Taking chance on foster care led to joy of adoption By KATHRYN QUIGLEY For the Courier-Post Nov. 17, 2007 I hugged the judge. The Honorable Charles W. Dortch Jr. looked a little surprised when I tearfully clutched him after the adoption of my toddler son. But I had to. It has been a long 17 months as a foster mother and I was overcome with emotion. Dortch, a juvenile court judge who sees lots of heartache and misery in his courtroom, presides over adoptions because they make his day. On Nov. 5, he made my day as he officially decreed my lovely little baby boy is legally mine. No longer a Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS) foster child, now a child of my heart. Forever. Adoption awareness I didn't plan for it, but my son's adoption occurred at the beginning of National Adoption Awareness Month. It also coincided with the 10th anniversary of the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), which sped up the timelines for getting foster children into adoptive homes. In my case, it all worked out. But that is not how some colleagues and acquaintances approached my decision to adopt from foster care when I announced it back in 2005. This is what some said to me: "The system will break your heart." "You will be heartbroken when you lose him back to his "real" family." "These stories never have a happy ending." As a reporter, I covered many child welfare stories with sad endings. So I knew what I was getting into and my family and close friends supported me. But there were some naysayers, to whom I now reply: "The system worked. He never left my home for even a day. My story has a happy ending." Many people are under the wrong impression that healthy babies are not available from DYFS. They are. My son was placed in my home at the age of 10 days -- right from the hospital -- and he is healthy and developmentally on target. I am sure there will be dozens of people reading this column who did have the child welfare system break their heart. But that is not a given. Happy outcomes can and do occur everyday. I always knew I would adopt, from the time I was a little girl growing up on Wells Street in Northeast Philadelphia. My neighbor, Sue Mather, was active in her Presbyterian church and gave me a book about an orphanage in India called the Ramabai Mukti Mission. Over and over, I read that book. Touched heart My mother couldn't figure it out. But the pictures of the little children who needed a home touched my heart. When I approached the age of 38 and still had not found "Mr. Right," I decided to adopt. As far as I know, I can conceive a child biologically, but for personal and moral reasons, that seemed wrong to me as a single mom. Instead, I started out exploring adoptions in China and Guatemala, but the estimated $20,000 to $30,000 cost seemed out of my reach as a college teacher. I did not intend to adopt from foster care. But I thought that maybe I would just foster as a way of becoming more experienced as a mother. Instead, I soon learned there are scores of young children who need permanent homes. It turned out to be a wise decision, given the prolonged delays for adoptions in China and Guatemala. I leaped . . . off the deep end and into an evolving bureaucracy that has been under scrutiny for several years since a boy died in Newark and four other boys were found starved and neglected in Collingswood. What I found was an agency in flux, but one with its heart in the right place. The worst part was the turnover in case workers. My son had eight workers assigned to his case over 17 months. Gems But in that parade of people, we had a couple of gems -- Megan Royal and Greg Rappaport of Burlington County. They were in court on Nov. 5 to watch their former charge become my son. In the courtroom, Dortch sat on one side of the table. He is tall and distinguished -- kind of like Morgan Freeman. My lawyer, Susan Dargay, sat next to me and my son sat on my lap, munching cookies and sipping his cup. Dargay then asked me why it would be in my son's best interest for me to adopt him. The judge looked at me intently. "Because he has lived with me since he was 10 days old. I am the only mother he has ever known," I said. "I love him and he loves me. I am a single mother, but I have the support of many family and friends. I have a stable job. I have a good place to live. And with me, he will learn to love reading and he will go to college." The judge then gave a little speech about the importance of family. Giving birth to a child does not make someone a parent, the judge said. Amen. Then with solemnity and gravity, the judge decreed that I am a good parent and my son was legally mine. I burst into tears and cried for a good 30 seconds. I felt like I had run a marathon and finally crossed the finish line. Then I hugged the judge. For more information about adopting through DYFS, please call: 1-800-99-ADOPT or click on http://www.state.nj.us/njfoster-adopt/adoption/. The writer is an assistant professor of journalism at Rowan University in Glassboro.