I was given a chance

by Given A'Chance
(New York City, New York, USA)

Maybe this is not the type of story that this website is looking for but I guess that it doesn't hurt sharing if I think there is a chance to encourage people to adopt Bolivian children.

My parents were not able to have children for medical conditions. For this reason they decided to find another way to share their love. Adoption was obviously the only option but not necessarily the easiest one.

Around 1984 they traveled to the Southern city of Tarija, Bolivia, where they got information and started the process to adopt my older brother. They studied and worked their way into the path of adopting a child, visited the orphan center in that city and after a long time they got to adopt him.

Few months after that my father had to travel to the US in order to study his masters in a university in California. My Brother lived with them for about 3 years.

Around 1987, after a lot of thinking and planning, they decided to share even more love and go for the 2nd adoption. Nevertheless, fate put something else in their hands and they ended up adopting a pair of twins. I was one of them.

From that time and on we shared our lives with these 2 great persons and we cannot feel any lesser than blessed for this. There is not a single day in our lives where we don't have a reason to be thankful, hopeful and giving. We were given a chance, love and guidance.

Sure enough we began our lives in a hard, sad and lonely way...

1. A lonely and poor single mother gave birth to a child that she was determined to care for and raise regardless of how difficult it may have been for her. Sadly, she died shortly after giving birth to him due to complications. However, her hopes of giving him a good life transcended even after her death and my older brother got his chance to prosper and be the great man he is today.

2. A young girl who worked in a small hotel is taken advantage of by a stranger from another city/country. A few months later she gives birth to two twins. Without the support of her family, no money, a very sick child and little options in her life, she realizes she has no means to give them a good life or even a future and decides to give them for adoption. Her only wish, for them to be raised by caring and loving people.

3. My personal story. When my parents visited the adoption center they almost immediately fell in love with a strong and happy looking child in one of the cradles... Little they knew he had a little twin who was not any near him because he was very sick.

The little sick twin was me. Not only the doctors at the orphan center thought I was not going to make it to my first year of life but also the doctors who take care of me after the adoption (After my parents took the hard decision to share their lives with one more little person and giving him a chance). I had heart problems, respiratory complications and constantly got sick to dangerous levels due to infections and poor nutrition during my first days of life.

Somehow I made it and today I am a healthy, athletic and very active person. Not quite what people expected of me after having such a difficult start. However, I am definitely sure that I would have never seen these days if I would have stayed in that orphan center. I would have died and I can only wonder what would have happened to my brother...

I am glad that neither death nor people separated us so soon and that we found people whose love was so great that they could find in their heart to take the risk and adopt 2 children with a very difficult situation.

I guess if the three of us wouldn't have been adopted we would be living in some type of orphan center in our natal city or somewhere in the country. Nevertheless, this would have been in the best case... And with a lot of children on the streets facing different challenges, problems and dangers it's really hard to say death would be the worst case. There is a lot of suffering involved with children who live on the streets of my country and other places. Seems unfair that some children have to face so many things going on in their lives with no choice but to survive by their own with nothing but hopes of a better future which might as well be just a dream and nothing else.

For these reasons and after sharing what I know and I have experienced I really encourage you to adopt children in Bolivia, your home country or somewhere else. Do your homework, seek for advice and find your way into the great privilege of sharing your love.

Best of luck,

The one who was given a chance.

PS: My story is actually much more complicated than these and even if I write it down at full extend it may not even compare to some other stories which were both successful and sad...

In response: Dear GAC, this is EXACTLY the type of story we want people to share and I am sooooo GRATEFUL that you did. Bella.