Through Kidsave, Natalia from Colombia finds adoptive family in O.C.

Natalia has found a family — a mother, father and little brother. She’ll leave a life of foster care in Colombia to join them in suburban Orange County this fall.

I wrote a column about Natalia in January, when the 11-year-old visited Los Angeles with Kidsave, a Culver City group that brings parent-less children here from Colombia and tries to link them with adoptive families.

Natalia spent a month in Pacific Palisades with Rhona and Kenny Rosenblatt, Kidsave volunteers who ferried her to social events where prospective parents turned out to size up the visiting kids.

But Natalia drew no inquiries.

One family, who’d seen her photo on Kidsave’s website and flown out from back East to meet her, abruptly canceled an outing and returned home after spending two days with Natalia here.

“She’s such a lovely and loving little girl,” her host mother Rhona Rosenblatt told me then, appealing for a column. “I know there’s family out there for her, if we just get the word out.”

::

Jeff Howell read that column and it struck a chord; he emailed it to his wife. They had spent years exploring ways to expand their family. He’s a lawyer, his wife Valeria Pereira-Howell is a dentist, and their 6-year-old son Zen had been hankering for a sibling.

“We started out thinking, like everybody else, we’re going to get a newborn,” Jeff Howell said. They considered open adoption, international adoption, adoption from foster care. There were risks and rewards with every option, but nothing felt just right.

The column drew them to the last Kidsave outing for that winter group, a scrapbooking session at Runyon Park. They didn’t have much time to spend with Natalia; several other families had shown up to meet her. “We barely even got a chance to talk,” Jeff said.

They left having written off adoption. “We figured we’d volunteer to host a child this summer,” he said, a dry run for future prospects. But Kidsave volunteers saw the spark between the Howell family and Natalia.

“You look at them and it seems like they belong. You can’t exactly put it into words,” Rosenblatt said, “but you can feel the connection.”

They arranged a string of get-togethers: a trip to Newport Beach, dinner at the Rosenblatts’, an outing in Santa Monica. And by week’s end, their deal was clinched.

“It was just the perfect fit for us,” Jeff Howell said. “We thought, why wait? If we were trying to write down exactly what we were looking for, it would be Natalia.”

Jeff and Valeria both speak Spanish and have lived in South America. He majored in Latin American studies in college; she was born and raised in Brazil and remembers the angst of moving to America.

And Natalia’s a good match for their sports-loving son. Her first time on roller blades, Jeff Howell said, she skated along the beachfront path “for miles, smiling the whole time.”

It wasn’t just those calculations, but something deeper that moved them forward.

“A feeling,” he said. “Definitely a feeling.... Automatically, right away, there seemed to be this level of trust between us. Something that you don’t feel every day. You know what I mean?”

::

I don’t, not really. The chemistry of creating a family has always seemed mystical to me.

In this summer’s group of six Kidsave hopefuls visiting Los Angeles, four of the children have families interested in adopting them, and two have no prospects. The group is scheduled to return to Colombia on Tuesday.

Valentina is an artistic, good-humored 12-year-old who loves fashion and is the kind of friend who is always tending to others’ needs. Julian, 12, is a sports lover, with a smile that lights up a room and an uncommonly serious side.

Their last Kidsave social event, open to the public, is a scrapbooking party on Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Newport Beach Tennis Club.

This week, Rosenblatt said, the reality of going home to Colombia began to sink in. “Julian told his host mom, ‘I don’t want to go back to being number 131.’ That’s his orphanage number, the number in his clothes so that they know which are his,” she said.

“Doesn’t that make you want to cry?”

Yes, it does. But Natalia’s story gives me hope.

This is a process that can’t be rushed or forced, where families and children have a voice.

“They have to choose each other,” Rosenblatt said. “These are not babies, who don’t recollect. They’re 11 and 12 years old. They have memories of their past and they have hopes for their future.

“Still, it’s painful trying to figure out why some children are chosen and some are not.”

Jeff likens it to matchmaking: “Love doesn’t happen every time. Sometimes you have to wait for the right family to come along.”

A year ago, Natalia spent a summer with Kidsave in Iowa, and wound up one of the unchosen.

“She didn’t find her family then,” Jeff recalled. “And it wasn’t until the very last week of her winter visit here that we came along. And it clicked. It’s amazing how fast she bonded with us.”

Two other families from that Runyon Park outing also applied to adopt Natalia, who returned to her Colombia foster home when her Kidsave visit ended in January.

Colombian officials chose the Howells, after interviews, investigations and home studies — and consultation with Natalia. And the other families are now considering adopting other Kidsave youngsters.

It took months for the decision to come down, Jeff said. “But we went forward believing it would be us.”

One month after they met Natalia, the Howells moved to a bigger home in Irvine. Near a park and a swimming pool. With a bedroom for their daughter.

sandy.banks@latimes.com