By Michelle Martin
STAFF WRITER

Richard and Cecilia Jaworski already had two biological sons when they decided they wanted to expand their family. And they decided that adoption—of a child with some kind of special needs—would be the best way to do it. So, 32 years ago, they came to the Catholic Charities building at 721 N. LaSalle and met Michelle, a biracial toddler, and they brought her home.

In the ensuing years, the Lake Forest family adopted eight more children, bringing the total size of their brood to 11, who now range in age from 38 to 17.

While the Jaworskis’ adoption story is far from the typical tale—perhaps most often a couple experiencing fertility problems who want to adopt an infant—they have had experience with the adoption system and with Catholic Charities adoption services over 30 years, with domestic and international adoptions, with infants and with older children.

And during November—National Adoption Awareness month—they might be uniquely qualified to speak to how adoption has changed over the years, from a procedure often kept secret from friends and neighbors and sometimes even the children themselves to an option celebrated as being good for children, adoptive families and biological parents.

“It’s no longer something that’s whispered about,” said Cecilia Jaworski, known to her friends as Ciel. “With a society like what we’ve become, it’s become evident that there’s a lot of different ways to build a family. In some ways, the adopted child gets a break.

Norene Chesebro, director of the maternity and adoption department at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago, agrees that a sense of openness has developed over the last several years. That includes a common expectation on the part of most birthparents and adoptive families that some information will be shared and there might be some contact at a later date.

Another change, she said, is that biological parents have some say in which family adopts their baby.

“We talk to the birthmother about her expectations, and we talk with the prospective adoptive parents about their expectations, and we try to match them as best we can,” Chesebro said, adding that they can talk about anything from how much future contact they want to whether they would like their child to have athletic or musical parents.

Catholic Charities facilitated 12 domestic and 16 international adoptions last year. In Illinois, about 3,339 children who were wards of the state were adopted last year, down from a high of 7,315 in 1999, when the Department of Children and Family Services began moving children from foster care to adoption more quickly.

Nationally, the number of domestic adoptions held steady at about 120,000 per year in the 1990s, according to the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse, with about half being adopted by family members or stepparents. International adoptions skyrocketed during that time, from 6,536 in 1992 to 13,620 in 1997. By 1999, there were 16,396 international adoptions.

The Jaworski family includes six children adopted from within the United States, all transracial adoptions, and three adopted from Korea.

Four years after Michelle joined the family, the Jaworskis adopted Karen, an infant of East Indian heritage, and four years after that, Sara, a biracial baby. Matthew, also biracial, joined the family three years later, followed two years later by Ginny, the fourth biracial child in the house.

Then, about four years later, the couple decided to further broaden the family’s horizons by adopting Patrick, then 7, from a Korean orphanage. Next came Kim, whose parents were Korean and black, who joined the family at age 8 after her grandmother was no longer able to care for her. Kevin was almost 9 when he was adopted from a Korean orphanage, as was J.P., who was adopted from Korea two years later.

The family’s grown children include a teacher, a social worker and an engineer. Four are in college (Kim, Patrick and Matthew will graduate this year) and Kevin and J.P. attend Lake Forest High School.

All nine adoptions were facilitated with the help of Catholic Charities, and Ciel Jaworski said she found the agency to be of great help, from organizing social clubs where the kids could meet other adopted children to offering counseling with a social worker when some of the children were teenagers.

Over the years, Jaworski said, she has learned some things about bringing children into the family.

“The older child adoption is different than adopting a baby,” she said. “You have to be prepared to accept the child and the experiences they’ve had. … All the children experienced losses, and I don’t think you can deny that point.”

Also, having biological children meant the Jaworskis weren’t new to parenting, although their oldest sons were only 3 and 5 when they brought Michelle home. “We knew all kids have issues,” she said.

A few years ago, the Jaworskis brought five of the children with them to Korea to visit one’s birthmother, who was dying. Another used to exchange letters with his birth mother in Korea. So far, none of the children adopted from within the U.S. has met their birth parents, although one received pictures.

If they want to, Jaworski said, she and her husband would support them.

“As long as they realize it’s not something you do when you’re 16 and mad at your adoptive parents,” she said.

Having done both, Jaworski said, international adoptions are more expensive and require more red tape than domestic adoptions. But none of her family’s adoptions took more than a year—perhaps because they were so well-known, by the end, to the Catholic Charities staff. That also took some of the pressure off.

“Couples who are adopting their first child put a lot of pressure on themselves to impress the social worker during the interview process,” she said. After going through the process several times, “We didn’t do that.”

But they did go through the process that starts with an application, continues with one-on-one interviews and home visits with a social worker and meetings with other adoptive parents—all before they could be considered for a child who needed a family.

For domestic adoptions, the whole process can cost upwards of $15,000, although some fees are waived for special-needs children and some are on a sliding scale based on income; that cost goes up by several thousand dollars for international adoptions which may include travel costs, Chesebro said.

Jaworski has seen a change in attitudes about adoptive families. Her husband works as a consultant for IBM, and Ciel has always been a homemaker. When they started adopting children, that was a good thing.

“If the mother was working, they wanted her to give up her job a period of time before the adoption,” she said. Now, with more women working and single parents adopting, that’s changed.

Ciel Jaworski said she and her husband never planned on having such a large family.

“I remember after we adopted Karen, and we had two boys and two girls, wondering if we really had room for any more,” she said. “But each decision was an individual decision. It wasn’t one right after another; there were several years between them. But we had such wonderful kids that we felt we do it one more time. We got kind of greedy.”

The Catholic New World will continue its look at adoption in the Dec. 8-21 issue, with stories of a family who adopted this year, and of an adult adoptee’s search for his birth mother. For more information on Catholic Charities’ adoption services, call (312) 655-7086. If you are considering placing a child for adoption, call (312) 454-1717 or (800) CARE-002.