After loss, Chesterfield family gains through adoption

The circumstances that led Earl and Jeannie Holland to adopt two bright-eyed little girls last November began with a family tragedy 11 years ago.

Jeannie gave premature birth to a daughter, Janelle, who had a rare chromosomal disorder called Patau syndrome.

"They rarely make it out of utero," Jeannie said. "She was a miracle child because she lived for 7 weeks."

The Hollands always had wanted a girl to join their two sons. After coming to terms with Janelle's death, they thought: Why not adopt?

A year ago, the Hollands completed what turned out to be an arduous adoption search. Anecia, 8, and Ameeria, 9, are now part of their family.

The Hollands discussed their adoption journey to call attention to the issue during November's National Adoption Month. "If it will help some other people adopt kids, I'm all for it," said Earl Holland, a maintenance employee for the Chesterfield County school system.

The Hollands, after several less-than-satisfying experiences with adoption agencies, turned to the Children's Home Society of Virginia.

Georgia Fisher Arnold, spokeswoman for CHS of Virginia, said about 1,300 children in this state are waiting to be adopted.

CHS is a Wendy's Wonderful Kids agency, and as such was awarded a grant to fund a recruiter whose job is to find adoptive families for older children and children with mental-health disorders. Such a model "uses a child-focused approach; they find families for the kids versus finding a child to fit a family," Arnold said.

The couple's search was complicated by their very specific requests: They did not want to become part of the foster system, they wanted two biological sisters, and they did not want the girls to be much younger than their teenage boys.

Anecia and Ameeria were younger than what the couple had in mind. But when Jeannie saw their photo, she began to cry. "I saw two loving girls that life had dealt a really bad hand."

The girls had to live with the Hollands for six months before the couple could officially apply for adoption. Anecia and Ameeria arrived in the Holland household shortly before the family's long-planned cruise to Mexico in June 2010.

"To take somebody else's kids out of the country for a week is not an easy undertaking," Earl said. But they did not want the sisters to have to slip back into foster care during their vacation.

"It was very important that they come with us," Jeannie recalled.

They praised Laura Ash-Brackley of Children's Home Society for cutting through the red tape so that Anecia and Ameeria could travel with the family.

Jeannie, an anesthetist, said there was a period spent "trying to take two families and make them one," as the brothers and sisters adjusted to their age and gender differences. But now, "it's amazing how kids, they're very adaptive. It's like they were born into this family," she said of the girls.

They credit their church, Faith Landmarks Ministries, with providing an invaluable support system. But Anecia and Ameeria's journey through the foster care system was not always nurturing.

At one stop, the girls suffered abuse, a fact the Hollands didn't learn until they had started the adoption process and saw the girls' files. "I cried," Jeannie recalled.

The couple, who moved to the Richmond area from Lancaster, Pa., in 2000, live in an open and spacious home in a wooded cul-de-sac in Chesterfield. The girls attend O.B. Gates Elementary School; Earl Jr., 16, and Drew, 14, attend Matoaca High.

"It's a loving, stable environment," Arnold said. "The before-and-after pictures of the girls are astounding. The change is noticeable. They are so happy now."

So are the Hollands, despite the lingering pain of a daughter's death 11 years ago.

"We're not trying to replace Janelle, because that will never happen," Jeannie said. "We're just refocusing our love for a daughter on two girls who deserved to be loved."