YATOM Microgrants Recipients
Ariella, Garrett and Jeewoo, May, 2022 - Ariella and Garrett heard about their son, Jeewoo, in October of 2021. Jeewoo was born at 31 weeks premature in Incheon, South Korea. He was a low birthweight at just over 3 lbs when he was born. He had jaundice and was in the incubator at the hospital for 3 weeks. He has had hypothyroidism since he was born. We have no information on his birth father, but we do have information on his birth mother. He has a half sister that was adopted in 2015 domestically in South Korea. We fully support him contacting both his sister and mother one day if that is something that he will wish to pursue.
Garrett and Ariella have traveled to South Korea and have a close network of South Korean friends, are learning Korean and are eager to incorporate Jeewoo's culture in his life.
Garrett and Ariella have traveled to South Korea and have a close network of South Korean friends, are learning Korean and are eager to incorporate Jeewoo's culture in his life.
Valerie and Yonatan, April 2022 - after spending the summer of 2021 together through an orphan hosting program called Kidsave, Valerie and Yonatan had an undeniable bond. Adoption always felt like a natural option for Valerie, after seeing how her parents took in other children when she was younger. Her parents were kinship foster parents and, in their home, her parents always taught the importance of Tikkun Olam and the importance of helping others. Also, the idea of treating others as you wanted to be treated. Valerie's parents always made a point to explain that it was on us to be the change makers and to always imagine if the roles were reversed with the foster children in our home. Valerie is passing these values on to her son as well - Yonatan is an incredible young man who truly displays the ability to persevere. He is such a positive, happy, caring and playful person to be around - he has been through a lot in his short life, but he is such a determined, incredible and resilient young man. As the adoption finalizes this month, Valerie is excited about becoming his mother and look forward to our journey together.
SarahChaya and Yehezkel Menashe. April 2022 - while experiencing our own fertility journey issues, we decided to get licensed to foster and adopt locally within Texas. We received our license a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving in 2020. By the middle of December, we had been chosen to take placement of a toddler boy who came to live with us in early January of 2021. To say we were excited would be a huge understatement. Within less than 5 weeks, we got another call about a newborn baby boy who needed an emergency home. He came to live with us that same evening in early February. We became parents to 2 under the age of 2 within less than 6 weeks and our household became very busy and filled with happiness and sheer joy, a kind that we had never experienced before!
At one point, we were also asked to take placement of a toddler girl that needed a home and she came to live with us for 3 months. By then we had 3 little ones under the age of 3, from 3 different families, all in diapers - amazing and challenging all at the same time! Each case has its own case worker, CASA advocate, guardian ad litem, and usually transport person for visitation. Each professional must visit your home and the child at least once each month, and visitation is weekly. Chaos was mixed with great emotions every day.
As of the writing of our story, our 2 boys remain in our lives while we are building relationships with their moms too. This has also been an unexpected blessing of our journey, because oftentimes biological families of foster children do not necessarily want to remain in contact with the foster parents. One of the mothers says we are not her son's foster parents, we are his godparents. She is now very much like our daughter, so we sort of became grandparents before we became parents! BH"!
We are also waiting anxiously to see what H" has planned for the next part of our journey. Our agency contacted us about several children who are available for adoption so who knows which child will come into our lives next!
At one point, we were also asked to take placement of a toddler girl that needed a home and she came to live with us for 3 months. By then we had 3 little ones under the age of 3, from 3 different families, all in diapers - amazing and challenging all at the same time! Each case has its own case worker, CASA advocate, guardian ad litem, and usually transport person for visitation. Each professional must visit your home and the child at least once each month, and visitation is weekly. Chaos was mixed with great emotions every day.
As of the writing of our story, our 2 boys remain in our lives while we are building relationships with their moms too. This has also been an unexpected blessing of our journey, because oftentimes biological families of foster children do not necessarily want to remain in contact with the foster parents. One of the mothers says we are not her son's foster parents, we are his godparents. She is now very much like our daughter, so we sort of became grandparents before we became parents! BH"!
We are also waiting anxiously to see what H" has planned for the next part of our journey. Our agency contacted us about several children who are available for adoption so who knows which child will come into our lives next!
