WILMINGTON, NC (WECT) – It can take countless hours of paperwork and planning but adoptive families say the outcome is worth every minute and penny. Agencies like Children at Heart Adoption Services, Inc. are the reason the Nickerson's have their 3-year-old son Aleksandr ("Alek").
Alek was born on April 7th, 2008 and adopted in December that same year. His mother checked out of the hospital shortly after he was born in Kazakhstan.
"When they put him in my arms he was immediately mine!" gleamed Angela Nickerson and her husband Scott.
Children at Heart facilitated the adoption having worked with close to 500 adoptions world-wide. Now the agency wants to put their focus in Wilmington to create a stronger local network of birth mothers and adoptive parents.
"The more children who can be around me, the happier I am!" said Janice Bergeron, the founder of Children at Heart.
Janice was a lawyer based in New York, her husband a teacher. Together they had three of their own children.
After watching a 20/20 segment on international orphanages, Janice was committed to helping other children. After adopting five of her own, Children at Heart was born.
"We had a wonderful life! We were lacking for nothing!" said Janice. "Except we saw there were children out there that needed us and we had to do something."
Janice hopes a local source will provide members on both sides of the adoption the face-to-face attention they need. She says too often, families become overwhelmed working with services based far away, or making that first call to a hotline.
Children at Heart provides local support groups and personal consultations during the pregnancy and well after.
Families like the Nickersons say the staff at Children at Heart become an integral part of their new families and often attend family functions.
"It just completes our family," said Angela. "It's just the best gift you can ever give to someone."
For more information on the organization, visit www.childrenatheart.com.
The agency is hosting "Aces for Orphans" on July 29th and 30th to help raise funds.
They are looking to grow their pool of adoptive families so that when birth mothers commit (sometimes suddenly) there is a bigger source of potential matches in Wilmington.
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