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28, 2014
hwchronicle.com/features
Features B7
Adop ted s tuden on th ts re eir op flect en-m accep inded ting u and pbrin gings .
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have given birth to me.” Zipkin-Leed thinks there is a common misconception that all children who were adopted were found in an orphanage. Like Blachman, Zipkin-Leed’s parents were waiting in the hospital to pick her up. Science teacher Jim Brink adopted his first daughter, Lacey, at an adoption agency three weeks after her birth. Both of Brink’s daughters, Lacey and Marissa, were adopted locally. Lacey’s mother is from Glendora, and Marissa’s mother is from Mexico, but gave birth to Marissa in Orange County. Both were adopted through Holy Family Adoption Services. “For Lacey, the actual adoption was an emotionally charged process because the birth mom was actually there. The birth mother handed her to us physically,” Brink said. Brink said he is open about the fact that his two daughters are adopted. “They’ve known from the beginning,” Brink said. “That’s sort of the modern way of doing it. The covert part and keeping it secret and not letting anybody know is part of the past as far as I know. And because I think that children develop a stigma at that point if they don’t know. and “Why did you keep it a secret?” and “Is there something wrong with being adopted?” And so those questions have never come up at our house.” Brink said he and his wife were required to fill out numerous papers as well as compile a profile in the form of a scrapbook in order to be considered for adoption. “It’s what you call an open adoption,” Brink said. “You go through a fairly rigorous application process with a lot of papers with in-
formation on them, and then they have you put together a profile, which is essentially an annotated photo album. And they show that album to prospective birth mothers and the birth mother picks you.” It’s important that his daughters have contact with other adopted kids, Brink said. “We run this parents auxiliary that’s adjunct to the agency called Holy Family Adoptive Parents,” Brink said. “And about once a month, usually around a holiday, whatever holiday happens to fall that month, we usually gather with 15 to 20 families [who have adopted kids].” Brink’s family, like many others, have created an environment in their home that leaves their adopted kids satisfied with their family dynamic. “You have to be happy with the way you live,” Zipkin-Leed said. “You cannot live with what if this what if that? I think that is how I view things. I am very happy and comfortable with the people I am surrounded by.”
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