Richmond professor adopts daughter

After an arduous adoption process, Richmond political science professor Rick Mayes and his wife, Jennifer, are now in Peru where they have met their daughter, Alejandra, "Ali," for the first time.

"When she was 5 days old, she was found early one morning by a gardener of a church in the city of Cusco outside the church's front doors," Rick Mayes wrote about Ali in an email. "As a result, nobody knows who her birth parents are, and they can't be traced."

Mayes and his wife led a trip to Peru with a group of Richmond students in March 2007 and March 2008. He and his family lived in Peru for a year, while he spent his sabbatical doing research at a primary health clinic and orphanage, he said. The couple decided that this was where they wanted to adopt from and have spent the past four and a half years pursuing adoption.

"There were many times we simply thought it would not work out," Mayes said. "We kept expanding the parameters of what we could accept (i.e., a sibling pair, older child/children, etc.). Eventually, however, Alejandra was matched with us."

Aparna Telang, a biology professor at Richmond, has also recently gone through the adoption process. In March 2011, she adopted her daughter Anju, which means "one who resides in the heart" in Hindi, from India, she said. Telang chose her daughter's name to reflect her family's tradition of giving 'A' names to female children, but retained her given name "Kaveri" as her middle name.

Telang officially started the adoption process in November 2009, she said. She stressed the large role that finances and waiting played in the process. Despite discovering her daughter was sick, the process was not sped up, she said.

"That was probably the most stressful part of it," Telang said. "Knowing she's matched up with me, and I couldn't do anything about it."

Anju, who turns five in May, had her surgery and is now enrolled in preschool. Telang and Mayes both decided early on that they wanted to adopt, but wanted to wait for the right moment.

The Mayes family is now spending time with Ali and helping her adjust to living with them. Ali is 15 months old, and Mayes said that she was happy, but clear about what she didn't like, specifically vegetables and having something she was playing with taken from her.

Mayes has told his classes about his adoption and has shared a link to his blog with students and faculty so they can stay updated while he is gone. Red Finney, a sophomore who is one of Mayes' advisees and has taken two classes with him, said that in meetings, Mayes usually mentioned or updated him on the adoption process.

"They had a few different options," Finney said, "but every single time, like at the last moment, it would be cancelled for a reason that was never really a reason. At least that is how he made it seem to me."

Mayes said that when the adoption came through, he almost immediately had to go to Peru and stay as long as the child service department required. His family found out about the adoption in December and had to be in Peru by early February.

"I have called in every favor I have to cover my classes with guest speakers and lecturers from Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Medicine, Midwives for Haiti, Virginia Women's Center," Mayes said. "My department colleagues have also been enormously helpful and supportive. Some of them are also filling in for me with lectures for my classes."

Mayes said he had received advice from other faculty members who had adopted. Amy Howard, the director of the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement, was one of these people, Mayes said.

Howard and her husband, Robert Nelson, the director of the Digital Scholarship Lab at Richmond, celebrated one year at home with their 2-year-old daughter, Meseret, last November. After a two-year process, the couple spent six weeks in Ethiopia before bringing their daughter home.

"As it stands right now, the adoption is not centered around the family," Telang said. "It's actually more centered around the government policies -- the legal steps that all the parties have to take."

During the time leading up to Mayes's adoption, Howard said she had encouraged him and shared what she had considered to be the beauty of expanding her family by adoption.

"It's just, it's a feeling of connection and somehow you were all meant to be together, if that makes sense," Howard said. "And it's hard to explain it until you feel it yourself, but I'm confident that Rick and Jennifer are holding their daughter right now and thinking this is exactly who's supposed to be in our family."

Contact staff writer Maria Rajtik at maria.rajtik@richmond.edu