Dwight Mansburden
02-06-2010, 09:24 PM
No time like now
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After meeting nearly a year ago, a Eugene mom and her adopted Haitian son are home
By Anne Williams
The Register-Guard
Appeared in print: Saturday, Feb 6, 2010
It seems fitting that 4-year-old Sthainder Swaringen’s first full day in Eugene was picture-perfect: sunny, calm, warm.
A walk to the neighborhood park was on the afternoon’s agenda, and not much else, said Sthainder’s new mom, Alicia Swaringen.
“We’re just hanging out,” Swaringen said Friday, beaming at the small boy eating an apple next to her on the couch.
Swaringen, a massage therapist, flew home from Miami with the Haitian orphan Thursday afternoon after a whirlwind, joyous week. Sthainder was one of 14 children who arrived by military transport from Haiti on Wednesday, their adoptions — some of them years in the works — expedited after a massive earthquake struck the island nation on Jan. 12.
She hadn’t expected to bring Sthainder home until June, and didn’t have time to prepare things — including his bedroom, in a yet-to-be-finished upstairs addition to her vintage west Eugene cottage — to the extent she’d hoped.
Though she knew after the earthquake that it might happen more quickly, she wasn’t expecting the phone call Monday from her adoption agency, Eugene-based Holt International Children’s Services, telling her to fly to Miami the next day.
“It was overwhelming,” she said of the experience — particularly the kindness of those she met.
In airports, restaurants and the hotel in Miami, strangers asked her about the little boy with the brilliant smile, often guessing he was from Haiti.
“They would tell me how wonderful it was, what I was doing. I heard ‘God bless you!’ so many times,” she said. “I don’t feel like a hero. I just wanted to be a mom so much.”
Single and 48, Swaringen began the adoption process in 2007. She settled on Haiti in part because of a friend’s connection with the country through his Peace Corps service, but also because of the impoverished nation’s high rates of malnutrition and child deaths.
She lost her heart to Sthainder — pronounced sten-dair — the first time they met last spring, and the bond deepened during the week they spent together then.
rest of story: http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/cityregion/24432490-41/sthainder-swaringen-eugene-haitian-mom.csp
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Eugene, OR, is sometimes referred to as 'Berkeley North' and is full of :hippie
http://www.chimpout.com/forum/imagehosting/31924b6dec30c7b4e.jpg
After meeting nearly a year ago, a Eugene mom and her adopted Haitian son are home
By Anne Williams
The Register-Guard
Appeared in print: Saturday, Feb 6, 2010
It seems fitting that 4-year-old Sthainder Swaringen’s first full day in Eugene was picture-perfect: sunny, calm, warm.
A walk to the neighborhood park was on the afternoon’s agenda, and not much else, said Sthainder’s new mom, Alicia Swaringen.
“We’re just hanging out,” Swaringen said Friday, beaming at the small boy eating an apple next to her on the couch.
Swaringen, a massage therapist, flew home from Miami with the Haitian orphan Thursday afternoon after a whirlwind, joyous week. Sthainder was one of 14 children who arrived by military transport from Haiti on Wednesday, their adoptions — some of them years in the works — expedited after a massive earthquake struck the island nation on Jan. 12.
She hadn’t expected to bring Sthainder home until June, and didn’t have time to prepare things — including his bedroom, in a yet-to-be-finished upstairs addition to her vintage west Eugene cottage — to the extent she’d hoped.
Though she knew after the earthquake that it might happen more quickly, she wasn’t expecting the phone call Monday from her adoption agency, Eugene-based Holt International Children’s Services, telling her to fly to Miami the next day.
“It was overwhelming,” she said of the experience — particularly the kindness of those she met.
In airports, restaurants and the hotel in Miami, strangers asked her about the little boy with the brilliant smile, often guessing he was from Haiti.
“They would tell me how wonderful it was, what I was doing. I heard ‘God bless you!’ so many times,” she said. “I don’t feel like a hero. I just wanted to be a mom so much.”
Single and 48, Swaringen began the adoption process in 2007. She settled on Haiti in part because of a friend’s connection with the country through his Peace Corps service, but also because of the impoverished nation’s high rates of malnutrition and child deaths.
She lost her heart to Sthainder — pronounced sten-dair — the first time they met last spring, and the bond deepened during the week they spent together then.
rest of story: http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/cityregion/24432490-41/sthainder-swaringen-eugene-haitian-mom.csp
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eugene, OR, is sometimes referred to as 'Berkeley North' and is full of :hippie