Charles City family thankful for adopted daughters

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

The smiles on the faces of Gracie and Selah Opp tell a story.

The tale is one of love, a remarkable recovery and a unconventional journey that led two young girls to a happy home.

Gayle and Curtis Opp — Gracie and Selah’s parents — made a decision to adopt the two Chinese girls and, in the process, not only changed the children’s lives, but made an already tight-knit and loving family that much closer.

“It’s an awesome way to grow your family. It’s an awesome way for a child to have a home and a family, but it does not come without heartache,” said Gayle.

November is National Adoption Month, where the focus is on awareness of children in foster care and finding those youth a loving and stable home. National Adoption Day is also this Saturday, where thousands of adoptions will be recognized and finalized at courthouses across the nation.

How did Gracie and Selah find a home?

It all began on a mission trip that Curt took to Thailand in the summer of 2006 through the Opps’ church, Bethany Alliance. A short time later, a path had been paved for Gracie and Selah to come into the Opps’ lives.

“He came home from church that day and he said, ‘I just feel like God has a different mission for us,’” said Gayle. “By the very next day we had already applied to Bethany Christian Services to adopt a child.”

Adoption was something that Gayle — a mother of three grown children with Curtis — had been through before, but on the opposite end of the spectrum.

As a junior in high school more than 30 years ago, Gayle had given birth to a son. After talking it over with her family, it was decided it would be best to give the boy up for adoption.

“Obviously this was not planned. To find out you’re pregnant was very, very scary,” said Gayle. “It’s the hardest thing ever. It really is.”

Curt, who started his optometry business in Charles City in 1996, initially wasn’t sure if he wanted to adopt children.

Gayle said, “After we had our third child, it didn’t look like we would have anymore. I kind of brought it up to Curtis shortly after that. That’s when we had heard about the lost girls of China. They have that one-child policy,” said Gayle. “Curtis was not on board with it at the time at all. He just thought, ‘We have three healthy kids; we’re good.”

Curtis and Gayle several years later eventually decided to adopt – the mission trip becoming a driving force to take that leap.

“All the countries turned us down because of Curtis’ age — except for China and the Philippines,” said Gayle.

A list of special needs Chinese children was then sent to the Opps’ mailbox every couple of months. Gayle said the special needs could be something as minor as being cross-eyed.

Then the email came.

“I was shaking — printed that off and ran it to Curtis and said, ‘I think this is our child,’” said Gayle.

That email was from Bethany Christian Services in St. Louis and said that a little Chinese baby had been born and was available for adoption. The mother was then a doctor in the Department of Neuroscience at Washington University in St. Louis. The problem was that the child had a rare heart defect.

“Gracie was born in St. Louis. I spent four months in St. Louis with Gracie and her birth mom,” said Gayle.

Curtis and Gayle still went along with the adoption process and stood by Gracie’s bedside through months of difficult surgeries.

“Gracie was very, very sick. She had many, many heart surgeries and other surgeries,” said Gayle. “We thought maybe we should just put it on the backburner and withdraw from the China program.”

Through very many scary surgeries and many prayers, Gracie pulled through and miraculously overcame the grim prognosis at the time by doctors that gave her long odds of surviving the operations.

Then another miracle happened.

The Opps had applied for a small grant to help with funding Gracie’s adoption through Bethany Christian Services that they did not receive.

“Then all of the sudden, one day we got this note that somebody anonymously had paid for Gracie’s adoption in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We still don’t know who it is,” smiled Gayle.

The money that the Opp family was able to save, in turn, could be used to adopt another child.

That’s where Selah enters into the picture and became the final member of the Opp family.

“So we get this huge grant anonymously. So than we felt that is God saying, ‘Yes, there is another child for you,’” said Gayle.

Unlike Gracie, who was adopted at birth, Selah lived in an orphanage in China and was around 7 years old. Gayle said her only special need was that she was considered old for adoption. Because of the country’s preference for boys at birth, thousands of Chinese girls are either aborted or abandoned.

“We’ll take whatever child God wants us to have. Curtis knew from the very get-go it was Selah,” said Gayle.

Selah was adopted in July of 2008 by the Opps. Gracie’s adoption was finalized in August of 2007.

Selah, now 17 and a junior at Charles City High School, said she wants to be an elementary teacher when she graduates from college.

“Selah has a unique experience because she remembers life in China. She remembers growing up in an orphanage,” said Gayle. “She does have quite the story.”

Gracie, almost 12 years old now and full of energy, is in sixth grade at the Charles City Middle School. She looks as healthy as ever and one day would like to adopt children herself.

“I think it’s really cool that I’m adopted,” said Gracie. “When I get older, I actually want to like adopt at least two kids from St. Louis and two kids from China. They would get to say, ‘Hey, I’m adopted like my mom is.’”

Although one day, when the time is right, Gracie may want to find out who her birth mother is, Selah may never get that opportunity.

“Gracie’s birth mom has been involved. There probably will be a reunification of them whenever Gracie is ready. It can be soon,” said Gayle. “With Selah, there really is no way to find out who her parents were.”

Gayle said Selah could try a DNA test search to possibly find a match and locate her birth parents.

It’s not one of Selah’s top priorities at this point in her life.

“I’ve thought about it, but it’s not like on my top list. I like these two,” Selah smiled.  

“Good answer,” Gayle said.

Gayle did meet the son she had given up for adoption, Adam Becker, about 13 years ago. She wrote a children’s book about the experience after the reunion. Gayle got to meet Adam’s adoptive parents as well.

“Adoption is beautiful and amazing,” said Gayle.

The Opp’s three grown children — Derek, 26; Connor, 23; and Breuklyn, 20 — all are married.

“It’s been so positive and so good for our other kids to share their lives with these girls,” said Gayle. “Adoption is just part of our world.”