Safe haven baby ends St. Charles couple's 8-year wait to adopt
Every night before bed, 16-month-old Zoe Wituk joins her parents in saying a prayer for her birth mother.
“If we met the birth mom, we would give her a big hug and say thank you so much for this little blessing,” says Heidi Wituk, Zoe's adoptive mother.
Their joy was a long time coming. The adoption process lasted a grueling eight years.
“We were on the brink of just giving up,” says Zoe's adoptive father, Brian Wituk. “Financially, we were spent, and emotionally, we were just done.”
One April night last year, the Wituks got news a baby was available. There were no details about whether it was a boy or a girl, what race it was or its health, but the St. Charles couple immediately said they were interested.
Still, they hesitated.
The problem, Brian and Heidi agree, is that a birth mom or relative has 60 days to reclaim the child. “It was stressful,” Heidi says.
Just before Father's Day last year, a judge approved the Wituks' application for parental rights. Since then, friends have told the Wituks they would be interested in taking in a safe haven baby too.
But that's not how it works.
Eleven agencies work with the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services to move the babies out of the foster care system - which they are placed in shortly after being abandoned - and into a permanent home. The agencies are on a rotating schedule to receive safe haven babies, and when it is their turn, they review the families they are working with and contact the one waiting the longest.
The Wituks easily fit the bill. And while it was trying at times, they couldn't be happier with the way everything turned out. Their Facebook profiles are filled with cute pictures of their happy little girl making silly faces and playing with her toys.
They say, with a laugh, that their friends are probably getting sick of seeing posts about Zoe and the Save Abandoned Babies Foundation.
Others believe the couple should be more sensitive about sharing her story, in case it makes Zoe uncomfortable when she's older. But Brian says when people meet Zoe and realize she's “an actual product of the law,” it has a great impact on them: It has the ability to save lives.
“You might not need to hear this,” Brian says, “but someone you're friends with is friends with someone who needs to hear it.”