Changing It Up For The Final Piece of the Family Puzzle

This is the final part of a three-part series on the foreign adoption experiences of Randy and Catherine Johnson. You can read parts one and two at barnbluff.com.

We now had adopted one child internationally and it had been a test of our wills. Could we go through this again for another child or had we had enough?

Once Clara became a US citizen, we became eligible to apply for another adoption. We had thought about adopting a second child from India, this time a boy. Then we received a call that there were boys from South Korea awaiting adoption. Were we interested in changing to that program? Catherine and I discussed this at length.

Our goal, we agreed, was to adopt two healthy infants – one boy and one girl, if possible. Since we had chosen to adopt internationally, were we committed to sticking with the same country for both of them? Was there any reason they needed to be from the same country? Were we concerned about how a multinational family would be viewed? Were we concerned about risking another long wait from India?

We laughed as we thought of questions people might ask about our family, no matter what combination of countries they were from.

“Are they brother and sister?” “How long do you get to keep them?” “How much did they cost?”

We chose the South Korea program. We would have been fine with a boy from India but thought, why not mix the family up even more? It wasn’t like we weren’t obvious in public with Clara, who does not exactly look Scandinavian. So why not get an Asian child to make it even more obvious? Actually, by this time our confidence was up and we knew we could succeed with either choice. It just seemed right.

The Korea program moved a lot faster than the India program. We started the second adoption in February, 1992 and received a referral for a boy that November. He was born in the port city of Pusan (now called Busan), South Korea. It’s the second largest city after Seoul.

Our referral came from Social Welfare Society, Inc., an agency in Seoul. This agency placed orphaned children in foster care until adopted. Our child was placed in a foster home in Seoul and named Kim Min Sik. Kim is a very common family name in the Koreas, much like Johnson. But the family name comes first there. In this case, it was the mother’s family name.

We named him Reid Kim Johnson. The name Reid just sounded nice and was unique in our families, and Kim was a reminder of his South Korean family name. He now has his Korean name tattooed on the back of one of his shoulders.

When we received the referral, we were told that he would be ready to travel in March or April, 1993. On a Tuesday toward the end of January, 1993, as I was working on my upcoming travel schedule, I decided to contact our social worker to see if she had any news of Reid’s arrival date. She replied, “How about Thursday?”

Reid arrived, as Clara did, with a group of children and their escorts on a plane from Seattle, and he was welcomed by a lot of family.

He was all boy, Catherine discovered, as if there was any question. His mannerisms were totally different than Clara’s and he was much more reserved. This was to his advantage because all he had to do was watch Clara and learn what not to do and what he could get away with. I think that’s typical in a lot of families.

Reid’s adoption was finalized on September 3, 1993 and he became a citizen on November 2, 1993. He graduated from Red Wing High School and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and is now a senior merchandise specialist at Target in Minneapolis. He works with merchandising and inventory teams to get new deli and bakery items in to Target stores.

Once Reid became a US citizen and while we were just getting comfortable with the two kids, we received a call from Children’s Home Society wondering if we would like to adopt another South Korean child. We would have had no reservations about this except that we were pushing 40 and thought we should now focus on the two kids we had.

The years have gone by very quickly. We have no regrets about the adoptions other than maybe we should have started earlier and adopted one or two more. Catherine and I are both grateful for the impact Clara and Reid have had on our lives. We were able to partake in parenting, even if from a different approach.

We know there are many couples who could not have children and chose not to adopt. Adopting is a difficult, personal decision, no matter what your situation. Age, health, finances, and commitment are all critical to that decision and we fault no one for choosing not to.

Did we make a difference in the world by adopting these children? Hopefully. We know that adopting and raising them made a huge difference in our lives. Now we have set them free with the hope that they will each make a difference in the world, with the people they encounter and with their own future families.

And that’s no different than any family anywhere.