Most people in Charlotte may assume that an adoption begins with a couple wanting to take in a child. Yet there is another part of that equation that often goes overlooked: a child needing a home. Children need love, kindness and nurturing during their formative years, and as the many adoptions that occur every day demonstrate, there is no shortage of families willing to provide it. The adoption process itself can be quite complex, yet as many of those who have had to go through it in order to enter into new families, the finalization of it is a mere formality.
That is because the familial bonds they feel in their new homes are typically immediate. Perhaps no case demonstrates this better than that of a Vermont woman. She ran away from her biological mother while still a teen because she wanted to rise above the impoverished situation that had been her life to that point. After finding refuge in a shelter and beginning classes at a new high school, she met the school’s guidance counselor. He and his family immediately took her in and gave her the home she had been longing for.
As for adoption, their circumstances did not allow for it when they initially took her into their home. Yet there she remained, their daughter for all intents and purposes. That’s how they viewed her for the next 50 years, after which they formally adopted her when she was in her 60s.
This case demonstrates both the strong love that exists in adoptive families and the potential complexity of the adoption process. Those looking to undertake it may help themselves immensely by enlisting the services of an experienced attorney to help them along the way.
