Today’s TV section of The Post features a big photo — with accompanying text from yours truly — of TLC’s “The Little Couple” stars Bill Klein and his wife, Dr. Jen Arnold, with their newly adopted son, William.
Bill and Jen, who were born with dwarfism, made it their mission to adopt a special-needs child from another country (William was born in Hohhot, a city in China’s Inner Mongolia region). William is all-the-more special to them because he, too, has dwarfism — and they talked about this with me yesterday.
Here’s more of our interview, which wasn’t included in today’s newsprint version of The Post.
“We always wanted to adopt a child that has special needs like us,” said Jen. “We figured that while my biological clock was ticking we would try surrogacy, and our next stop would be adoption for our second child.
“But we had a lot of trauma with surrogacy and infertility, so we became more serious about adoption and went through that process — and now we feel like this was meant to be.”
“We traveled to China on Feb. 28, were provided custody March 5, finalized the documents March 6 and came home with William on March 14,” Bill said. “When we entered San Francisco he became a US citizen.
“He’s ours and we’re his.”
Bill said William is “just starting” to learn English, since he was raised in a part of China where Mandarin is predominantly spoken.
“The people that took care of him were, for the most part, Mandarin, though there were a few missionary-type folks at the foster facility,” he said. “He knows a little bit of Mandarin and can speak a little bit of English — though he understands a heck of a lot more.
“He’s a lot of fun to be around and he engages us and the people around him,” Bill said. “I had a doctors appointment yesterday and he had the entire office staff in love with him — he was having fun and got stickers on everyone and it was as if the whole office was shut down just to hang out with him. Every kid is gorgeous and cute, but he’s got a way with people.”
Says Jen: “He’s an easygoing, happy guy. He has his moments — he is 3, after all — but it’s amazing how much of a pleasure he is to be around. He laughs a lot . . . but can be serious if he wants to be.”
The fifth-season premiere of “The Little Couple” airs this Tuesday, April 30 (10 p.m.) on TLC.