NFL Pro Bowl Center, Scott Wells, and his wife recently returned home from Uganda after completing their adoption of three children; Carolina, RJ and Elijah. Wells and his wife, who have three biological children, originally intended adopting just RJ and Elijah, until they received a phone call from their agency that RJ had a sister who also needed a forever family, and the Wells’ decided they couldn’t split the siblings up.
“We’ve always wanted a large family,” Wells said in a St. Louis Today article. “About six years ago we lost twin boys on Thanksgiving Day – they were stillborn. And since that moment, we kind of started talking about adopting.”
An interesting aspect of this article is that Wells spoke about adopting as a celebrity, or as someone who is known to have money. He recently signed a four-year, $24 million free-agent contract with the St. Louis Rams and won a Super Bowl with the Green Bay Packers in 2011.
Because Uganda is not a HAGUE Accredited country, the Wells’ were nervous about corruption and said in the article that they specifically chose an agency that “refused to pay any bribes.” Wells also said that they did their best to keep quiet about his profession in Uganda.
“Going into it we were really trying to keep quiet what I did for a living; how much finances we had or whatever. There’s a little bit of that you have to disclose for the courts. They want to make sure you’re financially responsible, that you can handle the children you’re wanting to adopt.”
Because Wells is a public figure, the orphanage they worked with also made him sign confidentiality agreement that he wouldn’t place anything on social media during the adoption process. This meant that his NFL team, the St. Louis Rams, also had to keep the secret of where Wells was when he left the team for one month during training camp.
“The key was to go in there as quietly as possible,” Wells said in the article. “I had to sign a contract with the orphanage saying I wouldn’t discuss it via Twitter, Facebook, the media. Basically, I had to keep everything hush-hush until it was finalized.”
Wells said that one of the greatest days of his life was the day his wife returned home with the three new children. He said it was great seeing his biological children react to seeing their mother for the first time in over two months and bond with their new brothers and sisters.
There are many articles about celebrity adoption, but this story in particular was interesting because Wells was so open about the realities of adopting as a public figure.
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