Suchta Family Story
The Suchta Family's Story
Our Adoption Story
Our adoption story started 20 years ago as I read a Dear Abby Column in a newspaper as a teenager. I was struck by a poem someone sent in about a birth mom and an adoptive mom, and the roles they played in this child’s life. I didn’t know anyone who was adopted, and was not adopted myself, but something about this poem and all the feelings and emotions in it made me certain I wanted to be a part of that someday.
Fast forward 13 years later and I met and married my husband, Mark. I had talked to him once in awhile about my desire to adopt a child someday and though he thought it was neat of me to feel that way, he never had a strong desire himself to adopt. A few years past and I actually started thinking it would just not be something in our future. We were blessed with 3 biological children and thought we were probably done adding to our family. To our surprise, I unexpectedly got pregnant with our 4th child. Though we had not planned for this baby, we were thrilled and so were our 3 children, to welcome another little one in the family.
In God’s sovereign plan for us, He decided to take that baby home with Him 12 weeks into the pregnancy. We were all heart broken, especially our 11 year old daughter, Alison. A couple of months past and Mark and I started talking about if we wanted to try again in bringing a child into our family. It just felt like something was missing after losing that little life. Immediately adoption was on my mind. It wasn’t for Mark though. I started praying to God to give Mark the desire to adopt a child if that was His will for our family. In the meantime I started searching online and investigating the adoption process. It seemed impossible that we could afford to do it on a police officer’s salary, and me staying home with our kids. But I kept praying for God to open Mark’s heart. Our daughter Alison started sending Mark emails and websites of children who needed families. I remember one of her emails saying “Papa, is God trying to tell you something?”
One day, while Alison and I sat in the living room and Mark was in the kitchen, we were having another casual conversation about just looking into the process. I will never forget the words when Mark said “Alright…lets start looking into it.” Immediately Alison and I jumped up and down for joy.
A couple of weeks later we went to an information meeting at Bethany and the rest is history. God took over every step from there. He supplied the finances when it looked impossible, He guided our paperwork to get it just where it needed to go at just the precise moment it needed to be somewhere and though we thought for certain we were more than likely going to have a new daughter soon, He had a little boy already in mind before time began, who He knew would become our son.
We initially had applied to adopt a healthy girl. As time went on though, we were drawn more and more to the Children of Promise. We decided to start praying that God would guide as we decided what kind of child with special needs our young family could provide for. We received the COP list from our social worker and after praying, chose 4 children on that list that we felt comfortable we could provide a loving home for and requested to be matched with one of those children. 2 of those children were boys. I remember sharing with Mark that God had brought us down this particular path, and had put this particular list of children in our lives for a reason. If 4 of those children were someone we could love and care for, what was it for us to decide if they happen to be a boy or a girl? And our hearts then opened to the possibly of bringing home another son.
On November 13th, 2006, at around 5:30 in the evening, we got the call that Jiang Xin Qi was our son. A 1 ½ year old special needs little boy from China was soon to be joining our family. There are just no words to describe the feeling I had when I heard on the other line “Hi, Kimberley, this is Pam Baker from Bethany Christian Services. We have some good news for you.” After that, I don’t remember much of the conversation. There was celebrating going on in the house and Alison was crying so hard from pure joy.
We went to the computer to look at his file and when we saw his face, the name Ben came immediately to my mind. “He looks like a Ben” I said to Mark. Mark agreed too. And that became his name in a matter of seconds. We never had Ben on a list of boy names in our life. After naming him, I looked up the meaning of Ben, and found out that it is a Hebrew name for “son”. We also found out he was 1 ½ years old and that the week he was born was the week I had that miscarriage. Alison often shares with others that God took that baby up to Heaven with Him, so Ben could become a part of our family and live with us. I firmly believe that. If it hadn’t been for that pregnancy, I don’t think adding to our family would have even been on Mark or my heart.
About 4 months later, we were on our way to China to get our son and bring him home.
It was the experience of a lifetime. It was one of the hardest yet most rewarding things I have ever done in my life. I will never forget the moment we stepped through the doors in the airport in Minneapolis and saw our other 2 boys waiting for us and running to us as we were reunited as a family after bringing Ben home.
Ben had surgery a few months later for his cleft palate. He had one of the most severe kinds, but we were blessed to have such an excellent surgeon doing his surgery and after a few weeks of recovery, he was back on his toes, and has been doing typical 2 year old boy things ever since. He is currently getting speech therapy through the school district once a week and is doing really well.
I often look into his crib and am amazed at how good God was to bring this tiny precious life into my home and that He allowed me to be his mother. To me, Ben is a walking example of the Gospel. I am reminded everyday how God came after me, someone in dire need, and God rescued me and adopted me into His family and called me His own.
I could not imagine our life without this little guy in it. He loves his Papa so much, and is the most affectionate little thing. Mark loves this, as our other children were never very cuddly as babies, and Mark is a very affectionate person. So those 2 spend a lot of hours on the big chair in our living room, reading books and just cuddling. It’s a pretty amazing sight to see this small Chinese little boy, not 25 pounds yet, and this big 6 foot 5 police officer loving each other so much.
Ben will never be short of kisses or hugs and neither will we! We praise God for planning before time began that he would be our child. In the book of Romans it says that God works everything out for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. In this fallen world we live in He can take something sad and turn it into good. He gets the glory and we get the blessing. With man things are impossible…but with God all things are possible. Nothing has shown me this more, than when I look into the face of my sweet boy, Benjamin.