How Openness Turned Strangers Into Family
When Kimmie and Ray started their adoption journey with Boys & Girls Aid, the concept of an “open adoption” was unfamiliar and made them feel a bit uncertain. Yet, as the couple began their adoption training and education and had the opportunity to hear real life stories from adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive families, they quickly came to see that openness in adoption was a gift they could give both to their child and to themselves.
“We realized that supporting our child in knowing their full story would help connect them to everyone who loves them, and allow us to love them for the entirety of who they are,” Kimmie reflects. “We went from feeling anxious about it, to feeling like openness was essential and something we were excited to embrace.”
What Kimmie and Ray didn’t foresee was that, by embracing openness in adoption, they wouldn’t just be growing their own family; they would also become part of a large extended family. After years of longing to become parents and receiving extensive training to become certified for adoption, and another year to be chosen by a birth parent, the couple was connected with a profile written by an expectant mother named Casey, who was seeking a family for her soon-to-be-born daughter, Rosabella.
“The moment I read her profile, I felt this deep sense of peace in my chest,” Kimmie recalls. “Casey’s words expanded our hearts and created an instant, lasting bond."
Casey felt a similar sense of relief when her Boys & Girls Aid options counselor connected her with Kimmie and Ray. In her third trimester and already parenting a four-year-old son, she had been working with the agency to create an adoption plan that would give her daughter the life she felt she deserved, while allowing them to stay connected as a family. Although Casey still had doubts about the process, many of those worries melted away when she learned about Kimmie and Ray.
“I cried the moment I read their letter,” Casey says. “I could feel their love and compassion. It was almost as if Rosabella was helping me find her parents.”
That connection has only grown deeper in the time since Rosabella’s adoption was finalized. Now a magical, curious, athletic, and funny five-year-old, Rosabella has created what her parents call a “bubble of sunshine” around every aspect of their lives — spreading warmth, joy, and community everywhere she goes.
As Rosabella has flourished with her parents Kimmie and Ray, she’s also maintained a close relationship with Casey and many members of her birth family.
“We pretty quickly went beyond our initial openness agreement and became part of a really wonderful extended family,” Ray says. “We regularly go on adventures with Casey and her son — to the zoo, the pumpkin patch, and even a baby shower for Rosabella’s youngest cousin.”
“It’s been life-changing to watch Rosabella bring together so many people who used to be strangers, and turn them into family,” Kimmie adds. “We could never have imagined the constellation of love she would help all of us build.”
“It’s been life-changing to watch Rosabella bring together so many people who used to be strangers, and turn them into family.”
Casey shares this sentiment: “While choosing adoption was probably the hardest decision of my life — and it hasn’t always been easy — I’ve never once regretted it. I’ve gotten to watch my daughter grow up with the best parents for her, and at the end of the day, we’ve really just become one big happy family.”
A family like this doesn’t come together on its own. Your support allows Boys & Girls Aid to provide the child-centered adoption services and compassionate, all-options counseling support that helps create permanent, loving families for children like Rosabella.
This National Adoption Month, we invite you to invest in children, youth, and families across our community with a tax-deductible gift to Boys & Girls Aid. Your donation directly strengthens the programs and services that ensure every child, like Rosabella, can grow up with lifelong stability and a loving family of their own.
