Finding a Family : Once Wards of Court, 6 of 9 ‘Waiting Child’ Kids Find New Homes

The scene is Central California Norman Rockwell: Two rows of elms, turned gold by the fall’s chill, line a street of neat houses and lawns. The elementary school down the street has just let out for the day, and children call to each other while slinging on their backpacks and juggling books.

Looming at the other end of the road are mist-covered mountains, and between the school and foothills lies the pretty pink house where Brittany, 8, and Cassandra, 6, sisters who were recently adopted, live with their new parents.

Last spring, the girls lived at Orangewood Children’s Home, an emergency shelter in Orange for abused and neglected children, with about 200 other children. Spunky and sharp, the sisters were affectionate with each other but were all edges and angles with adults.

In April, the Orange County Juvenile Court had determined that their mother would not be able to raise them, terminated her parental rights and released the two angry and aching girls for adoption.

Shortly afterward, Dale and Rebecca, who asked that their last name and hometown not be used to protect their privacy, saw the sisters on the state’s “Waiting Child” television spots and quickly moved to adopt them.

“As soon as we saw them, we knew they were just what we were looking for,” Rebecca said in an interview last week.

Brittany and Cassandra were among nine Orange County children, all of whom were wards of the court, featured in the spots and profiled in The Times.

As a result of the profiles, 22 Orange County families have begun the adoption process for other children being cared for by the county Social Services Agency, and six of the nine children featured in the spots have found families.

In September, three sisters--Christina, 7, Crystal, 6, and Michelle, 5--were adopted by a couple in Maryland, and Mariah, 4, has been matched with a family in Michigan, although that adoption is not complete.

Still waiting for a family are siblings Heather, 6, Timmy, 3, and Patrick, 2, who remain in an Orange foster home.

“To a certain extent, the fact that so many of the children are placed outside the county reflects the absence of sufficient families here,” social worker Jaime Munoz said. “We wish that people here were more interested in adopting them, but that’s not going to hold up their lives. We’ll find a family anywhere in the United States.”

Although nine children were featured in television spots last spring, there is a pool of about 3,100 adoptable children in Orange County foster care. Of those, 250 typically are ready for adoption because their parents have lost custody rights. The others may become available if their parents fail to meet court-ordered plans designed to reunite the family or if adoptive families can be found for them.

Last year, about 1,200 children in foster care were reunited with their families, and the remaining 1,800 went to long-term guardianship, stayed in foster care or were adopted.

For Brittany and Cassandra, a stable family life has made all the difference in their behavior. Softer and sweeter, they seem less fearful of showing affection for other people. Once, routine requests to behave frequently went ignored, whereas now a word from Rebecca brings a compliant, “OK, Mommy.”

“I like it up here,” said Brittany, who months ago said she “hated” the idea of being adopted and would run away if taken to a new home.

“School’s nice. I like my mommy, my daddy and my bedroom--I have my own bedroom--and my toys,” she said, wrapping her arms around Rebecca.

Dale, a county employee, is still at work. The girls bounce around on the floor with the family’s four dachshunds, chasing balls and pulling on toys.

Although the setting is picture-perfect, Rebecca said the forging of a new family has taken reserves of patience she did not know she had. Unused to household rules, the girls often forget or choose to push the limits, testing their new parents, Rebecca said.

“Right now they’re on restriction and can’t go outside,” Rebecca said with a small sigh. “They went over to someone’s house when I had told them not to. But most of the time they listen pretty good.”

Christina, Crystal and Michelle, who also were featured in the television spots, had been in foster care for about two years before they were adopted by Marilou and Robert, in Maryland. The couple also asked that their last name not be used to protect their privacy.

The couple learned about the three sisters via an adoption Web site on the Internet and were immediately taken by them.

When they flew out to Orange County in August to meet them, the connection was instant, Marilou said.

“We bonded right away,” she said. “They were all like, ‘Hi, Mommy,’ ‘Hi, Daddy.’ Then, Michelle, wrapping her arms around his neck, said to Robert, ‘Oh, Daddy, I’ve been waiting for you for such a long time!’ ” They were hooked.

When the sisters were ready to move, their foster mother, whom the sisters called “Mama Dorothy,” flew with the girls to meet their new parents and was “adopted” by Robert and Marilou as the children’s “grandmother.” For privacy reasons, Dorothy asked that her last name not be used.

The girls’ biological mother, who once also lived at Orangewood, was grateful to the couple for adopting her children, Dorothy said.

“[Their mother] may have been poor, but she taught them a lot of good stuff,” Dorothy said. “These kids have so much love, and they’re so appreciative of what people do for them. They’re just like their mother in that.

“When I told her the girls were about to leave, and she was crying, she asked me to thank Marilou and Robert for her,” Dorothy said.

Marilou is a homemaker and Robert is a professor of medicine. Nothing, they say, prepared them for the experience of a ready-made family.

“There’s just total uncertainty about everything,” Robert said. “It’s, well, like being a parent. You never know what a kid’s going to turn out to be like.”

At first, the girls would ask why their mother gave them up for adoption.

“We’d tell them that your mom can’t take care of you, and if you’re with her, you’re going to go hungry,” Marilou said. “Now they don’t ask us that any more.”

The changes in the parents’ lives also have been profound, Marilou and Robert said.

“It has made me much more aware of the magic of life,” Robert said. “When I was a kid, I believed in angels and in magic. Then, as I got older, I was rational and didn’t believe in those things any more. But now, after this, I believe in them again.”