Our Best Day Ever – Russ Adoption

By Rachel Mar

We didn’t know it at the time, but September 17, 2019, was the day our lives would be changed forever.

On this day, I got a phone call asking if I was willing to take in three little boys.  I normally talk it over with my husband before welcoming in any new members to our household, but this call was different.

With this call, I asked a few questions, but I already knew in my heart that my answer at the end of this conversation was going to be “yes.”  No thought crossed my mind that this “yes” was going to be a lifelong “yes,” but forever ended up being just fine with me.

Soon after this phone call, the boys arrived at our house.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it home in time to greet the boys’ arrival, but I was later told that within minutes of the boys being at our house, it turned to fun-filled chaos.  Toys were scattered throughout the house, Logan was being tackled on the couch, and the social worker whispered to her coworker, still standing in our living room, “We better run before he [my husband] changes his mind.” 

And they did. 

Before he knew it, my 25-year-old husband was left in charge of three little boys who could have caused a tornado in our living room from the constant speed of their running.

Within 10 minutes of this taking place, my husband texted me a picture of each of them with a message saying, “I’d keep them.”

Throughout the next year, we had many ups and downs.  It was not happy and easy the whole time.  We had lots of therapy appointments, meetings with early childhood educational specialists, many lifestyle and parenting adjustments, and times when we prepared our hearts for them to reunify with their biological family. 

But we also found fun in everything we did and everywhere we went.  We found new friends and watched as our boys grew from rambunctious toddlers to increasingly spirited preschoolers.  We watched them grow faster than I ever thought possible and saw their minds develop more and more every day. 

After almost exactly a year of waiting, on September 3, 2020, our status changed from “foster placement” to “adoptive placement.”  It was a day filled with too many emotions to count.  The biggest feeling though, was relief.  We had known for some time that adoption was the most probable outcome, but anyone involved with foster care knows that anything can happen at any time with children in your home.

I remember getting a text message from our county social worker as soon as the court hearing was over saying, “You can breathe now.”  And for the first time, we did.  We knew that they were our children. 

It all became legally official seven months later on April 16th, 2021.  We had our adoption over Zoom with all our closest friends and family witnessing the hearing from their computers all over the country.  Then we celebrated the rest of the day with a party at our house with the theme of “All Their Favorite Things.”  We had a cake with monster trucks, fire trucks, and motorcycles and invited their classes to come play on water slides in our backyard.

It was a day filled with more love than I could ever imagine and fun that never stopped.  It was our best day ever.  Until the next day and the day after that.  I guess we can just agree that April 16th was the beginning of our best days ever.

Forever.