Meet the Rice Family!
We are the Rice family, Ted and I (Jules) and our kids—Spencer, 20, Audrey, 18, Kyra, 14, and Madi, 13. Ted (who was also adopted) and I always wanted another child after we had our first two. Pregnancy was hard on me so we decided to adopt. We looked at all the ways one could adopt and decided that we would pursue adoption through the state of Oregon. We knew there were so many kids in foster care who needed a good loving family.
Our first call was about Kyra, a baby girl 8 ½ months old who needed a foster home. We jumped at the opportunity to bring her into our home. The moment we saw her, we were in love. She was so beautiful, yet there was something sad in her eyes. After about two days, some nutritious meals, and some good loving from the four of us, she started to smile. She quickly became one of the family. Nine months after Kyra came to us, her parents gave birth to another baby girl. We were told that if we didn’t bring Madi into our home, Kyra would have to leave us so the sisters could stay together. Although it wasn’t part of our original plan to add two children to our family, we did some talking and decided that we could care for this new baby girl too. Fast forward to 2020 and we are a tight knit family of six after adopting Kyra and Madi.
Our children are so precious to us. We couldn’t imagine our life without them. Living on a farm has given us many laughable moments, especially when the alpacas get loose. Madi explains, “My favorite thing about my life is that I live on a farm and have a horse.” We also enjoy solving mysteries and watching scary movies. Our favorite thing to do together is go on vacation to warm beaches and exotic places. Mostly we just love being a family. Kyra reminds us what’s important: “I wouldn’t be who I am today if I hadn’t been adopted.”
It has not been easy responding to our girls’ special needs and navigating the difficult systems in Oregon. First, we would have been so much better off if we’d had more extensive training on how to actually help children with challenging behaviors, during each developmental milestone. We learned the hard way how to raise our children, mostly by trial and error, with lots of tears and frustrations. One thing that made a huge difference was a Collaborative Problem Solving® parenting class we took last year. It was like a light bulb went off. We realized just how to parent all of our children, especially Kyra and Madi. The weight was taken off of our shoulders and hope was brought back to our world.
Since taking that class, I became a co-owner of The Hero Makers, a family-run, trauma-informed organization and also serve as a peer support specialist for the state. Now I help other families who are facing similar challenges as we did. It gives me joy to help lead them out of dark places by offering hope and healing.
We wish policymakers would fund and support ongoing, in-depth training and ongoing coaching that parents can access at every stage of a child’s development. This would give adoptive parents someone to turn to for help when challenges arise. Together, let’s set up adoptive parents for success—they deserve the tools they need to create a world of joy and happiness for their children.
