“Although we know people who’ve adopted, they’re far wealthier than we are,” Kelli said.
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| All four Prodzinkis — from left, Janessa, Kianna, Jeff and Kelly — are hoping to travel to Florida later this month to add a new member to their West Salem family. Photo by Michael Martin |
On the other hand, the Prodzinskis have always known they were going to add to their family. They have two daughters now. Kianna is 16 and attends Coulee Christian School, while Janessa is 10 and is being home-schooled by Kelli.
While researching adoptions on the Internet, the Prodzinkis came across the idea of fundraising to finance an adoption. “At first, I thought it was ludicrous,” admitted Kelli.
In time, however, she and Jeff, who works in information technology at Mathy Construction, have embraced the process wholeheartedly. They say it’s taught them so much about the goodness of their neighbors, their fellow parishioners at First Free Evangelical Church in Onalaska and many people they’ve never even met.
“I really think that, if I had to do it over again and knew what I know now, if someone just wrote us a check for $30,000, I think I’d turn it down,” Kelli said.
Even so, Kelly confesses the adoption process has been extremely exhausting. There were background checks and fingerprinting, followed by months and months of waiting. Their adoption request was miscoded and adoption officials mistakenly believed they were looking for a girl child (they were open to either gender).
Kelli and Jeff checked with various organizations before forming a connection with a woman with Catholic Charities in La Crosse. From there, they found an agency in Florida called Chosen Child that helps families adopt children that are difficult to place.
“One reason we picked them was that we were told they had a quick turnover — if you adopt a baby from China it can take three or four years,” Jeff said.
They were eventually chosen as a potential adoptive family by an African American woman from Florida who has a due date of Nov. 29. The woman already has a 15-month-old and didn’t think she’d be able to take care of another child. The father, a Haitian, had stated that he had no interest in raising the child.
The fact that their child will have a darker skin color is not an issue. The Prodzinskis have a brother-in-law who is African American and another from Saudi Arabia. “Our family is a real melting pot,” Kelli said.
Their adopted child will have a family with different shades of skin, Jeff added.
After they learned the adoption was in the works, the Prodzinskis raised funds in various ways, including a rummage sale at Coulee Christian this summer that pulled in more than $5,000. There was a very successful fundraiser at Burracho’s restaurant in Onalaska this past Monday and a “barn dance” at Concordia Hall in La Crosse last weekend that drew several hundred people and raised more than $3,000.
“That was fantastic!” Kelli said of the Concordia fundraiser. “And the fundraiser at Burrachos wasn’t even our idea. We stopped in to ask them about donating some gift cards and they suggested it themselves.”
One of the conditions of the adoption is that all the costs be paid 30 days ahead of time. According to Kelli, that will mean the family may have to dip into savings or use credit cards. They will get a large adoption credit on their income tax, but they won’t see that benefit until next spring.
The Prodzinskis emphasized that they have received plenty of support — both financial and spiritual — from their fellow church members at the First Free Church.
“They’ve gone through the blood, sweat and tears just as much as we have,” Kelli said. “They’ve spent countless hours and sleepless nights, but they’ll come up to us and say ‘Thank you for letting us be a part of this.’ They also say, ‘We are blessed to help you do something that is bigger than ourselves.’”
Their could well be more stress ahead, since a mother always has the option to change her mind at the last moment. Kelli and Jeff have come to terms with that possibility and plan to be there at the time of birth anyway.
They plan on booking airline tickets and considering that the due date is right around Thanksgiving and they won’t know ahead of time the exact date, that is going to be another expensive proposition.
“They’re going to call us when she goes into labor,” Kelli said. “All four of us are going to go down — it’s a family thing. If it doesn’t work out, then we’ll all grieve together. She (the birth mother) did send us a picture of her son, so that is a good sign, but you just never know.”
Asked whether all the paperwork, waiting, stress and uncertainty has been worth it, the Prodzinskis had a one-word answer: “Absolutely!”
They both talk about how the community response has reinforced their faith in human nature. Jeff recalled a moment during the rummage sale at Coulee Christian when it began to rain (sale items were displayed in the parking lot): “Everyone rushed to pick things up and help us get them inside, even though they didn’t have to do that. You realize that people genuinely want to do good.”
Kelli said that she’d been contacted by two women she had never met before. Both had lost their babies during childbirth. “They said ‘We just wanted you to have these items,’” she recalled.
“We’re going to make a scrapbook for the baby some day so he or she can see how the whole community was behind this,” Jeff said.
“We’d also like to inspire other to know this is doable,” Kelli said. She said she’s already been approached by people wanting to know how to do what the Prodzinskis have done.
“There’s one other thing,” Kelli said. “We’re hoping and praying we’ll be able to somehow minister and help the birth mother. We don’t know yet how we’ll be able to do that, but we hope to find a way.”