쉐도잉 연습: Matthew's Foster Care Adoption Story - 영상으로 영어 말하기 배우기

Hi my name is Audrey and  this is my brother Matthew.

Matthew, what do your friends call you?

Bubba. How old are you Bubba?

Um, five. You're four silly! Four.

Foster care adoption was definitely not on  our radar when we were thinking about growing our family. Kelly and I were able to have a  biological daughter like right away, and the second time around we tried to have another  baby and it just wasn't the same experience.

We spent probably two years trying.

On Audrey's fourth birthday her and  I were coloring in her room together and she pretty much changed the world for us on  that day. She said, "Mom there has to be a boy or a girl out there that doesn't have parents and  you could be their parents and I'll share you." And that sounded a little different than just 'Mom  have another baby.' She was really talking about someone else that's already out there that  needs parents and it changed everything.

To have our four-year-old daughter say  that there's you know, we have enough love to share with another baby. We kind of  talked more about you know, what did she say?

Do we have room for another kid,  do we have enough love? And we did.

We had worked so hard for almost two  years to get to the place where we were matched with Matthew and we just got a  call that we were selected as his family "Oh and he'll be at your home in two weeks"  and it was like whoa, get ready to have a baby!

Seeing his profile and his  pictures with his foster mom really sent it home that this is, this is the match. That's when we really knew he was our son.

I definitely analyzed every crevice of his  one photo that we had and the two weeks felt like forever. But our initial meeting we had  brought him some toys and he sat in my lap and he like looks up at me and starts like  tracing my face with his hands, making this like lovey-dovey sound and his caseworker was sitting  there watching and she said, "Look at that, look at that, he knows, he knows that you're his Mom." When we brought Matthew home I remember him being very, very quiet and he could start to see that  once he figured it out that this is his forever home then he started to show his true self.

Bubba loves all the animals that we have in the house.

<singing> Cheese and Beans He is extremely strong, extremely fast, but he's also very sweet and loves to cuddle.

He's very thoughtful, caring, sweet guy, like just the nicest buddy to all of his friends at his school.

But if he's in his happy place he is tearing stuff up, he's running around here like a tornado.

Matthew and Audrey's bond is a very healthy,  sibling relationship. They have so much fun together. They're a good team and she  takes a lot of pride in being a big sister.

When Matthew first came into our family he could  barely bend his legs and his arms were very stiff, very stiff in the torso and the hips, so he was  in physical therapy. It's just amazing to see his growth. We really didn't know  if he would get to where he is now.

We have him in gymnastics and he's just thriving.  Whether it's physical therapy or speech therapy, which we did, everything that we've invested  in him has just paid off in dividends.

One of the reasons, ultimately, that we  decided to adopt was because no child is in foster care because of anything that they did. They're not there because they're bad kids or they did something wrong, it's because  they don't have safe parents. They don't have a safe place. Somebody else made bad choices.

It's important for people to support kids in foster care because if they don't have parents and family to take care of them, who is going to?

Without Boys & Girls Aid,  where would these kids be?

I feel so happy the DHS worker selected us as  his family, because we 100% are his people.

He's got a great future ahead of him.