Our Adoption Story

My husband, Bill, and I have never suffered from infertility like a lot of people who adopt. In fact, we have seven biological children. I have loved raising them, homeschooling them, and being a stay at home mom.

When our oldest two daughters were young, we were foster parents for the state of Oklahoma. Years later, our oldest daughter, Rachael, grew up, married and had four children of her own. She and her husband became a group foster home. I enjoyed her children, and often considered getting licensed to foster again, myself. But my large family kept me busy, and I put it off.

Then two children came to Rachael's foster home, a six year old girl and her three year old half brother. The girl was recovering from head injury due to a bike accident. The boy could not talk, but used an odd sign language. These two children soon captured my heart more than any of the other children in Rachael's home. I began to invite these two children to come along anytime my grandchildren came to visit.

In Texas, when a child is removed, the parents are given 12 months to work the plan the state lays out for them to have their children returned to them. For the mother of these children, time was just about up. She had not completed much of her plan, and the goal was changed from reunification to unrelated adoption. I began to dream about adopting them myself. To my surprise, Bill agreed right away, saying "They deserve a chance." Very excited, I called their case worker and told her that we would like to be considered. The caseworker said that the parental rights had not been terminated as yet, and that until they were, if they were, she could not talk to me about adoption. I told her I understood, but that I thought my husband and I would go ahead with the classes to get a foster/adopt license. I said if the children became available for adoption, then maybe they would consider us. If the mother got her plan worked and got them back, we would like to foster again.

Shortly after we had begun the process, we found out the mother was pregnant again, and was due within two months. Once again, Bill and I talked it over. If this baby was removed, too, what about adopting all three of them? We decided that would be something we would like to do.

Three weeks later, the mother delivered a premature baby boy. Child Protective Services (CPS) went to court and took custody of the baby. My daughter Rachael was asked to take him. She was going to say no, since she did not like to take newborns, but I asked her to say yes, so we could get to know the baby. Bill and I had taken a large part of our classes, and would babysit for her, kind of like a day care. She agreed, on the promise I would help her take care of him.

About two weeks later, the baby, named Allan came home. I kept the grandchildren while Rachael picked him up at the hospital. Soon she returned, brought the baby in and sat his car seat at my feet. I slowly lifted the blanket.

A tiny, five pound boy looked up at me. His eyes were ringed with bruises from a rough birth. I lifted him out of the car seat, overwhelmed with a wide array of emotions. Who was this little guy? Would he become my son? Or would I become very attached to him, like I had his brother and sister, only to watch him return home?

I could only put those thoughts aside, be willing to do whatever God called me to do, and let this all play out.

The birth of baby Allan gave his mother grounds for a six month extension and also brought the mothers long term boyfriend into the picture, since they claimed he was the father. Soon, with his help and new medication, she began to make progress on her plan to be reunited with her children.

We finished up our classes, but things didn't seem to progress from there. I called the worker in the county I was hoping to work with, and explained to her our urgency. We were 'child specific', and wanted to be licensed when and if the children were released for adoption. This worker did not share my enthusiasm. "You just might not get these children!" She declared to me. I was shocked. In our classes, we had been told that an eight year old child, and a handicapped five year old would be almost impossible to place for adoption.

What I didn't know was that you don't just 'tell' CPS you are going to adopt certain children. This lady, Mrs. Penny* (not her real name) and I were off to a bad start. Soon the county accepted our training packet, and she became our worker. Things began to move again towards our getting licensed.

Time went on, and the end of the six months extension was approaching. A meeting was held, and the parents had almost completed their plan. As talk turned to returning the children, the guardian ad litem (attorney for the children) demanded a DNA test. The parents looked sick, but had to comply with this order to get the children back. The test was scheduled and done. Now we waited for the three weeks it took to get the results. I steeled myself to seeing the children returned. I comforted myself with the thought that even if we didn't get to adopt these three children, we would go ahead and foster again, since we were becoming dual licensed.

Then the DNA test results came in, and the boyfriend was not the father. This opened a new series of complications. The humiliated boyfriend did not want the baby to come live with him. Soon another meeting was called.

It was a beautiful April afternoon. Baby Allan was at my house while Rachael attended the meeting. Late in the afternoon, she called. "Mom, the mother is getting the older children back. They are going home as soon as school is out. But she is going to relinquish the baby, and the ad litem wants to know if you still want to adopt him without the other two." I quickly said, "Tell her yes, we will." Hanging up the phone, I picked up the sleeping baby, overwhelmed at what had just happened, when I heard God speak to me: "This is what I had in mind all along. It was the baby I wanted you to have." I began to cry over the baby's sleeping head. Bill and I were in our 50's. Because of our age, we would never have even thought about adopting a new baby. How wonderfully God brought that all about!

It was the end of May before we finally got our homestudy done. Since our goal was to adopt Allan, our homestudy was an adoption study as well as a foster one. We were licensed for two children. I imagined that baby Allan would take one spot, and we could foster another child. I was anxious to do both. I wanted Allan ours forever, and it couldn't be soon enough.

The home study finally made the rounds, but Mrs. Penny said that she could not find our old record as foster parents in Oklahoma, and they could not license us without them. This went on for a few weeks, further delaying our license. Finally my daughter, who knows how to get things done, got on the phone, and in one phone call, the records were found. Joyfully, at the end of July I got the news: Our license was approved! We were now officially a foster/adopt home! Baby Allan's caseworker made arrangements to move Allan into our home, but Mrs. Penny stopped the move two hours before Allan was due to be placed with us. She declared Allan's worker could not place him in our home. She insisted all the steps had not been followed yet, the first one being our reading the case study. I was crushed; we had waited so long for Allan to be ours. I cried, but finally had to accept that this is how it was, and get back up and wait some more.

Allan's caseworker was going out of town for two weeks, but before she left, she spent hours getting the case study copied and she said she would have it hand delivered to Mrs. Penny, so that she could not say it had been lost.

I called Mrs. Penny to make arrangements to pick the case study up. She was hesitant. She finally said for me to come on in, she wanted to talk to me. I made the 30 minute drive to the CPS office. For the first time, I saw the green sign that announced "Department of Family and Protective Services" and I felt sick. I knew as I drove up that Mrs. Penny was not going to give me the case study. I walked into the CPS office, and Mrs. Penny came out from the locked back section and took me into her office. The case study, a huge fat book that contained everything they knew about baby Allan and his biological family, was sitting square in the middle of her desk. Mrs. Penny placed her hands on the book and sighed. She said she had taken this book home over the weekend and read it. She did not realize that Allan had seven siblings. She said that CPS's goal was always to try and place siblings together, and she felt that no one had worked hard enough to make that happen. She said she wanted to pursue this herself, and would not be giving me the case study. I somehow managed to stay very quiet and calm. In fact, Mrs. Penny finally said, "You are taking this a lot better than I expected you too." At that, I raised my head and looked her square in the eye. I said, "If God wants me to have this baby, I will get him." She smiled and said, condescendingly, "You're right, if God wants you to have him, you'll get him."

The next two weeks were anxious for me. I tried to stay calm, and prayed a lot. Finally, the news came through a call from Rachael. She said "Mom, I just talked to Allan's caseworker and its bad news. She says that Mrs. Penny harassed that home that has the baby's brother until they finally said they would take him if he had no where else to go."

I was devastated. I knew that a home with a sibling would be very hard to beat. Rachael went on to tell me that all hope was not lost; Mrs. Oyi*, Allan's case worker, still wanted us to adopt the baby.

I hung up the phone, and lay on my bed to pray. I asked God over and over, did I not hear you? I wanted to keep trusting. I told God, "I don't want to test you, but I want to put out a 'fleece.' I'm going to just open my Bible randomly and hope I find some hope there." I picked up my big Bible, closed my eyes, and opened it. Amazingly, mercifully, it fell open to the book of Luke, the new name I had chosen, should we get to adopt the baby and the first words I saw were in chapter 2, verse 48, and the words were "his parents". Then I heard God speak to me again, "He is your son."

So I got up off my bed, determined once again to just trust the words I was hearing from God. It was something I had to do totally by faith, totally by willpower, because I could not see any way of overcoming a home with a sibling saying they would take Allan.

One bright morning a few weeks later, I got a call from Mrs. Penny. In a happy voice, she said she had meant to call me the week before. She told me that CPS workers can retire after they have been working a certain number of years, then reapply for their old jobs and they would usually get hired back. This allows them to draw two salaries. So she had retired, and was no longer working for CPS, although she was fairly sure she would be back soon. She gave me the name of another worker who could help me if I needed anything. She told me goodbye, and that she hoped she would be talking to me again in a month or so.

I hung up, shocked. Mrs. Penny was no longer working for CPS! Was this God's doing? I quickly called Rachael, and told her to let Allan's caseworker know about this. She did, and soon the caseworker had a message for us. The final termination hearing for Allan's parents was in a few weeks. She wanted us to all be there, and bring baby Allan with us.

The morning of the hearing came quickly, it seemed and I nervously followed Bill into the courtroom. I glanced quickly around, but didn't see Mrs. Penny. The CASA worker and her supervisor were there however. I had also been very nervous that the other family who had adopted Allan's brother, the ones that Mrs. Penny had asked to take Allan, would also be there. But I asked his caseworker about them, and she said they had never inquired about him in any way.

The hearing began, with the attorneys giving the judge their reports on how they had tried to contact the men who 'might' be Allan's father. All efforts to find these men were detailed, and the judge accepted the documents.

Then the CPS attorney called Allan's caseworker to the stand. In a much scripted exchange, they went over the history of Allan's stay in foster care. They discussed our desire to adopt the baby. The attorney then asked Mrs. Oyi "Is it true that a family with a sibling has been found that has agreed to take this child?" Mrs. Oyi said yes. The attorney said, "And although it's usually CPS's policy to try and place siblings together, we would agree that this is not always the best situation for some children?" She said yes. The attorney asked, "And in this situation, would you agree that the best thing for this child would be to place him with the Raley's, with whom he has bonded?'' Mrs. Oyi said, "Yes." The attorney turned to the ad litem, and asked if she also agreed with this. The ad litem said "Yes, I do, and so does CASA."

Then the judge ruled. He said he granted the termination of all parental rights, and ruled that "the Raley's be given the opportunity to adopt the child." Rachael turned to me and said, "Well, you got him, mom!"

I was completely awestruck by this. I had not expected the judge to rule something like this when we walked into this hearing. All I wanted was hope. And yet, the judge had just ordered that we would be allowed to adopt Allan, who we loved with all our hearts.

I was shaken. I asked Allan's caseworker, 'Can anyone stop this now?' "No..." she said. We left the courthouse, and I began to call everyone I knew with this good news. As we drove past a landmark church I have been driving past all my life, I looked up just in time to read the scripture for the week, "My peace, I give you." God had done it. He had worked a miracle. Allan was about to be ours.

We moved forward with getting things together to make Allan our adoption placement. A date was set to make the adoption presentation for Nov. 11. One day, about the first of November, I went to take our new foster daughter for her visit with her mother, and there was Mrs. Penny was standing in the office. I bravely approached the desk and smiled at her. She walked over to the window, and said through the little slot, "I hear we have an adoption placement scheduled for Nov. 11." I said, "Yes, isn't that exciting?" "What happened to the family "I" found for the baby?" She asked. I said, "I have no idea. I do know they turned down these children before. But I never talked to them, so I don't know."

The adoption presentation day arrived. We got to the office along with Rachael. I was so, so afraid something else would stop this adoption. We went into a room and began going over paperwork. Mrs. Penny kept telling Bill and me over and over that although Allan seemed fine now, he could well have some problems later. There was much mental illness and even retardation and learning problems in his biological family. Finally the adoption worker looked confused and asked me, "Do you suspect anything?" I just smiled and told her no, that as far as I could tell, he was a bright, happy boy. The paperwork was signed, and for the first time in his life, baby Allan was no longer a foster child, a child of the state. He was an adoption placement. He had new parents and a new name, Luke Allan Raley. For the first time, I buckled him in his car seat and took him home as my son.

Mrs. Penny wasn't quite ready to give up though. While the six month period before we could finalize the adoption was going on, she had to come to our house once a month to see how things were going along. Several times she reminded me that if there was ever a 'serious incident' with baby Luke, she could still take him from us. I watched over him like a hawk, determined that nothing would happen to give her an opportunity.

We got a finalization date, April 13, and let the workers all know. Mrs. Penny kept telling me she just didn't know if she would have her part done by then. Bill told me not to get worried about it. If she didn't have her work done, she would have to answer to the judge. She'll get it done, he kept assuring me.

April 12 came around. I had to go to the next little town to pick up the paperwork from Luke's adoption worker. As I was on my way home, I got a call from Mrs. Penny. She had the paperwork ready, could I meet her somewhere? She just didn't know if this was going to work or not, because this paperwork had to be filed BEFORE the adoption. Well, it was around 4:30 in the afternoon, and of course there was no way to get the paperwork from her and get it filed before 5 o'clock. I told her I would meet her at a street off the highway. I called Bill and told him what she said. He laughed and said, "Yeah, it has to be filed before the adoption, but it doesn't matter if it's filed five minutes before. That's why they have clerks in the courtroom." I was so relieved. I met her cheerfully; all her warnings couldn't upset me. This was really going to happen!!

The next morning I woke up so excited. I couldn't believe this day had finally come. All my worries were about to be over. We walked into court, Bill and I, several of our children and grandchildren, 15 of us in all. The paperwork all got filed before the hearing and we were called before the judge. Bill acted as our attorney. We went through all the motions that had to be done, and the judge granted Luke's adoption. She told us to come up on the stand with her. She took Luke from my arms, and someone took a picture of our family and the judge. As we headed off the platform, the enormity of the fact that Luke was ours, that nothing was going to change that now, God had intervened and we had won, hit me so hard, and I began to sob. My daughter quickly snatched up a tissue, and took a picture of me, holding Luke and crying in the courtroom.

We took a lot of pictures there at the courthouse, and came home to have a big party. Our cake had stick drawings of a man, woman and eight children, two girls, four boys, a girl, and a boy, with a heart drawn around the last boy. It read, "Welcome to our family, Luke."

What a labor that eighteen months was. What a wonderful adoption day. What a beautiful son I have. Life is good!!