We've been through so much heartache and pain. Kelli said we're guaranteed to get a baby from Cambodia."

Mike agrees. It would cost about $21,500 to adopt from Cambodia. That was within what they could afford and there was also a new $10,000 federal tax credit for adopting parents. And once they got their baby back from Cambodia, the birth mother could not come back to reclaim her child.

There would be no more heartbreaks, he thinks. It really is a sure thing.

They complete the application and send it with their $100 application fee to Lutheran Children and Family Services. They request a newborn girl.

The couple contacts their adoption attorney to fill her in on their change of heart.

Wendy finds an online support group for parents adopting from Cambodia. There are also links with pictures of more babies up for adoption. She looks at those photographs every night before going to sleep.

Her students are excited but sad. They do not want her to take a year off for maternity leave. They offer to baby-sit the couple's infant in between their classes while she continues to teach.

They always make her smile.

Some of Mike's co-workers decide to raise money for the couple to help with their airfare to Cambodia. The couple is touched. Money will be tight for a while with Wendy taking a maternity leave for a year. Mike plans to get a second job, if needed.

They attend their parent training with Mrs. Myers-Gottemoller. They purchase a travel book on Cambodia and allow themselves to begin planning their lives as parents -- again.

Just when their dream of having a family was so close, they are handed another lemon.

Through the online Cambodian adoption support group, they learn that trouble is brewing in the Third World country. A group of Americans is stuck there because the government suspects their adoption agency is stealing babies and illegally selling them. INS will not issue exit visas to bring their adopted children back to the United States.

On top of that, they have not heard from the woman in Texas in several weeks.

They fear she has changed her mind.

Mrs. Myers-Gottemoller assures them that this will not affect their adoption.

, the agency that Lutheran Children and Family Services works with in Cambodia, has had no adoptions ever fall through since 1997, when they first started doing Cambodian adoptions. The founder, Harriet Brener, only works with children who have been orphaned, she tells the couple.

They are relieved.

Shortly after, the pregnant woman in Texas calls. She assures them she still wants to give them her baby and had been ill and unable to call.

Their hopes remain high.

A few days later, she calls again. This time she is crying hysterically.

"I don't know how to say this to you," she tells Wendy.

Wendy's heart falls. She's now certain the woman has changed her mind.

"We need help," the woman sobs. "We need money. Is there anything you can do to help us? I'm begging you. I need to get out."

Wendy explains that the adoption laws in Texas and Pennsylvania prohibit them from being able to give her money. She gently asks if the woman has gone to the doctor or filled out the adoption paperwork from their attorney.

She hasn't.

Wendy tells her that she will call their lawyer to see what the couple can do to help her but they are limited by law.

"That was heartbreaking," she tells Mike, after hanging up. "She sounded so desperate. She said she's so tired and wants her pregnancy to be over. She still hasn't told her mom that she's pregnant."

They call her two more times after that. Both conversations are awkward. Then, they never hear from her again.

"I don't know if she was trying to scam us or not," Wendy says. "She sounded so sincere. We don't even know if she was really pregnant."

They concentrate on getting their required paperwork completed for their trip to Cambodia to pick up their daughter. They start their series of immunizations -- three shots to protect against hepatitis B. They gather items they will need for the trip -- a sweater for their daughter because she won't be used to the air conditioning in the hotel; blankets, bottles and baby formula.

They think about their daughter waiting for them in an orphanage in Cambodia. Soon, they will have a picture of her and then go get her and bring her home.

Mrs. Myers-Gottemoller visits the couple in their home to conduct a home study. The home study is required to ensure that the couple lives in an environment fit and safe for the adopted child. She also asks them detailed questions about their backgrounds, religious beliefs, families and parenting plans.

Weeks later, they receive a copy of their completed home study, followed by their required INS approval to adopt in Cambodia.

But rumors are still flying on the online message boards that Wendy visits. Most fear Cambodia will shut down to adoptions for good.

"I don't know what to believe," Wendy tells Mike.

Then, on Dec. 21, 2001, INS announces it is suspending the processing of adoption petitions in Cambodia. It is also reviewing the adoption process in Vietnam.

In Cambodia, there is mounting evidence of illegal baby selling. The suspension will remain in place until the Cambodian government can implement adoption laws and procedures that meet international norms and prevent abuses, says INS Commissioner James Ziglar.

"I don't know how this roller coaster ends," Wendy says, with tears brewing. "There are no turns. It's all up and down."

The Cummings are again reassured by Mrs. Myers-Gottemoller that this suspension is temporary and, at worst, would only delay their trip to Cambodia by a month or so.

In early February, they meet with Harriet Brener, who just returned from Cambodia and will be handling their adoption over there. She answers their questions about traveling to Cambodia and convinces them not to worry about the temporary adoption suspension in the country.

"There are a lot of people working on it," Mrs. Brener tells them. "I wouldn't be here encouraging you to continue if I thought you weren't going to be able to get your baby. I think we'll know something by March."

A few weeks later, the couple receives a letter from INS. The letter urges them to choose another country to adopt from as the situation in Cambodia will probably not be resolved anytime soon.

Mrs. Myers-Gottemoller confirms what the couple fears most: Adoptions from Cambodia have been shut down indefinitely.

"It was supposed to be a guarantee," Wendy cries to Mike. "Why does this keep happening? "

We can switch to another country, he says, trying to comfort her.

"All our paperwork is in order," he says softly. "We can try Guatemala or Kazakhstan."

We have options, he says. We'll get our baby.

"No," she says quietly. "I'm done."

To be continued...

Look for final part of staff writer JESSICA D. MATTHEWS' series, The Making of a Family, in Wednesday's editions of The Tribune and The Scranton Times.

[rest of this series is unrelated to Cambodia]