Jeanne Lang has been toying with the idea for some time of writing a book about her family. It is a fascinating story how she and her husband, Bill, adopted four children, a boy from St. Louis, a boy from Vietnam and two girls from South Korea, and then gave birth to a fifth child, a boy, in 1983.
”Going through adoption 17 years ago is quite different than today, especially international adoption,” Jeanne,44, said. ”Today, it`s much easier as far as paperwork goes. You know what`s going to happen each step of the way. You know . . . you`re going to have a child.”
The Langs` six-bedroom home in Wheaton has plenty of room for everybody:
Aaron, 16; Jee, 14 1/2; Joshua, 13; Abby, 12; Gabriel, 5, and Muffie, 4, a spirited golden retriever.
But the Lang household wasn`t always up for grabs.
”We were married four years, and it didn`t look like we could have children; so we applied to the county agency in St. Louis,” Jeanne recalled. Eighteen months later, the couple received a 3-month-old Hispanic-Caucasian infant, whom they named Aaron.
The Langs were ready to adopt again when Aaron was 18 months old, but application intake was closed. ”I read a magazine article on the kids in Vietnam, and I knew a woman trying to adopt there; so we decided to try.”
The process was painfully long, involved and uncertain to adopt in Vietnam, and tragic for some families. ”We were so fortunate that our baby was on the second plane (of the airlift) because the first one, a cargo plane, crashed (just after takeoff), killing 130 children and adults,” Jeanne recalled. ”Joshua was 3 to 6 months old. We had no record because all the papers were burned on the first plane.”
Despite a rough start in life, Joshua was thriving at 18 months. The Langs decided to adopt again, and they received a 5-month-old Korean girl. A year after Abby arrived, the couple prepared to adopt an older child, who was crippled.
”When I heard there was a 6-year-old girl available from Korea, I started getting shivers,” Jeanne remembered. ”I knew that was it.”
Because the family had been through so much with Joshua, it wasn`t a big decision to accept a handicapped child, Jeanne said.
And just when the Langs were getting ready to adopt again, Jeanne discovered the plot twist in her book: She was pregnant.
”Adoption certainly is more difficult than being pregnant and giving birth,” Jeanne said. ”But when that baby comes, whichever way, it`s exactly the same feeling.”
