Love in their hearts: Couple adopting child, years after losing their son
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Paul and Laura Gillum with their daughter, Zoe, at their home in Canonsburg. The couple adopted the baby several years after their toddler son died after an accident.
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Paul Gillum gives his daughter, Zoe, a bottle at the family’s home in Canonsburg.
Zoe Gillum sleeps peacefully in her crib.
CANONSBURG – In the nearly 31/2 years since Paul and Laura Gillum’s 23-month-old son Dean died following an accident in the family’s backyard pool, their grief has been unrelenting.
“It’s the little things that you don’t think are going to break you, those little things do,” said Laura. “The birthdays, you’re prepared for, the anniversary of their death, all of that. But things that you don’t think would bother you – certain smells, certain songs – bring everything back and make you lose your mind.”
But the Canonsburg couple has found unexpected happiness.
The Gillums are adopting a baby girl.
“After Dean died, we decided we wanted to have more kids, that we had enough room in our hearts and in our home to love another child,” said Laura. “Whether we had them ourselves or adopted or fostered, we wanted more children.”
The couple spent 21/2 years and more than $40,000 pursuing nearly a dozen failed fertility treatments (including an ectopic pregnancy) that left them emotionally and financially depleted.
They decided to become foster parents and began the process.
But on Dec. 29, in the middle of the night, Laura received a phone call from a couple that she and Paul had been friends with for about 25 years, when the four served in the U.S. Air Force.
Their teenage daughter, they told Laura, had hidden a pregnancy until she went into labor, and hours earlier she had given birth to a baby girl. She wanted to put the baby up for adoption, but didn’t want anyone else except the Gillums to raise the little girl.
Would they?
Laura woke up Paul and told him what had happened.
“He said he didn’t know if it was a good idea or not. I said, ‘Just think about it,’ and about an hour later, he said, ‘Well, what are we going to name her?'”
They named her Zoe Evangeline Gillum.
On New Year’s Eve, Laura and her mother, Barbara Rosenberger, made the 6 1/2-hour drive to a hospital in Mechanicsville, Va., hospital where Zoe (which means “life” in Greek) had been born, and brought her home the same night.
“We’re loving every minute of it,” said Laura. “We’re over the moon. When we went down there to get Zoe, I kept waiting for someone to say, ‘No, we were just kidding,’ or waiting for the birth mother to change her mind.”
Since Dean died on Aug. 5, 2015, the Gillums have tried to make a positive impact in others’ lives.
They donated Dean’s organs.
Dean’s heart was given to a then 6-month old boy, Lennon Cureton, who suffered from a heart condition and is now a healthy 4-year-old. His kidneys went to a 66-year-old nurse in Pittsburgh and his liver was donated to a 1-year-old Florida boy.
The couple also started Breathing For Burrito (Dean’s nickname), a nonprofit organization that has provided free cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first aid classes to hundreds of people.
Gillum also has been approved to be a living donor for a matched patient who needs a kidney transplant and, barring any complications, will undergo donation surgery in March.
Still, the Gillums remained heartbroken.
“When you lose a child, it’s like carrying around a huge boulder on your back, and the boulder never gets any lighter,” said Laura. “But the callouses that build up on your back make the load a little bit easier to carry every day.”
Zoe has made their sadness easier to bear.
Being parents again, said Laura, is a new chapter in their lives.
“We’re not first-time parents anymore, but we kind of are, because we only had 23 months with Dean. We didn’t get three or four years with him, and preschool and kindergarten. We’ll get to experience a lot of firsts,” said Laura. “And we never in a million years dreamed of having a girl. But I’m glad, because I had never thought about it, but if we had had a little boy, would we spend his entire life comparing him to Dean, or what Dean could have been? I was terrified of that.”
Jess Cureton, whose son, Lennon, received Dean’s heart, said she is thrilled that the couple who helped save her son’s life are going to be parents.
“I know they will never replace Dean, but they deserve to be parents and they deserve some type of happiness in their lives,” said Cureton. “Seeing Laura’s face light up in the photos with Zoe really just makes me so happy. I can imagine it’s hard to regain joy after the loss of a child. That’s one lucky little baby, because she’s going to have two incredible people as her mom and dad.”
Although an independent adoption is generally less expensive than an agency adoption, it comes at a cost – on average, $10,000 to $15,000. Adoptive families typically are required to pay for the legal fees, a home study, medical expenses and other expenses for the birth mother.
Leanne Patrick of Canonsburg, a friend and former neighbor of the Gillums who serves on the board of directors of Breathing for Burrito, launched a Go Fund Me page called Giving to the Gillums to help raise money to cover the costs of the adoption, which will take about 10 months to complete.
“Paul and Laura are wonderful. With everything they went through, they are so giving: from donating Dean’s organs, to starting the nonprofit, to helping anyone who needs it,” said Patrick. “Just to see her with Zoe lifts you up and raises your spirits.”
On a recent afternoon, Laura sat in a chair in the living room of the Gillum home, holding Zoe, now nearly seven weeks old. In the crib nearby was a well-worn blanket that Dean carried everywhere. Joy amid loss.
“Right now, we are completely overjoyed. Our family, our friends and neighbors are so excited that we get to be parents again. Zoe could stay up all night, for all I care. I love it,” said Laura. “She’s our daughter. Officially, it will take a little while, but yeah, she’s ours. Sometimes, you get what you need, not what you want.”