Jun. 19—MITCHELL — As Amanda and Greg Neppl stood at the front of the courtroom, their 3-year-old son Scout was playing on the floor just a few feet away.
“Today’s a good day, and I like good days,” Circuit Judge Pat Smith said soon after entering the room.
Scout paused with his toys and walked over to his parents who were focused on responding to the judge’s questions. Amanda was cradling their soon-to-be newest son, Kash, now 7 months old, and the family of four was together on a meaningful May afternoon. This was Kash’s adoption finalization.
Through all the emotions the Neppls have endured adopting both Kash and Scout, there’s no wavering in their happiness. The Mitchell couple has been on a six-year adoption story that’s novel-worthy.
Despite the tears and heartbreak from accepting two children, losing them, and ultimately adopting Kash and Scout, the Neppls say the journey has all been worth it.
Every adoption has its hurdles.
“It’s honestly the most beautiful selfless decision that any birth mom can make,” Amanda said. “I couldn’t imagine. It’s your physical body, you’re carrying this child. It’s your blood for nine months and then be able to hand them off and trust somebody else to raise your child. I mean, that is pretty selfless.”
The Neppls were married in 2009, in no hurry to have children. Travel and enjoy life a little first, right?
But conceiving a child did not happen naturally as the years passed.
They didn’t tell anyone, aside from those who they were putting down as references, they were starting the process of adoption. Frankly, they didn’t want pressure from others, and Amanda decided in vitro fertilization was not right for her. Adoption was a safer option financially and emotionally, she decided.
So the Neppls reached out to an adoption agency for an initial consultation in 2017. They heard all the requirements and started understanding what they called an overwhelming process.
“What race of the child do you want? Are you open to drug exposure, alcohol exposure?” Amanda recalled.
One of the most important questions, though, was whether they would accept open adoption. An open adoption means the adopting family, in this case the Neppls, would agree to keep a relationship with the birth family. They also learned they needed to create a profile book, which is basically like an application for birth mothers to review while considering the family that would eventually get the child placed for adoption. They learned they would have to go through background checks, medical checks and more.
“Why do we have to go through all this stuff when all we want to do is to have a child and to be parents? Amanda said. “It just didn’t seem fair, that somebody who could get pregnant naturally doesn’t have to go through those things.”
Two years later, the Neppls got more serious. Amanda was 35, and it took three months to complete all the needed tasks and paperwork to become an active waiting family.
They started their process with an adoption networking group in Georgia. They reviewed 200 to 250 cases, saying yes to about half in hopes of making a match. Each time they agreed to a case, they had to write a personal letter to the mother. Nearly each case that was presented, they had 24 hours to make a decision whether that adoption could be a fit for them.
“And sometimes it’s less than that, because sometimes you’ll get cases where it’s a stork drop, meaning that the baby’s already born,” Amanda said. “So, like, you might have two hours to make a decision.
“It was very hard to focus. You never left your phone. You never left your computer because you just didn’t know when that call or that phone call or the email or text message was going to come through.”
When the Neppls would say yes to a case, cases from all over the country, the birth mom would be presented with their family’s profile book. And then she needed to say yes as well. That meant it was a match.
At least 150 times the Neppls said yes to an adoption and the birth mom chose someone else. They were constantly wondering, “What don’t they like about us? What’s wrong with us?”
Greg said the networking group advertised the average family waits four months to be matched. The Neppls waited two years and never had a match.
They spent more than $20,000 in the first two years to get experience in the process. No child.
A one-year contract with the networking group was $4,500. The profile book cost money, every update was another $500.
From start to finish, the couple spent more than six figures in their adoption journey. The two successful adoptions accounted for 35% of that cost.
About 18 months into their journey, the Neppls had a friend who knew that they were trying to adopt. And the friend knew somebody from Mitchell who was pregnant and considering adoption. They eventually connected during what Amanda described as “like a blind date.”
“You’re trying to sell yourself,” Greg said. “You’re trying to show them that I want to be a father, I will be a good father to your child. We can give that child some things that you probably can’t.
“It’s not easy, it’s awkward and you’ve got to watch what you say because you don’t want somebody to get the wrong attitude, or that, you know, it’s just, ‘Give us your kid’ kind of thing.”
In May 2021, the Neppls finally had a match. The baby was due June 14 for a scheduled C-section in Sioux Falls. All About U Adoptions, a nonprofit organization based in Sioux Falls, helped them navigate through the process.
The day the baby boy was born, the Neppls were at the hospital. The families worked together to decide on a name, and the plan was for the Neppls to meet their eventual son on the second day.
But Coleen Globke Brasch, the executive director and co-founder of All About U Adoptions, told the Neppls the birth family was OK with them meeting the child the first day.
The families spent seven hours together. “We held him the entire time, fed him, changed him,” Amanda said.
The Neppls even had their own hospital room on the labor and delivery floor.
But the mood shifted the second day, and they never saw the child. Something was up, they knew it.
Discharge day was when the Neppls took their first child home. Globke Brasch helped fill out the needed paperwork to give temporary legal guardianship, and they were finally allowed back in the room with the birth parents.
“It was very different from the last time we had seen them walking into that room,” Amanda said. “It was kind of cold. Any time we held (him), we just felt like, you know, they were just watching our every move and like something was just very different from the vibe that we had two days ago. But we left, we left the hospital about 6 o’clock that night, and we took him home with us that night.”
South Dakota codified law
says a birth parent needs 14 days to fully terminate rights, among other specifications. So even though the Neppls took the child home, he wasn’t theirs.
“They are in complete control,” said Amanda, calling South Dakota a non-friendly adoption state, clarifying by saying that the longer legal wait times allow for “disruptions” to occur more often. A disruption is when a match becomes unsuccessful and a birth mom chooses to parent.
Amanda also emphasized that extended wait times impact the adoptive families and the birth moms. She believes women who choose to adopt should have laws that support their decision, not make it harder and drawn out.
Open adoptions in South Dakota are not tracked, according to the state Department of Social Services. Instead, DSS only tracks adoptions through the Division of Child Protection Services after state law was changed in 2007 when the department stopped making recommendations on all adoptions and became responsible for adoption that involved children in state custody of the Department.
The Neppls had their new child in their home, finally living the life of first-time parents. A private baptism was scheduled on the third day he was in their care. And the birth parents wanted to be in attendance.
Amanda, prepped in her church dress, got a phone call from the adoption agency. For some unknown reason, baptism was canceled. The birth parents decided to parent.
“So they walked into our home as we were sitting there on our couch, holding (the child), and they said, ‘They’ve decided to parent. We need to take him back,'” Amanda said.
They were given the option: Allow the adoption agency to take the child back to the birth parents, or do it themselves.
The Neppls got in their vehicle and drove over to say goodbye to the child who was theirs for not much more than two days. No words were exchanged during the transfer.
“Going at it you always, you always hope that they’re going to change their mind,” Greg said. “Whether it’s two weeks, two days, two months, you always think that, you know, we don’t want to make them mad and hate us so that if two weeks into this and there’s a screaming child and then won’t shut up, and they’re just like, ‘Oh, my gosh, we just, we need them gone.’ They call us back. Yeah, you don’t want to burn bridges.”
“We had waited for that moment forever,” Amanda said of becoming parents. “We had this baby and we had these cries in our home, and he was just gone.”
One major positive came from the situation, Amanda said. They realized the positive experience with All About U Adoptions. So in June, they became a waiting family — a family actively looking to adopt — with 21 other families.
A month later, Amanda’s phone rang with a possible case.
Scout was wearing a dinosaur T-shirt at court the day his new little brother officially became part of the family.
He was a typical 3-year-old bouncing around and clinging onto mom and dad. He was enjoying the attention and grinning ear to ear for family pictures after the hearing ended. Judge Smith even encouraged Scout to bang the gavel when all the needed questions were answered and official business wrapped up.
Scout’s journey joining the Neppls began when All About U explained there was a birth mom and father who lived in Lincoln, Nebraska, looking for a good family match. The Neppls said yes in hopes the birth parents would choose them.
A two-minute video sealed their fate.
The birth parents, having a difficult time finalizing their decision, had two families in mind. They asked both to make a video, hoping to see the profile book come to life.
“How many takes did we have to do? I was so nervous,” Amanda said. “Because, again, you have two minutes to, like, try to represent yourself in the best way possible.”
The day after the Neppls sent off the video, they were chosen. In August 2021, they learned they would be a family of three again.
Coincidentally, the same day they received the call from All About U confirming the match was Greg’s late mother’s birthday, Aug. 3. She had died earlier that year of a terminal illness.
Scout was born Sept. 10, 20 days early. The Neppls were out to dinner, phones on silent, with friends when the birth mom went into labor.
After seeing all the missed calls and text messages, they left Mitchell at 11 p.m., drove 4 1/2 hours straight and saw their son.
The mother was 19 years old at the time. She was too young and not ready to parent, Amanda explained. The birth parents terminated their rights and in two days, Scout was part of the Neppl’s family.
Judge Smith also conducted Scout’s adoption finalization.
There was another heartbreak of another missed opportunity for the Neppls.
“Well, how long do you have?” Greg asks jokingly about hearing more of the story.
A third match.
It was Thanksgiving weekend 2022 when they learned of a birth mom in Sioux Falls.
The Neppls met her for three hours the following weekend, and she looked at the Neppls and the social worker, “Is this a match?”
The baby wasn’t due until June 2023, which is a long match.
“I talked to her every single day,” Amanda said. “She introduced us to all her family and friends as baby’s parents. She reaffirmed all my worries every single day.”
Amanda got a text on a Sunday morning in February, on the birth mother’s birthday, that said she couldn’t give up the child. The child was born in May, and the birth mom contacted Amanda 10 months later.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t go through with this initially,” she told Amanda. “I know I’ve broken your hearts. I’ve tried to parent and I can’t do it.”
The Neppls took the child in and cared for the nearly 1-year-old boy for eight days.
“Scout, he was old enough to understand,” Amanda said. “Here he thought he had a little baby brother. I have weeks of pictures in those eight days.”
Another text came from the birth mother, “I would much rather struggle with him than without him were the exact words that she used.”
Within a couple hours, the Neppls met in a park in Sioux Falls and dropped him off.
For months, there were reminders at swing sets, in the vacant spot where the car seat sat and throughout town.
Kash’s story was mostly uneventful, at least compared to the other three matches. All About U contacted the Neppls in July 2024. They were picked as a match and the next day Amanda and Greg sat in on their first-ever ultrasound appointment.
Before walking into the doctor’s office, Amanda and Greg met the birth parents for about an hour. Amanda didn’t miss a doctor’s appointment through the pregnancy.
She and the birth mother did a maternity photo shoot together. Kash was born and now the family is a family of four.
Kris Gohn has worked as a social worker for All About U for three years and played an important role helping the Neppls navigate Kash’s adoption. The organization helps 18 to 25 families annually go through successful adoption, each taking about one year and averaging about $20,000 from start to finish.
The Neppls spoke highly of the agency. Gohn was at Kash’s adoption finalization, holding a flower bouquet to give to the Neppls to celebrate the happiness of the day. She’s proud to say she’s a mother because she’s adopted four kids.
The Neppls, who say they are done adopting, have strong, open relationships with both birthparents.
“Why would I want to shut them out of my life?” Amanda said. “They gave us the biggest, best gifts in the entire world.”
Added Gohn, “They’re very appreciative of the gift their birth parents have given them. They recognize the sacrifice.”
Their journey has been eventful, “and not for the faint of heart,” as Greg describes it.
“No matter how you choose to grow your family … there’s a risk and there’s heartache,” Amanda adds. “None of it’s easy. None of it’s easy.”