• Jocelyn Piper expanded her blended family through transnational adoption.
• One of her sons had significant medical needs and was so loved when he died. 
• This is Piper's story, as told to Janet Manley. 

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jocelyn Piper. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Going into our marriage, my husband, Troy, had two kids, and I had one. Early on, we decided that if we were going to expand our family, we would adopt. It's something that Troy had always wanted to do. 

We live in Illinois, and one of Troy's biggest fears, if we adopted domestically, was the chances that the birth parents would have rights to their child — which, rightly so — but he was worried about his heart and how he could handle that. 

Researching Hong Kong's adoption system, we found out that of the children up for adoption, many had significant special needs. That pulled on our hearts. We applied and were sent a file right away of this beautiful little boy who had quadriplegic cerebral palsy and other, undiagnosed issues. We saw his picture and fell in love.

In 2015, we brought our son Nolan home, and he was the light of all our lives. The connection our older children, Colton, Riley, and Jaimee, made with him was life-changing for everyone. 

When you met Nolan, there was something in his soul that you could just feel. He changed people — he made people smile without even being able to say a word.

The other boy in the photos

After we had brought Nolan home, we were reading through some files that the agency gave us and came across tons of pictures of a little boy with Nolan. The description for one of the pictures said this little boy would call Nolan his "little brother."

We thought we would reach out to the agency and see whether we could locate the family that had adopted him. When I reached out to Lifeline, a religious group that helps families adopt children, they told me that no one had ever inquired about this little boy. He had been moved to an adult institution and was still up for adoption. 

He was 8 years old at that time, and that is our Francis.