Terry and Stuart Hume's three adopted sons are biological brothers. But that didn't make their transition to their new home, and life with one another, any easier.
"They didn't know about each other," Terry explains. "They had all been living in different foster homes." Not only were they apart physically. The boys were all accustomed to different cultures, too. One had been with a foster family with roots in El Salvador. One was with a family from the Philippines. And the third boy's foster family was German.
For Terry, the issue of culture underlined the fact that building adoptive families takes work. "You're really taking in strangers and saying you're a family, at least for the first little while," she observes. "It's a challenge to get everyone to live in harmony and respect each other's personal spaces."
Terry and Stuart worked closely with two of the boys' foster parents to help make the transition easier and smoother. Terry recommends that other adoptive parents do the same.
"When a child is coming from foster care, it's important to make your own home as similar to the foster home as possible," she says. "Try to keep the same routines and remember that your child is having to deal with different foods, different approaches to discipline, different smells, different sensations - a whole different world - when young children need the security of familiar things."
Culture wasn't the only challenge the Humes had to face. Two of the boys had health problems, but Terry says she and her husband were prepared for that. "We looked into the boys' medical backgrounds beforehand. We knew what we were taking on. And I think you need to be very realistic when you're adopting a child who may have extra needs."
Today, all three boys are growing and developing well and Terry says she "loves them to pieces. I waited 10 years for this," she adds, "and it was well worth the wait."
At the same time, she reflects that adoption isn't just about making your life more rewarding. "You do it for the kids," she says, "not for yourself."
*For privacy reasons, names are fictitious.
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