I never had any intention of adopting a child,
let alone three children, from foster care.
After all, I had been blessed with three healthy biological children,
and had come to realize, after the death of my first child, how precious the
gift of life truly was. During the
process of adopting my first child from foster care, I had felt that I was being
selfish by adopting a child that had been with our family for over a year and a
half. After all, so many people cannot
have healthy children of their own. If I adopted this first one, I might be
taking her away from someone who could NOT have children; a family that needed
a child in to complete their family. Fortunately, my wife, our friends and
family, and the good Lord saw it differently, and all convinced me that this
child was indeed ours, forever. I cannot imagine life without her, now.
A few
years later, when the opportunity arose to adopt two more girls from foster
care, one who had been with us for a year, along with her unborn sister, I
again balked at the idea. This time, I
was quite anxious, as it would bring the number of six children with the name
DeGarmo into our house on a permanent basis.
This would be Brady Bunch levels, and I did not have an Alice to help
care for the house. Subsequently, since
that time, I have had up to eleven children at one time in our home, and I
still don’t have an Alice. My wife and I
could surely use and Alice. Perhaps you
might be interested in applying.
Three years late, I now look at adoption
completely differently. My family has been blessed, abundantly so, with the
adoption of these three children into my family, and I have been given the gift
of love over and over again. Indeed, as
my family has grown, so have the joy, love, and happiness in our lives. To be sure, I now consider the possibility of
adopting each child that comes into my family from foster care, and no longer
have a cap to the family total.
When a child is placed into foster care, the
initial goal is to have the child reunified with his birth parents, or a member
of his biological family. The initial
intent of placing a child into care is that the placement be a temporary, with
reunification the main objective. Yet,
there are those instances when reunification is not possible, and the child is
placed through the court system for adoption.
Of the over 560,000 children placed in foster
care in 2010, it is estimated that 107,000 of these foster children became
eligible for adoption. Sadly, only
around 53,000 of these children were adopted during that year, with over half
of these children being adopted by foster parents, with the rest being adopted
by family members, and a small percentage being adopted by non relatives. Nearly 60% of children in foster care in
America wait 2 or more years before being adopted.
For those
children who are not adopted, many remain in the foster care system for
extended periods of time. Some of these
children are moved to group homes, while others simply age out of the foster
care system, never truly finding a family of their own and a place to call
home. (The Foster Parenting Manual, Jessica Kinglsey Publishers, DeGarmo
2013).
Without a doubt, there are challenges involved
when adopting from foster care. Yet,
these challenges are far outweighed by the gifts of love each brings to our
homes, and to our lives. Thousands
continue to foster children in need, and continue to love each biological,
adoptive, and foster child with as much unconditional love as possible. Each
child is unique, each child is special, and each child is deserving of
love. Thank you to all who have cared
for children in foster care, and thank you to those who have adopted a child in
need. You are changing lives, and making
a difference.
Dr. John DeGarmo has been a foster parent for
13 years, now, and he and his wife have had over 45 children come through their
home. He is a speaker and trainer on
many topics about the foster care system, and travels around the nation
delivering passionate, dynamic, energetic, and informative presentations. He is also a foster parent coach, working
with you and your family on a personal level. Dr. DeGarmo is the author of
several books, including the new book
Helping Foster Children in School,
as well as the inspirational best seller
Fostering Love: One Foster Parent’s Journey, and the sequel Love and
Mayhem: One Big Family’s Uplifting Story of Fostering and Adoption. Dr. DeGarmo is the host of the weekly radio
program Foster Talk with Dr. John, He can be contacted at drjohndegarmo@gmail,
through his Facebook page, Dr. John DeGarmo, or at his website,
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