Anne Ryder/Eyewitness News
Maastrict, Holland, Nov. 3 - In the Dutch city of Maastrict, blonde hair and blue eyes are the rule, which makes the news two couples celebrate the exception.
This is the story of two families, two continents and a single burning desire to adopt a child from America and to get in under the wire before options run out.
Lucas and Saskia, who are childless, have been matched with a birthmother in Evansville.
Father-to-be Lucas says, "We are waiting for the phone call that the baby is born, that we can go and take a plane and go to the hospital and get our child."
Their friends, Dick and Vivian, may be getting a second child, a sibling for their daughter Isabelle, whom they adopted from Indianapolis last year.
A birthmother from Gary, Indiana is interested in them and is due the same week as the Evansville mother matched with Lucas and Saskia.
"Of course we discuss it, made fun of it," says Vivian. "It would be great if we would be there together, but I mean it's such a coincidence."
But Dick and Vivian know that until the baby is in their arms, anything can happen.
Indianapolis adoption attorney Steven Kirsh is the long distance matchmaker. He's one of the three most prolific adoption attorneys in the nation for matches of African-American and biracial children to the Netherlands, 120 children placed so far. "The children that are leaving the country are for the most part what are considered hard to place children. There are just not enough families in this country who seem to be willing to adopt those babies."
That's a debatable issue. More on that later. But in the Netherlands, demand for these babies is high.
In a country as liberal as Holland, the laws on adoption are surprisingly restrictive, the waiting lists can be four or five years and if you're 40-years-old, whether you're male or female, you're considered too old to adopt an infant.
Dick just barely made the deadline with Isabelle and faces another deadline next May if he wants to adopt an infant sibling for her.
Both couples are thrilled by the timing of their impending adoptions.
Lucas and Saskia are as ready for parenthood as two rookies can be. Lucas says he doesn't know how to change diapers, but "We'll learn. I practice with the bear. I'm not gonna show you how."
He's hoping for a boy, she a girl.
Their baby carrier holds symbolic meaning for them. "You take it over empty and you bring it back full with a baby in it," explains Lucas.
Saskia worries that the baby won't feel like her own, but she already has a motherly glow. "I ask Vivian and she said in five minutes it's your child."
But for Dick and Vivian there's an unexpected turn of events. Their birthmother changed her mind, deciding to keep her baby girl.
They will try again to find a sibling for Isabelle before the age restrictions come into play and before America tightens adoption restrictions next year.
When the call comes for Lucas and Saskia they board the plane alone and arriving in Indiana find the answer to their prayer in a little boy they name Roderick.
"It's a gift from God," says Lucas. "It's a gift of Heaven, that's how we describe it."
They spent their first ten days as a family in an Indianapolis hotel. Saskia says that when she holds him "for two minutes I think he's my son and I have to care for him for a long, long time."
Lucas considers the couple "really blessed with this boy. That this is what we're waiting for so long and suddenly there he is."
And their hopes are those of any parent anywhere. Lucas hopes "he will be healthy. We hope he will grow up with all the love he needs and that he will get it from us." Saskia says she's "lucky."
