Family Stories About Adoption

The Releford family

The Releford Family


We have been married for 33 years. I never thought in my wildest dreams that we would raise a large family. We just thought fostering would be a revolving door in our house, never realizing the door may not close. We love children. We have fostered for 22 years. My youngest sister (then 16 years old) found herself pregnant. Her daughter was born with a serious infection. Child protective services stepped in due to my sister’s age, no income, and the inability to care for a seriously ill infant. James and I stepped in to care for our niece. We cared for her from the age of 16 months until 5 years. Today she is a college graduate – working and doing well! James and I thought we had done our family duty by helping family in crisis. We did not know we were embarking on a journey of caring for other people’s children, and that by doing this we would add to our family unit in more ways than one could imagine.


We started adopting 16 years ago. We have adopted 6 of the 85 children we have fostered. Our family consists of 4 biological, 6 adopted and 3 in guardianship - a niece, nephew and the son of a previous foster daughter. We thought we were done adding to our family until recently finding ourselves with another child (1 year old) of the previous foster daughter. “Here we go again, we should never say never” we are now telling ourselves. As you can see we are up to our ears with children. It’s been a true challenge but rewarding to see the hope and change in these children.