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To Protect, Love and Nurture
The Journey From Single Person to Adoptive Family
By Mark Stackpole
Margaret Schwartz has documented her journey through international adoption in her book, The Pumpkin Patch: A Single Woman's International Adoption Journey (Chicago Spectrum Press, 2005). After a broken engagement in her late 30s, Schwartz meditated on where she wanted to go next in her life. Success in her sales and marketing career did not alleviate her sense of emptiness. Eventually, she decided to bring children into her life. "I chose adoption because of the large number of children who were already born that needed a family," she says.
Schwartz adopted her young sons from the Ukraine and found that babies do indeed come with histories. "I naively thought that by adopting internationally there was less risk of adopting children with problems," she says. Though her sons do not have any serious emotional or behavioral issues, they do have some health issues that require regular medical follow-up. Three-year-old Nicki is blind in his left eye due to untreated Coats disease, which causes retina detachment, and 4-year-old Rupert has a shunt to prevent fluid buildup in his brain due to hydrocephalus.
Parenting is never easy, but perhaps nothing is as challenging as dealing with the health concerns of a child. "I can honestly say this has been the hardest thing I have ever done," says Schwartz. "In the two years since I brought my sons home, my life has changed completely. It takes a very strong person to take on the responsibility of raising a child on your own, and I brought two children home at the same time."
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