Growing a family through foster care adoption is not always a clear journey. Often times when choosing to have a family the best option becomes fostering to adopt. Through a foster adoption family’s pay little to nothing but they do take time. Today we chat with Edward about his family’s foster to adoption journey.
Q. When Did You Start Your Adoption Journey?
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A. My husband, Andrew, and I began our adoption journey in March of 2016 and became certified as foster parents the following August. We realized becoming foster parents was the best option for us because of the prohibitive costs related to private adoptions and surrogacy. Instead of being trained in Philadelphia, we worked with Haven Adoptions Inc., a private agency based in Ambler, PA that was in the early stages of training and becoming a provider foster agency. We are proud to say we’re Haven Trained! In March of 2017, we accepted a placement that finalized in July of 2019.
Q. What Are Your Adoption Dates?
A. After a 28-month placement of prematurely born boy/girl twins that were discharged from the hospital with us, we finalized this past July 9th.
Q. Please Share Your Adoption Experience With Us.
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A. Fostering and eventually adopting our twins has been the most challenging and rewarding experience Andrew and I have faced together not only as a couple but as individuals, too. We went through the training and were alerted to the highs and lows of being foster parents. But all of the training only goes so far – being in the trenches with children in your care is really when you realize what being a foster parent is all about.
We met the biological parents within days of accepting the twins’ placement as they were still in the hospital and at each discharge, the parents came to be with them before we took them to our home. We feared that meeting the parents would be awkward and create a lot of anxiety, but they are kind people that were aware of mistakes they had made and only expressed gratitude and relief that we were giving their children a safe home.
Q. What Is The Best Experience You’ve Had Through This Process?
Photo Credit: Senn008- https://www.ivorytreeportraits.com/
A. The most incredible experience of this entire process has been becoming close with biological family members of our twins. Sadly, the biological mother has been missing since November of 2017. But we have a wonderful growing relationship with the biological father (who is incarcerated) and an extremely close relationship with his mother, the twins’ beloved Grandmom. She even said it before we did – “you feel like family!”
Q. How Has Your Life Changed Since You Started This Journey?
A. After our adoption finalized, friends in our circle of support thought things would finally normalize and we’d finally be settled as a family of four – and that has happened – but we also wake up each and every day realizing Anthony and Arabella are now our children. Forever. It’s the most wonderful gift we’ve ever been given and celebrating it gives us so much joy.
Q. Any Advice You’d Like To Share With People Choosing To Adopt?
Photo Credit: https://www.melissaenglephotography.com/
A. We can only speak as people who have adopted through the foster system, and it’s so easy to just say “it was challenging” or “we were scared to lose them” but what I think is more important to highlight is how crucial and valuable it is to maintain biological relationships. It isn’t always good or even safe to maintain these relationships, but in our case it was – and we are so grateful to have the blessing from biological family members in support of our adoption. The twins are fortunate to have so many people in their lives that love them and we’re lucky to have so much kindness and support in our lives.
Thank You
Thank you, Edward and Andrew, for sharing how you’ve grown your family through a foster care adoption. If you are in the process of fostering to adopt, we offer free adoption day photos through our Framing Forever program. Contact us here for more information.
