New families forced by COVID shutdowns to miss making a memory. Many are making do

On Fridays, Pierce County Juvenile Court is usually filled with children, families and loved ones gathering for adoption finalizations. The courtroom is decorated for the occasion, and teddy bears are passed out to adoptees and their new siblings.

Normally, parents give oral testimonies. Children are allowed to climb onto the bench and bang the gavel. Photographs are taken with the judge, a commemoration of the day the bond these families share is legally recognized.

But when the courts paused all in-person proceedings in mid-March, the ceremonies stopped, too.

Judge Edmund Murphy is presiding judge at Pierce County Juvenile Court. Along with Judge Kitty-Ann van Doorninck, Murphy finalizes adoptions in Pierce County. He said the courtroom setting allows families to welcome their new children in unique and special ways. Speeches and cultural ceremonies play a part in publicly marking the occasion.

“It’s the best morning of the week to engage in that celebration with the families and the happiness and the joy and see everybody in such a good place,” Murphy said.

Janice Langbehn, a family lawyer in Tacoma, said the absence of any kind of official ceremony, either virtually or in-person, means families miss out on an important symbolic day. As an adoptive parent herself, she knows how special that day is for the whole family.

“Instead of setting up a court date and getting the family there and relatives and all that because it’s such a happy occasion, now I send in a packet and a check and there isn’t even a telephone hearing,” Langbehn said. “There’s just a little piece of the memory that just won’t ever be there.”

Still, many families are creating their own special memories — at home. For some, the COVID-19 pandemic means these celebrations mark the end of a fraught path.

JUST IN TIME

For Amanda and Todd Daniels, COVID-19 nearly tore their family apart. Todd Daniels is a military chaplain, and he’s being transferred to Hawaii at the end of the month.

Until just over a month ago, it was unclear if Todd and Amanda’s twelve-year-old daughter, Adalyn, would be coming with them.

When school was canceled in mid-March, Adalyn knew immediately that it meant courts would be closed too. She had been living with the Howards since June 2019, and her biological parents signed over their rights in February of this year. But her adoption wasn’t yet final.

“She knew that if she didn’t get adopted before we left, she wasn’t going will us and we weren’t going to be her family,” Amanda Daniels said.

But on April 22, the family was granted an unusual virtual hearing. Adalyn’s grandparents were able to join over FaceTime as their new granddaughter was legally adopted.

“It was a miracle that got worked through in ways we didn’t even see possible,” Daniels said. “We thought for sure we were going to be leaving her behind, and it was going to break everyone’s heart.”

Instead, the Daniels family is getting ready to start the next chapter of their lives — together. They’re still working to get Adalyn’s last name changed and her social security number finalized before their move, so the fight isn’t quite over. But Daniels is confident that everything will work out in time.

‘A BLESSING’

Stephanie and Michael Howard, who adopted four siblings, ages four, five, six, and nine, in mid-April, were determined to have a special day to celebrate the finalization of the adoption.

In December 2019, Stephanie and Michael adopted their four youngest children’s older sister in a traditional courtroom ceremony, so they know how important it is to mark the occasion.

Their five adopted children have been living with them through foster care for the past three years, and it was an emotional day when the Howard family finally celebrated together.

“One of the rules of foster care is one kid at a time on the trampoline,” Stephanie Howard said. “So that day we said all the kids could be on the trampoline together.”

In addition to their five adopted children, the Howards have three biological children. On adoption day, the eight siblings played together and roasted marshmallows and hot dogs in a new fire pit.

As foster parents, the Howards would have needed to submit a safety plan and wait for clearance before building a fire pit. So they waited until the adoption had been finalized, and then piled up bricks in the backyard before gathering for treats.

“That’s still something they get excited about in remembrance of adoption day,” Stephanie Howard said. “It’s pretty special for us.”

For the Howards, the pandemic has created a unique opportunity to spend quality time together as a family. Stephanie Howard describes it as a “blessing.”

“It’s almost like we got a built-in maternity and paternity leave for our family,” she said. “We’d all been together for three years, so it’s not like we were just getting to know everybody, but to be able to process it — because adoption really is grieving, too. I mean, ‘yay, family,’ all of this, but there’s loss associated with it. It’s not all happy and it can be a really, really hard day for the kids. It’s been a really good time for us to just process that together.”

THE UPSIDE

Rebecca Via, the adoption coordinator at Pierce County Juvenile Court, oversees all adoptions in Pierce County. She also conducts and reviews home studies, part of the process families go through when they adopt. These conversations used to happen in person, but Via now talks to families virtually.

“It’s certainly not ideal — you get much more of a comfortable, friendly interaction when it’s face-to-face,” Via said. “But it works to do it by FaceTime or Zoom. And I am getting the same information I would otherwise get. It’s just different.”

Via says that despite the economic challenges associated with COVID-19 and lockdowns, she’s seen a steady rate of adoptions, and even an increase when stimulus checks were released. This week, for example, the county is processing 12 adoptions of 18 children.

“That’s big,” Via said. “And it’s fun, it’s exciting for these families.”

Christina Sherman, a Tacoma adoption lawyer who has been practicing for nearly twenty years, has also seen a consistent number of adoptions during COVID-19. While she recognizes the loss that her clients feel from not being able to participate in a courtroom ceremony, she’s happy that the pandemic has not put a stop to adoptions.

“The most important thing, which is creating these new families, continues to happen,” Sherman said. “And that’s fantastic.”