Reece’s Rainbow Report #60: Hetrick Family

Malea Hetrick knew exactly how in 2015: start adopting a child from India. 

Growing up, she had known lots of people adopted from other nations. “As a child, I just accepted without question that adoption, including international and transracial adoption, was a rather normal way to build your family,” she says. 

Hetrick’s mom was also a special education teacher, splashing over into a childhood where disability was normalized. Though Hetrick was — and still is — single, she knew that international special needs adoption would be the way she would grow her family. India allows single-mother adoptions and seemed like a good overall fit. 

So Hetrick pre-registered with an agency and began receiving their emails of waiting children. On May 29, 2016, she read about “Sandy,” a beautiful young girl in India with some medical diagnoses that scared Hetrick. 

“I committed to praying for a ‘brave family’ to step forward for her, someone to see the child behind the labels, and kept praying for my child somewhere in India,” says Hetrick. 

The following Valentine’s Day, the young attorney was diagnosed with cancer. Once again, she felt afraid and overwhelmed. Would India now say no to a cancer patient? Thankfully, that turned out not to be the case; Hetrick merely needed a doctor’s letter to keep her Indian adoption moving forward. Not long after, she realized during a conversation with another adopting parent that maybe she could be Sandy’s mama. The fear and anxiety were gone!

“She was perfect and precious and I could take her to the hospital and learn whatever medical care she needed,” Hetrick says. “’Sandy’ was amazing, and I could find the right doctors to handle the otherwise ‘scary’ medical stuff.” 

That little girl once known as “Sandy” now finds this story hilarious. Suma Joy and her new mother were matched together exactly 364 days after Hetrick’s cancer diagnosis, and four-year-old Suma came home to Ohio in 2018. 

“She laughs at my year's worth of prayers for some other family to be brave enough to adopt her,” Hetrick says. Nine-year-old Suma now giggles in agreement, “Jesus was probably like, ‘Malea, it’s you, you silly goof! And she’s not scary!”

Not at all. In fact, the more Hetrick and Suma got to know each other, the more the young attorney fell in love with motherhood. This love came even in the midst of intense medical care for Suma, as she was sicker than anyone had anticipated. There were weeks in the hospital, numerous doctors’ visits and surgeries. 

Would Suma learn to view Hetrick as her mother, and not just another nurse or caregiver? Would Suma ever trust and bond with her, given all her medical trauma? 

“She saw me stand up for her, advocate for her, defend her, respect her boundaries, and answer her every cry for months in really hard and scary circumstances,” Hetrick remembers. “And something about the privilege of getting to be the one to do all of this for and with her, especially during our hard monthlong hospitalization, watching how my voice and my presence literally lowered her heart rate and calmed her anxiety —motherhood really clicked for me then.” 

In case anyone doubted, Suma would tell the nurses, a slight lisp tinging her accent, “My mommy and me, we got dis” and “My mommy and me, we a team. We do hard tins togeder.”

The next hard thing: bringing home a sister for Suma. Two-year-old Anya Grace, also from India, gained a new last name in 2022. She has Down syndrome and a silly sense of humor, regularly cracking jokes on her augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device. Now five, she calls Hetrick “Mommia,” a combination of “mommy” and “Malea.” 

“Anya very much loves her family, and is a homebody like her mom. She loves a snuggle on the couch with a movie,” Hetrick says. “She is very compassionate and empathetic; if someone is hurt, she is very concerned for their wellbeing and will try to comfort them.”

These days, the Hetrick home is filled with half-finished craft projects, basic Telugu and Hindi words, Indian food, Anya’s giggle that sounds like she swallowed a squeaker, Suma’s science shows, bangles and an Alexa device being asked to play Indian music. Oh, and a new six-year-old Indian brother named Manav who only became a Hetrick in April.

“Anya was such an easy addition to our family. Medically she was very stable, and personality-wise, she just fit so perfectly,” explains Hetrick, now a 35-year-old attorney. “Much sooner than I would have anticipated, our everyday felt balanced and natural, and so when we hit six months home (the minimum wait time for most agencies) and with the approval of our social worker and placing agency, we started his adoption in June 2022.” 

Though none of Hetrick’s children were listed on Reece’s Rainbow, she has been a part of the online community for years, frequently assisting with fundraising.

”I love to see the community that gets built through Reece's Rainbow,” she says. “Even though my children weren't on Reece's Rainbow, several of their former foster or orphanage siblings have been, and it's been so uniquely wonderful to play a small role in advocating and helping fundraise for both their individual grants and their family's accounts once they've matched!” 

Hetrick certainly is matched with her best life — and so are her children. She still marvels over how she, as a stranger, upended their lives in India, and yet they eventually chose to trust, bond and love. How cool is that, really? 

“Even the very hard things like walking through major surgeries with them is a privilege. I don’t take it lightly or for granted,” she says. “I get to be the one to watch it all unfold, to experience it all with my kids.”

“I am always awed by the ways my kids bloom into themselves.”