Elise and Klaas adopted 5 children at once: 'Openness our strength'

Whether they were willing to adopt 5 brothers and sisters at the same time? Elise (37) and Klaas (43) were soon out. "These children needed each other terribly."

Elise: “The past seven years have gone way too fast. My oldest daughter Irma will turn eighteen this year. Efraín is sixteen, Rufino is twelve, Ishmael is eleven and Rosa is ten. Suddenly we only have adolescents in the house and that takes some getting used to. Not only because things can get quite explosive here with their Latino temperament, but also because as parents of teenagers you start the process of letting go. I find that difficult, because I feel I only just got them. I keep telling Irma, 'If you ever move out, please stay close to me.' ”

Always wanted

“I had a girlfriend at primary school who was adopted. Maybe that's why I already said that I wanted to adopt a child later. Although that idea had faded into the background when I married Klaas at the age of 21. Pregnancy was welcome, but we were still young and in no rush. It wasn't until years later that getting pregnant still hadn't worked out, and we turned to the doctor and ended up in the medical mill. We've made a number of IUI attempts, but to be honest, I had my doubts from the beginning. I reacted strongly to the hormone treatments and it felt quite unnatural to look forward to a child like this. After an information evening about IVF, I suddenly knew for sure: I am going to fill out adoption papers.

It has never been discovered why we could not get pregnant, so there is a good chance that a pregnancy was eventually successful. The fact that I was able to close this chapter so easily, I think, is because the desire to adopt children had subconsciously grown within me for a long time. Klaas and I are Christians and we do not believe in coincidence. We think God has led us to this choice. And I like that we can tell our children that adoption was not our last option, but actually the first. ”

Split up? Never!

“We deliberately opted for two brothers or sisters for our application. Adopted children have usually been through a lot in their young life. They are often traumatized or have a medical condition, and then they also have to say goodbye to everything that is familiar to them. We thought: if they come in pairs, at least they have support for each other.

We chose Nicaragua. Partly because this country demanded that the parents stay there for a number of months, so that the children could get used to their new parents in their own environment. We thought that was a great idea. And since not everyone gets arranged for such a long stay, it might shorten our waiting time.

We had still counted on several years, but we were not even busy collecting the data for our file when someone from the brokerage office called. "Take a seat," he said. "You wanted two babies, but what if there are five?" I stayed pretty calm. Because of privacy, he wasn't actually allowed to say anything, but I insisted that we get some more information.

With difficulty I figured out that it concerned three boys and two girls, aged two to ten years old. That the mother had died, the father could not take care of them and that the necessary traumatic events had taken place in the family. He also said it was an option to split the children between two families. That made me very angry. How can you separate brothers and sisters who have already been through so much? These children really needed each other horribly! ”

Rebuild the house

“Without consulting Klaas, I immediately said: 'Either all five of them will come or all of them won't.' We only had a few days to think about it, far too short for such a life-changing decision. In those days we prayed a lot. I am convinced that God can and did put answers to certain questions in your heart. I felt more and more that this was what we should do.

However, there were still major obstacles to overcome. Both the Child Care and Protection Board and the Central Authority in the Netherlands and the authorities in Nicaragua had to give permission to adopt five children at once. The chance that this was successful was not that great, it is usually complicated to get permission to adopt two children. For months we lived in uncertainty. Still, I was sure it was going to happen.

At night, when I was dreaming, I already felt the children close to me. So before we got a definite answer, we started renovating our house. Klaas built children's rooms in the attic, I searched Marktplaats for clothes. At work I announced that if the time came, I would stop working. And then finally that redeeming phone call came. ”

In love instantly

“In February 2014 we traveled to Nicaragua. I had never flown before and it was quite a culture shock to be in a developing country. The orphanage looked shabby. We had not seen any photos beforehand and we had no idea which children were ours. At one point, two boys of eight and four were appointed. I fell in love instantly. I swallowed my tears of joy: I didn't want to overwhelm them with my emotions or with my yearning to embrace them. Instead, we tried to connect with little touches and the few Spanish phrases we learned. Moments later, the oldest of ten came along with the other two little ones. She was still a bit reserved and very protective of her brothers and sister - logical of course. But the little ones immediately called us mom and dad.

The following days we went to the orphanage every day to slowly get used to each other. We played and laughed together, but there were also heartbreaking moments. For example, Ishmael once began to cry loudly while eating. When I looked into his mouth I saw a large hole in his tooth. He suffered excruciating pains every day and the children's home did nothing about it. We immediately took them all to the dentist. ”

Creep away and anger

“We stayed in Nicaragua for a total of three and a half months. We lived in a tiny pink house with a corrugated sheet roof, without hot water and with whoppers of spiders. For the children it was more luxurious than they were ever used to. They kept turning on and off the lights next to their beds: "Look Mommy, light!" Outside they played baseball with mangoes. I scrubbed for hours trying to get the yellow stains out of their clothes with cold water.

Apart from the fact that in such a poor country it took a lot of extra time to live a bit of a normal life, it was also emotionally tough. The children's 'backpacks' opened slowly. For one this manifested itself in crawling away, in the other in anger outbursts - with window frames that had been removed and a hole in the door as a result. I soon had a special bond with Irma. She followed me everywhere. Then she watched me wash my hair or do my makeup. The youngest, Rosa, had a different way of attaching. In the evening I put her in her own bed, but every night at one o'clock she came to lie with me, spoon-spoon. Wonderful, that warm body against me.

Once in the Netherlands, the bonding process continued. Officially the children were of school age, but I deliberately kept them at home for a while. It was already May, but they still thought it was freezing cold in the Netherlands. They especially did not like the cold toilet seat. Only after the summer holidays did they go to school. They were very eager to learn and adapted quickly. Children are like sponges, so they quickly mastered the language. In the beginning they talked a lot of Spanish among themselves, after a while only when they wanted to sneak about us. And now almost not at all. ”

Been through so much

“As happy as Klaas and I were with our family of seven, it was also a difficult time. They were tropical years, in which we were caring from early in the morning until late at night. There were times when I was crying in bed. Tears of fatigue, but also of helplessness, because I saw the pain of my children. They have been through a lot and that sometimes comes out.

I also sometimes got yelled at my head 'I hate you' or 'you are not my mother'. Although I knew this was part of their process, it was difficult not to take it personally. Because I am an emotional person. The advantage of this is that I also sense emotions in others, can listen carefully and can empathize with others. I think that's a nice quality when you take care of traumatized children.

Adoption has been a lot of negative in the news lately. I find that very unpleasant, especially for our children. It is clear that terrible mistakes have been made in adoption processes and that needs to be researched well, but you cannot put all situations together. There are children who have really suffered from their adoption and that is poignant. Our children will probably still have difficult times, but we will do everything we can to guide them in the best possible way. Even if they ever want to find their family.

In Nicaragua we had already checked whether we could find a trace of family, but no agency was willing to cooperate. I well remember an elderly woman saying to me, “Don't look. Forget everything that was here and build a new life with them in the Netherlands. ' But we don't want to hide our children's past at all. We hang out the Nicaraguan flag on their birthday. We cook a lot with herbs from 'home'. And I immediately gave them the space to tell about the past and to share everything that concerns them. That results in great conversations. I think that openness is the strength of our family, and the reason I have a very close relationship with all my children now. ”

Giant pride

“It's not that everything is quiet now, we are still a care family. But the children have plenty of friends and girlfriends, they get along well at school and are sometimes even the best of the class. I am very proud of them, because they did this all by themselves.

If their biological mother were still alive, I would hope she would be just as proud. On her deathbed, she stated that she wanted the children to grow up somewhere else. I hope this is the life she wanted for them. And that God had this in mind when he assigned this arduous task to us. I cannot guarantee that our adoption story will be a success and the children will go through life without any problems. But I do believe that we are on the right track. ”

”