December 2, 2008
GREENFIELD -- Three-year-old Hugh Hart is a bundle of energy. Hugh slipped on his yellow rubber boots, insisting that they were ice skates, and started "skating" throughout the rooms of the house. "Where did you hide the ice?" he asked. Lindel Hart, 45, scooped up his son and plopped him down on his lap as he begins to read a story to the energetic and inquisitive little boy.
Hart kept Hugh occupied, as his husband, Rod Hart, reflected about how he has changed since they have adopted their son.
"Oh, I love it," said Rod, beaming, about being a father. "It has made me a better person."
"It has made me better at my job,' he said. Rod is an English teacher at JFK Middle School in Northampton.
"I am more sympathetic to parents, envisioning I will be on the other side of the desk soon," he said with a laugh.
Rod, 36, said he was adopted and that he was never treated differently in his family. Therefore, adoption was Rod and Lindel's choice to have a child because "it was familiar."
"Rod always had positive experiences with his parents and grandparents," he said. "It seemed the natural way for us to go."
Both said they haven't felt any negativity or criticism about being gay and having a son, saying that wherever they go they get smiles and compliments.
"I love being a dad with another dad," said Rod. "I've loved that because there aren't traditional gender roles to fall into."
"We are two dudes raising a kid and we get to shape our roles to our strengths and situations," he said.
But, unlike many other adoptions, it didn't take much time at all for the Greenfield couple to get a child. Within two months of starting the adoption process, they had Hugh in their home.
In August 2005, the couple visited Full Circle Adoptions in Northampton to meet the staff and to learn more about the process. They started the paperwork the next day, which Lindel described as a "ream of paperwork." He said they finished it in a few weeks and started doing home study sessions, which are a series of meetings with social workers and "essentially it is an opportunity for both parties to discuss adoption and some issues around adoption."
Two months after their first visit in August, the couple received a call on Oct. 10, 2005, from their social worker, Marla Allisan, saying "call me a situation has come up."
They called her back and were told that a birth mother was past due and that it seemed probable that she would give the baby up for adoption and that Rod and Lindel were a good match.
Three days later, on Oct. 13, Rod and Lindel received the news that the birth mother was in labor, but the couple had trouble getting any information because it was the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur.
"That whole day, we were on pins and needles I don't know if we slept that night," said Lindel.
At 9:05 a.m. the next day, the couple got the call that their potential son was born the afternoon before. And, now everything sped up. On Friday, they moved their office to another room and started to transform it into a nursery. Lindel arranged his leave of absence for the adoption and started to get everything ready, both physically and emotionally.
But, the couple was warned to not get too much invested and not to buy anything because it was a "high risk adoption."
So, they called Rod's parents, Brian and Susan Klappholz, the eager grandparents, and told them to put the shopping on hold. But, his parents called back and said they couldn't stand it anymore and went shopping with Rod's seven-month pregnant cousin, where they filled a sport utility vehicle with baby supplies.
Rod's parents drove to Greenfield on Sunday and the whole day was spent assembling furniture and washing clothes and bottles. The next day, Monday, Rod, Lindel and Rod's parents drove to Boston to get Hugh.
"Marla met us there to hold our hands we didn't know what to expect," said Lindel.
After five minutes of paperwork at the hospital, the couple were told they could go in to see Hugh.
"That was the beginning of everything," said Lindel with a smile.
"We got a quick lesson on how to hold a baby, how to feed a baby, how to change a diaper and then he was put in a car seat carrier and they sent us on our way," he said.
Marla Allisan is the founder and director of Full Circle Adoptions, which she started 12 years ago.
"We've placed over 190 babies in 12 years," she said.
She said that adoptive families who usually work with Full Circle come from Massachusetts or other New England states, but that they have had adoptive families as far west as California and as far east as Europe.
Back at the Harts' Greenfield home, Lindel recalled some of Hugh's firsts. He said Hugh's first word was "dada." The couple also taught him sign language at 7 months old and by 10 months, Hugh was signing back.
The couple decided to teach Hugh sign language because they learned that it helps children communicate before they are able to speak. For example, before he could talk, Hugh was able to sign to his parents that he wanted milk or sometimes that he needed his diaper changed.
He walked at 14 months. "He didn't want to crawl he was all about standing," Lindel said with a laugh. "He was climbing stairs as soon as he could walk."
Now, as a 3-year-old "dynamo," Hugh loves sports, music, eating, especially spanakopeta (Greek spinach pie).
"He is a big eater," said Lindel, and also likes peas, cheese, yogurt and vegetables.
"If it has a ball, he is drawn to it," he said. "We have a sporty kid, go figure."
He also really likes music, especially show tunes, and sometimes when he is playing baseball, he sings, too, said Lindel.
Lindel is the director of Shelburne Falls Yoga Studio and so sometimes they also do yoga at home.
"It never ceases to surprise me the things he comes up with, the things he talks of and things he says," he said.
"That is really the fun part of being a dad you get to learn things as they are doing them," he added.
"(Hugh) is just fun he is very personable," he gushed. "We like him, what I can say?" with a big smile on his face.
Copyright, 2008, The Recorder, Greenfield, MA
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