Couple who adopted twins from America want to give other would-be parents hope

Carly Wallace's dreams of becoming a mum were shattered when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer and needed a hysterectomy.  But, after a long wait, she and her husband Brendan are finally parents to twin boys they adopted from birth in America 

Carly and Brendan Wallace with their 15-month-old twins Sean and Shaquille who were born in Georgia. Picture: NW Newspix

When Carly Wallace needed a hysterectomy, she was devastated. Not just because she had been diagnosed with cancer at the age of 33, but also because it shattered her dreams of becoming a mother only months after she’d married the love of her life.

The couple had met several years previously, just before Carly went to Australia for a year. Then Brendan went to America. Finally, one Halloween, they were both back home in Donegal and they decided to give their relationship a go. Even then, it was long distance, with Brendan working mainly in Donegal and Carly in Dublin.

After getting married in July 2013, they decided to try straight away to have a family. “I did a pregnancy test in October,” says Carly. “But the next day, I started bleeding, and I miscarried. It was the one and only time I was pregnant.”

Afterwards, Carly decided to have a smear test. The results found she had some abnormal cells. Although she was fit, healthy and didn’t have any symptoms, a follow-up biopsy revealed she had cervical cancer, and a hysterectomy was recommended.

“They were saving my life but I couldn’t see the cancer, I could just see the hysterectomy.

“Physically, I recovered fine from the operation, but emotionally I was broken. It was a tough, tough time.”

Carly was able to freeze her eggs as part of the CervicalCheck programme, and Brendan says that it felt like a lifeline at the time. But, afterwards, it wasn’t clear what they could do with the resulting embryos.

“I know that there is talk at the minute about the legislation around surrogacy, but at the time we just wanted somebody to tell us, this is where you go, this is what you do but there was nobody to say that,” says Carly.

“We decided that we would try adoption, and we met a couple who had adopted domestically in Ireland and they gave us the hope we needed.

“Only for them, we wouldn’t be here today. That was the reason we wanted to share our story because we got so much out of them helping us. It’s about giving people hope.”

Long road to adoption

In 2016, Carly and Brendan went to an information meeting organised by Tusla. They were told the process would take about four years, and there was no guarantee of a child at the end of it.

Carly decided to go back to college. She studied counselling and psychotherapy and describes it as the best thing she did. “It kept me busy for four years and it helped me to find myself again, or a different version of myself. I was just a shell.”

Brendan found it difficult to see other people starting families. “We were hearing stories of family and friends who were having their own children. You wish the best for them, but it would break you,” he says.

“Within our two families, the first grandchildren were born during this period, and it was so hard,” says Carly. 

We were so happy for everyone else, but we were so sad.

There were many nights of tears, says Brendan, but “you’d get up a day or two later, shake it off and focus on the next thing you had to do as part of the adoption process”.

There was a lot of form-filling to be done, and they would regularly have to renew documents, such as their garda vetting. They also had to attend a course for prospective adoptive parents run by Tusla, which they say gave them invaluable insights.

The more communication you can have with the birth mother, the more information you can gather around a child’s biological family, the better for them, says Brendan. “It’s for their identity to know their background, that there’s no secrets, no shame.”

The couple kept their adoption hopes close to their hearts, only telling their parents when they were two years into the process. They felt it would be simply too hard to have to answer well-meaning queries on what was happening. A handful of people knew, says Carly, our bosses at work and a few referees we needed.

It was a matter of waiting and hoping. They wanted to adopt from America because it would be more likely they could adopt a newborn baby. They also wanted to be assessed for twins.

In November 2019, they got clearance from Tusla, so they registered with Helping Hands in Cork, the only agency in Ireland for inter-country adoption that would deal with the adoption agency in the US.

They had to fill in yet more forms, and there was a time limit of the following February. They did a profile book, which is like a storybook about themselves.

“In America, the birth mother chooses the adoptive parents, so this is what she sees,” says Brendan.

But then Covid hit and everything stopped. Carly was busy finishing her college thesis, and Brendan was in lockdown, doing the garden. “You’re thinking about it, but you’re trying to not think about it,” says Carly.

‘It felt so natural to us’

Then in August, Carly was in Donegal when she received a phone call to say that she and Brendan had been matched, the birth mother was expecting twins, and she was in labour.

They applied for a visa exemption, got Covid tests and flew to Georgia to meet their boys within days.

“From the second we saw them, they seemed like ours,” says Brendan.

They’ve been waiting for us, and we’ve been waiting for them. It felt so natural to us. We just loved them straight away.

The boys are named Sean and Shaquille. “Their birth mother chose the names, we had the choice of changing the names, but it seemed right to keep them,” says Brendan.

The staff in the hospital were amazing, says Carly. The couple had been worried that because of Covid, their access to the boys would be limited, but the nurses said they could come in whenever they wanted.

The twins were eight and a half weeks premature and Carly and Brendan were told they would have to stay in hospital until they were close to full term.

But, after three weeks, they were told the babies would be discharged at the weekend. “We nearly died,” says Carly.

After leaving hospital, the family had to move to New Jersey, where their US agency is based. The boys were just five weeks old on the flight. “We had two car seats with bases, a double buggy, three suitcases and the four of us,” says Carly.

Under American legislation, the birth mother signs a surrender after 72 hours. But under Irish legislation, says Carly, the birth mother has six weeks to change their mind, so we couldn’t start the legal process until then.

“The agency had legal custody of the boys, although they were in our care,” says Carly.

They initially thought that they would be home in October, but they had to change their flights a couple of times as they waited for a court order to come through from America so that they could get temporary passports for the boys. Eventually, they flew home the day after the US election.

The family arrived in Donegal in December and Carly says it was “brilliant” bringing their boys home.

She and Brendan had been thinking about moving from Swords back to Donegal when the twins were starting school, but the lockdown at the start of this year prompted them to speed up their plans.

“Now they are settled back in their home county, close to both families.

Says Carly: “Sean and Shaquille have brought so much happiness and joy to us and everyone around us in their 15 months”.

From the second we saw them, they seemed like ours... They’ve been waiting for us, and we’ve been waiting for them. It felt so natural to us