My name is Bill Helton and I am married with two children and I’d like to tell you how my family came to be.

Joyce and I were married here at St. Clare by Father Joe McCormick in 1996 and we immediately began trying to start our family. We truly were soul mates, and I was quickly recognized as a member of the family by Joyce’s four siblings and parents. They and every friend excitedly awaited the pregnancy announcement that sadly, would never come. After testing, drug therapy, counseling sessions and more testing, the doctors could not figure out why we could not get pregnant. Their diagnosis was “unexplained infertility.” We just raised our arms and said “Alright God, what is your plan for us?” So, we prayed. A lot.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that this being Mother’s Day and the story I’m telling you that Joyce’s Mom played such a prominent role in how our family came to be. I remember Joyce’s Mom telling us “you kids know that if you chose to adopt, we would love that child no differently than any other children in this family.” Those words started the process that shaped our future.

Joyce and I contacted Catholic Social Services and were directed to the St. Vincent and Sara Fisher home, where we enrolled in the foster care program. Our intent was to foster to adopt a child. We went through the training program and were granted a license by the State of Michigan as foster parents. Our first placement were two brothers, aged three and seven. The boys had lived rough lives, truly heartbreaking circumstances, seeing and doing things that no three or seven year old child should ever see or do.

Joyce and I took on Matt and Andrew for several months. We stabilized their educational and social support. We enrolled them in normal kid activities like swimming at the YMCA and after school latch key. We introduced them to our families, including them in all family gatherings and even took them to Wisconsin to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family in 1998. We also brought them on vacation with us which was something that they couldn’t even begin to grasp after seeing only the bad side of life up until they met us. We were a happy family but always had the thought in the back of our heads that these children would not be ours. The ultimate goal of the foster care system is to place the children back with their families after the atrocious situations are corrected. I couldn’t really get my head around this, I couldn’t grasp it. Why would any authority ever return these children to their families after they had seen what we could offer? We returned many times to St. Vincent and Sara Fisher home with Matt and Andrew for supervised visits with their family. I couldn’t believe what was playing out before my very eyes as supervised visits became unsupervised visits and then even weekends with their families. Matt and Andrew always seemed relieved when we picked them up on the Sunday night after their weekend visits. After spending over a year with us, the state gave us the order to return the boys to their family. We argued, protested, cried and prayed. We prayed a lot. We returned Matt and Andrew to St. Vincent Sara Fisher three days before Christmas in 1998. I felt as if my heart was just ripped out of my chest. I threw up my arms and said “Alright God, what’s your plan now?”

We were still foster parents and for the next year only accepted respite care placements because we were afraid to get hurt again. Our hearts just weren’t in it. Sadness seemed to lift when we got a call early in December of 1999 to pick up a set of biracial twin girls who, they told us, “were available for adoption.” We made arrangements with our social worker to pick up the girls at St. Vincent Sara Fisher on Tuesday, December 22nd 1999. On Friday, December 18 1999, we got a call from a different social worker who told us that there had been a big mistake. Records were duplicated and another family was selected as the adoptive parents, not us. Heartbroken, all we could do was to pray. “Alright God, what’s your plan now?”

We prayed a lot throughout this entire adventure. Feeling no sense of security with the foster care system, we called Catholic Social Services and told them that we wanted to surrender our license. We couldn’t endure any more and asked them not to send us any future placements. We looked at all of our options. We prayed on them. We decided that we would adopt internationally. We knew the financial commitment was huge, but what other option did we have? I would get a second job and Joyce would sell Claritin during the week and wait tables on the weekend. Someday, we would have enough money to adopt a child.

On January 10 2000, two days before her birthday, Joyce got a call from Catholic Social Services and figured it was in regards to our license. This is where God started showing us his plan. Sometimes in life, things happen where you can vividly recall every single detail of the moment. You will remember the rest of your life. On the line was an adoption specialist named Amanda Littlejohn. She gave specifics to Joyce. Three week old twin boy and girl; born eight weeks premature at two and three pounds, underdeveloped lungs, hydroencephaly, the boy has a cleft lip and palate and they are currently on heart monitors. They are not available for adoption, they just need a foster family to get them out of the hospital. Born December 22nd, 1999. Amanda closed the call with “These babies will be yours Joyce. It is my will.”

Joyce called me at work and told me that the agency called and needed our help for the weekend with a couple of newborn babies, I was very reluctant. Oh man, here we go again. I figured that since it was only for the weekend, what could it hurt? We arranged with Amanda to meet at Mt. Clemens General on Tuesday January 12th, Joyce’s birthday. Joyce, her Mom and I met Amanda in the NICU. We had to be trained on feeding a baby with a cleft palate using be special nipple as well as a crash course on heart monitors. We brought the babies home on Thursday. I don’t think any of us got more than an hour of sleep that weekend. Come Sunday night, it was time to take the babies back. I had been holding this baby girl, smaller than a football all weekend. I didn’t want to let her go. Joyce said, “Wellllll…..actually you don’t I left out part of the story.” The adoptive parents originally selected had dropped out once they found out that there were health problems. So, here we were again navigating the through the bumpy foster care system. “Alright God, what’s your plan?

We prayed and dealt with fears and emotions. At one point, the original adoptive parents decided they wanted them back. They told us they had named the twins Dane and Danielle. I dropped to my knees and cried. The next day, Amanda called us and told us that there was a flaw with their paperwork and that their foster care license was suspended. They would not be able to take the twins away from us! The biological mother and father had previously signed away their parental rights. Nothing stood in our way now. This was now God’s will.

Amanda called in April and delivered the good news. The state had begun processing the paperwork for our adoption! On October 25th 2000, our adoption was finalized by the state. It was a long and bumpy road with a lot of road blocks, twists and turns. We relied on our faith to get us through some very rough times. God did this. It was his will!