Cyclical Selflessness
Veterans Day is a very special day for American Adoptions because we enjoy working with our military families. What they do for each of us is truly remarkable, so we honor them in this week’s Testimonial Tuesday.
If you are interested in sharing your story, we would love to hear it! Please contact Dustin at dustin.f@americanadoptions.com or Annie at annie.h@americanadoptions.com to become a part of Testimonial Tuesday.
Our first family this week is Robert and Heather, both of whom truly exemplify the meaning of Veterans Day. Throughout their lives, they have both served the public domestically and over seas. However, to become parents, they needed help in return.
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Robert has served in the military since he was in high school and has defended our freedom in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kosovo, Kuwait, Iraq and more. Today, he is out of active duty and is now a military officer in logistics for the US Army. Robert said he believes that he was always destined to serve the public good and America’s interests overseas.
“It’s a calling,” Robert said. “The job really chooses you, you don’t choose the job. Policemen, firemen and military, a lot of these jobs don’t pay a lot of money, but you do it because you love to serve the people. That’s what drives me – it is really just a passion for serving.”
Heather’s accomplishments are equally as vast as her husband’s.
While Heather was volunteering as a CPR instructor for the Red Cross during her time in Germany, the calendar page turned to September 11, 2001. She was then asked to serve in the warzones of Iraq and perform the duties of an armed services coordinator for the Red Cross, relaying messages between soldiers and their families who were unable to be reached otherwise.
Today, Heather is a researcher at a Northeastern university, where she helps to find ways to improve the health of those less fortunate all around the world by figuring out how to equip them with trained doctors and nurses. She has also volunteered her time assisting with disaster relief efforts during the terrorist attacks on New York City and hurricanes in eastern Virginia.
Like Robert, Heather felt the passion to help others very early in her life. When she was younger, her family moved to Taiwan and China, and it was there where she first remembers feeling the pull to help those less fortunate.
“My little sister, who was five at the time, noticed the poverty; I don’t know how she noticed it first but she did,” Heather said. “When a five-year-old and an eight-year-old start looking around and see that they have far more than the adults do in a foreign country, it sets a fire in you.”
Focusing on Parenthood
Family is very important to both Robert and Heather, but having traveled and lived in many different regions of the world, for Robert especially, military is sometimes the closest thing to family he has had when stationed in a foreign country.
“The military kind of brings that family structure to us when we are overseas as we depend on each other because we never know where we are going to end up. So, you make family where family is,” Robert said.
Being away from much of his family for so long only added to how badly he wanted to be a father. Once Robert was out of active duty and their lives regained some normalcy, the couple decided they were ready to start their own family. Unfortunately, getting pregnant was more difficult than they had expected.
“Because we have such a rich history between both of us, we try sharing our belief system, our strong values, our service to the public and our responsibilities as individuals. We wanted that to carry on to a new generation,” Robert said. “We tried to have a child on our own, but we just couldn’t make it happen. It was a trying time for us.”
After researching several other agencies as well as international adoption, Heather found American Adoptions online and began reading about adoption for military families. She was impressed with the amount of content the web site had on military families in the same position as her and Robert.
They then decided American Adoptions was the best option for them to begin their family.
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Check out our other testimonials. Also, don’t forget to check out our other Veteran family, Eric and Heidi’s adoption story.
