A Tragedy, and a Twist of Fate: The Story of Levi and Kelly Hoyt

By Burnsville Patch editor Clare Kennedy
 
The day after their first-born infant daughter's death, Kelly Hoyt's husband made an observation that seemed startling at the time. 

"Levi and I were sitting in the hospital room and I remember him looking at me  and saying 'Now I understand what a birth mom goes through,'" said Kelly, a native of Apple Valley. "I was kind of shocked, just thinking 'Adoption? What are you talking about? I don't want to be thinking about this right now.'"
That was Sept. 2, 2012. On Sept. 1, the couple welcomed Kadence, a beautiful, almost preternaturally perfect baby girl. The pregnancy had been uneventful, and to all outward appearances, healthy. Kelly's labor had been long and difficult, but nothing unusual. Then she felt a searing, sharp pain that made even the pangs of contraction pale by comparison. She remembers nurses rushing her to the OR for an emergency Caesarean section, then someone assuring her that they'd found the baby's pulse. After that, blackness.

When she awoke, the doctor had some dire news: Kadence was dead. In the womb, Kadence had fallen prey to a terrible infection, a bacteria called Strep-B. Though the organism is a typical inhabitant of the human body, on rare occasions it breaches the amniotic sac, wreaking havoc on an unborn child.

"I went from 100 to zero in one second. Everyone was crying around me," Kelly said. "I wouldn't wish it upon anybody, not even my worst enemy. It was absolute hell."

Out of Desolation, An Adoption

Levi's comment about the adoptive process proved to be a bit prophetic. 

"I thought about it and it was true. A birth mother carries a baby for nine months, goes through birthing and labor and at the end there's no baby," Kelly said. "You're in a maternity ward with all these other mothers, and you have no baby. You're walking out with empty arms, going home to nothing." 

The thought haunted the couple after they returned home to St. Paul, she said, gradually growing into a resolution: They decided to adopt a child, though the grief was still raw. Adoption is an exhaustive and time-consuming process, involving reams of paperwork, multiple interviews, background checks, police fingerprinting, a physical assessment, three separate home studies by a social worker, and finally, a 28-page report on the couple's fitness for adoption. The last step is to create a book, telling a potential birth mother about the couple. If the birth mother likes what she sees, there may be a match.

The Hoyts assumed they would have the luxury of time. The process sometimes takes years. In their case, it took a week. A birth mother had chosen them, and she was insistent. The paperwork wasn't even complete. 

Kelly and Levi took a leap of faith and accepted the offer.

A New Beginning

Somewhere in Duluth, a young woman had been drawn the Hoyts' story. She read about how they met at Scott Highlands Middle School in Apple Valley, how their romance bloomed in senior high, their joint conversion to Christianity and their mission work in the orphanages of Mexico. And of course, she read about Kadence.

In February, the Hoyts got a call: Could they come to Duluth? The baby was coming. Though many in the adoption industry advise against it, the Hoyts hit the road.

"We went. We felt we were supposed to," Kelly said. 

Entering a maternity ward again was intense, she said.

"The last time I walked into one we were the couple that lost the child. It was was hard going in there," Kelly said. "But when I was holding her for the first time it was instant love."

The adoption will not be finalized until June 28. Until then, the Hoyts can't publicly state her name, nor post any pictures of the baby they soon hope to officially call their own, but they were there for her first 15 minutes of life. They administered her first bath, gave her her first bottle.
 
"We had a room a few rooms down from the birth mom. We have a great relationship with her, so we were able to do all of (the baby's) care from day one," Kelly said. "Sometimes I forget that she isn't biologically mine. It's a really unique situation."

However, the adoption has fallen into place so quickly that the couple is struggling to come up with the money to seal the deal. Normally, adoptive parents can benefit from grants or scholarships. The Hoyts never even got a chance to apply. 

To pay for costs associated with the adoption, the couple will be hosting a benefit on June 22, at the Rosemount VFW (2625 120th Street West), from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. There will be dinner, ice cream, a silent auction and a raffle. For more information, go towww.leviandkelly.com