Melissa Groves will never forget
that over Christmas 2004, her then-6-year-old daughter Autumn asked
Santa Claus for a little brother.
Boy, was she in for a surprise. The little brothers kept coming and coming.
Autumn got two adopted brothers
the following year, followed by their six siblings over the next 10
years, Groves said. The family officially adopted their youngest, baby
Zayn, two days ago.
"I just want them all to stay
together," said Groves, of Omaha, Nebraska, adding that she often hears
about adopted children who go searching for their lost siblings as
adults. "I didn't want that for my boys."
Groves and her husband learned
shortly after getting married that conceiving children naturally was
"very unlikely" for them, so they decided try foster parenting, Groves
wrote in a blog post last week for the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute.
Although they were only
expecting one child, they were asked to foster two of them: brothers
Noah and Chase, who were then 3 and almost 2. The Groves were nervous,
at first, to take home two boys, but soon decided to adopt them both.
Once the adoption was finalized,
however, they got a surprising phone call: The boys' mother had given
birth to another baby boy and he needed a home immediately.
"There was no question," Groves
wrote on her blog. "How could I deny my sons and this new child the
possibility of being together?"
This happened five more times
over the years, sometimes with the boys' birth mother reaching out to
Groves over Facebook to say she was pregnant again.
Though their birth
mother always told Groves she hoped she would be ready to be a mother
each time she became pregnant, it never worked out because she had a
drug problem, Groves said, becoming emotional.
"She's not a bad person," Groves
added, noting that she's in contact with the boys' biological mother
every few months. "I can't even imagine the pain that she's gone
through."
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Though no two stories are
exactly the same, Groves said she hoped to shed light on the plights of
thousands of children across the country and the need for families like
hers to take them in.
According to the Congressional
Coalition on Adoption Institute, more than 100,000 children are
available for adoption in the United States.
The institute's executive
director, Becky Weichhand, said the Groves' story is important because
it helps the public realize that "everyday people are making an impact
in the life of a child, and that they can do it, too."
She said it's
important to keep siblings together where possible because their bond is
a source of emotional strength after the trauma of being separated from
their parents.
"These children have been
through something at no fault of their own," Weichhand said. "Their
parent is not able to parent, for whatever reason."
In Nebraska, there are 322
children available for adoption and 4,122 children who are in state
wards, said the state's deputy director of Children and Family Services,
Vicki Maca. She said anyone who is curious about fostering children
should call their state officials.
"Sometimes, the general public
thinks you have to be perfect parents in order to be eligible for foster
care," she said. "Our kids aren't expecting or needing perfect parents.
They just want consistency. No family is perfect."
Though the Groves' Omaha,
Nebraska, home is often hectic with eight boys, Groves said they call it
"sweet chaos."
And when things calm down, she's reminded exactly why
she did adopted them all.
"When the little ones sit on
bigger ones' laps to sit down and watch cartoons, it's like that's
exactly it," she said. "I'm glad they're all here."
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