Meet the Wallace-Eikenbary Family!
As an educator and Lutheran pastor, we have devoted our careers to helping other people. Yet as a gay couple, having kids wasn’t at the forefront of our minds. It was a long process for us to consider becoming parents but once we did decide, the choice to adopt from foster care was an easy one. Neither of us could imagine bringing a life into the world when there are already so many children in the United States that need a family to call their own.
In 2015, after much research, we decided to work with a Foster Family Agency that welcomes all qualified people. Not long after becoming licensed foster-to-adopt parents, we attended a local matching picnic. There we met an adorable five-year-old boy wearing a San Francisco Giants baseball hat who wanted to play catch for hours on end. That boy would eventually become our son.
After an appropriate transition time to get to know us, he moved into our home. It was quite the adjustment to go from being childless one day to the next day being a couple with a kid who needed lots of love and attention to form healthy attachments. Yet the process worked as it should, and we slowly became a family together. A year after he moved in, we stood before a judge, tears in our eyes, and adopted him as our son. Despite the ongoing impact from his ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), he is a voracious reader who is kind, caring, and friendly towards all he meets.
In 2019, after sufficiently forgetting how emotionally challenging the foster-to-adopt process can be, we renewed our license. After many months of searching, we were called about a child needing a new home in three days. With minimal information, we welcomed a rambunctious and sweet five-year-old into our home. Though he did not have a problem attaching, he came with other behavioral and academic needs that proved challenging, especially when trying to access services remotely because of the pandemic. We are so thankful our Foster Family Agency works closely with the county adoptions department to support us and advocate for the children’s needs. His court case was much more complex. He was with us for 21 months until we were finally able to legally adopt him in 2021. He has grown so much in his time with us. His creativity and positive outlook have no bounds.
We can’t imagine life without our two boys. They learn from each other and we learn from them. Sometimes, when they are giggling while wrestling or we are playing games together as a family, it feels like we’ve always been together. We are a house full of love.
We are lucky to have extended families that support us. The Adoption Assistance program allows us to meet our children’s ongoing needs while also preparing for college or career training post-high school. We are thankful to live in a state that provides paid family leave for foster and adoptive families to bond with a new child. We are also glad that California prohibits discrimination. As long as there are children who need a forever home, it is unconscionable for our state and federal governments to allow foster agencies, social workers, and judges to deny LGBTQ+ couples the chance to save a child’s life through adoption.
