RICHMOND, Va. -- November is National Adoption Month and through CBS 6's partnership with JFS-Connecting Hearts, each day of the month, we will be presenting a child who is eligible for adoption.
With some 700 children in Virginia looking for a permanent loving home, we know these stories will open your heart and we hope it might just open your home. To kick CBS 6's coverage off, meet the Millers, who know a little bit about open hearts and an open home.
“It's funny how somebody becomes, they become your family,” said Doug Miller of Fredericksburg. “At some point, I developed a philosophy that if somebody's in my house, they're my son or my daughter. So once I flipped that switch, if you've been here for two years, I don't think that I could say no to a kid.”
Miller and his wife Sarah have a big family, one that keeps growing, bigger and faster than they ever imagined.
“I homeschool seven children, but there are also two toddlers as well,” said Sarah Miller. “They're three and five. As you can imagine, we stay busy. Wednesdays are always crazy. We had varsity basketball last night, Awana's youth group, and the gymnastics team. Everything all falls on Wednesday night. Other people may pick one activity but we stay busy, and it's so worth it.”
Back in 2005, the Millers were told they could not have biological children. After some hesitation on Doug's part, they looked into fostering to adopt.
“Doug wasn’t so sure about it,” Sarah said. “So I put pictures of kids from ‘Adopt US Kids’ all over the house, and put signs on them that said, “Would you be my dad?” Eventually, he said, ‘OK, fine. I’ll go to training with you.’”
Since taking in that first foster child, they have now adopted six children, are currently fostering five more, and three years ago, Sarah got pregnant, so they now have a three-year-old biological boy as well.
That makes 11 children under their roof, with an almost-20 year-old adopted daughter living on her own.
“I really feel that this is a calling from God; this is what I'm supposed to be doing with my life,” said Doug Miller. “Some people become doctors, you become a news anchor, that's what you do, how you influence the world. This is what I do. You know, we take kids who probably didn't have a chance at life, and we're giving them a chance at a normal life, a chance to succeed.”
“I had always wanted to adopt, so that was neat to actually get to do that,” said Sarah. “And then now we have had both biological children and adopted ones. Honestly, I forget that some kids weren't even born to me because they're just my children. I think just looking at the kids, we have different races in our house, and different needs, they're are just our kids. These are just our children.”
The Millers live modestly and say the many support facilities that come with fostering and adoption make it economically feasible. They've rearranged their five-bedroom home several times, but say the love they feel and get back from their children makes their life ideal.
“As far as finances, I think people get scared that adoption's really expensive, but when you adopt from foster care, you don't pay any expenses for that and usually the child will come with Medicaid so that you can meet their needs, for their medical part of it. And some kids keep what's called an adoption stipend to help you continue, based on their needs."
The Millers, who are both in their early forties, say they can see themselves fostering and adopting children into their sixties. They said the need to help at least some of the hundreds of children in Virginia’s foster care system is so great.
“For me, they're kind of all babies,” said Doug Miller. "Even if you're a teenager. I mean, sure they're 15, 16, whatever, but they're still that hurt little kid inside. They desperately want somebody to approve of them, love them. They might look hard, but trust me, they just want to be loved.”
Over the years, the Millers have fostered more than thirty children. The five they are currently fostering may end up being adopted as well.
If you'd like to learn more about fostering or adopting, here’s a link to JFS-Connecting Hearts to help you get started.
