Where do babies come from?

Many parents dread that question from their children, but the Duncan children already know the answer: the airport.

Whenever they go to an airport, the youngsters are wont to conclude: "We must be getting a brother or sister," said their mother, Trudy, of Jefferson Township. And when they hear that someone else is going to the airport, they ask "Oh, are you getting a brother or sister?"

"They kind of relate the whole airport thing to someone coming into a family," Mrs. Duncan said.

The five children have come to equate family growth with airports, because that's where they have tended to meet each other, and their parents, for the first time.

The kids are natives of India, adopted by Mrs. Duncan and her husband, Glenn, who recently received the Shenango Valley Foundation's Humanitarian Award for their willingness to take in the kids.

Mrs. Duncan said they lucked into foreign adoption.

Unable to have children, the Duncans, who were married in 1986, were put on a waiting list for a domestic adoption.

Several years later, while looking through an adoption magazine, Mrs. Duncan learned about a Polk woman who had adopted a girl from Guatemala, and called her.

"We talked on a Sunday and that following Wednesday an agency from Washington, D.C., called us, said they had three babies and an older child, and 'Were we interested?' " Mrs. Duncan said. "We thought it was like a scam or something, because we had waited so many years and nothing happened."

The Polk woman had passed Mrs. Duncan's name onto the agency. The Duncans settled on the youngest available child, who was 2 months old.

But the waiting didn't end. The complicated foreign adoption process meant they didn't pick up Ethan -- at the Seattle airport -- until he was 16 1/2 months old.

Now 10, Ethan was an energized introduction to parenthood.

"When they brought him to the airport and set him down, he took off and he's never stopped since," said Duncan. "She had the videotape going and there's me holding the back of his coat."

Mrs. Duncan said she had little chance to get used to being a parent when they got Ethan in 1993.

"I was so nervous -- I waited so many years," she said. "They handed him to me. It was like, 'OK, this is real,' this 16-month-old that's moving. He was everywhere."

She adapted quickly.

"The day after we got him, I called the same agency: 'Glenn said I could get a little girl.' I didn't even wait, because I knew this newness stuff was going to wear out."

Raylenn, now 8, was just weeks old when the Duncans were told about her, but they couldn't get her until she was 19 1/2 months old.

"She was legally ours in India, but the United States wouldn't let her come in," said Mrs. Duncan, who went to India to pick up her daughter.

In 1997, Shaylan, now 5, joined the family.

"The agency called and said, 'We have a little girl with hydrocephalus' and all these big words," Mrs. Duncan said. "I thought, 'Geez, not us. No, we can't do that.' "

But the agency sent information on the girl.

"Within three days, I knew: 'She's ours.' "

Shaylan has been flown by helicopter to hospitals for emergency treatment twice because of hydrocephalus, the abnormal buildup of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles of the brain.

The condition apparently also caused weakness on Shaylan's right side. But her problems have eased since a cystic tumor was removed from her brain.

After Shaylan, who was 14 months old when Mrs. Duncan picked her up in India, "My heart went out then for the special needs," said Mrs. Duncan, the 38-year-old daughter of Tom and Sandy Durney, also of Jefferson Township.

In 1999, Braden, now 9, came into their lives.

"When he came here, I felt the worst for him, because he was 6 when he arrived," said Duncan, a Portersville native. "We met him at the airport in Detroit. The lady that escorted him just left him. He had no idea who we were or nothing. We took him out to the van and he's kicking and screaming, carrying on, and I felt bad for him. He has no idea who these people are. But, he adapted."

Braden had had polio and still limps a little, but is otherwise fine.

Mrs. Duncan, a Sharon native, returned to India in July 2000 to pick up Adriana, now 4.

Diagnosed with hydrocephalus, "She wasn't open for adoption, because they didn't think anyone would choose her," Mrs. Duncan said. "I immediately begged."

Adriana does not walk, but has braces and undergoes daily therapy. She can cover short distances with a walker.

Duncan, a 48-year-old former truck driver and country musician, has been a stay-at-home dad to look after Adriana.

The Duncans thought long and hard about taking on a special-needs child before adopting Shaylan. "But after that, no," said Mrs. Duncan, who works in the service department of a heating and air conditioning company. "We had two who were healthy basically, and we were, like, blessed. Shaylan, we went with faith. We weren't even sure what hydrocephalus was at the time. But after that, I think it was just in our heart. Each child was led to us; we didn't pick a child after that. Each child just happened to come to us."

"We love kids," Duncan added. "We like to give them a chance."

The children have all progressed nicely, both with their health and in their development as American citizens.

The boys like baseball and soccer, and have gone squirrel hunting and collecting American Indian artifacts with their dad.

Raylenn is quiet, and into gymnastics and softball, while drama queen Shaylan likes movies and has been known to act out scenes from Shirley Temple flicks. Adriana is always smiling and has her father wrapped around her finger.

The Duncans try to give the kids a sense of their heritage. They attend annual culture camps in Johnstown, where the children have brushed up on the Indian language, and learned games and dancing.

The family also takes an annual trip to visit children with whom the Duncan children were in orphanages, and who also have been adopted by Americans.

Ethan and Raylenn are from Hyderabad in central India, Shaylan from Calcutta in eastern India, Braden from New Delhi in northern India, and Adriana from Pune in the western part of the country.

Mrs. Duncan also has kept in touch with the orphanages from which her children came, so, if they ever want to delve into their past, they'll have a place to start.

The notion of being humanitarians for assembling their family through foreign adoption perplexes Mrs. Duncan. She said she felt, "Omigosh, this has to be a mistake," when informed of the award.

They were nominated by John M. Hudson of the Hudson Charitable Trust, which helps families who want to adopt international children.

"I didn't feel anything humanitarian," Mrs. Duncan said. "It was just, like, our family we wanted. We are definitely blessed."

You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Joe Pinchot at jpin chot@sharon-herald.com