Couple Adopts 8 Siblings All From the Same Family
Photo: Facebook/Melissa Grove: Autumn, Noah, Chase, Garrett, Hayden, Ashton, Curran, Bryer, and Zayn.
A Nebraska couple who adopted two little boys from foster care put even more smiles on their faces by adopting all six of their brothers — who range from a baby to teenagers — the last of whom they welcomed into their home on National Adoption Day on Sunday.
Scott and Melissa Groves of Omaha got married in 2001 after a six-month courtship and Scott became a father to Melissa’s then 4-year-old daughter Autumn, from a previous marriage. They tried to conceive but experienced fertility issues so in 2003, after completing a 10-week training session, the couple obtained their foster care license. Their first case was two brothers named Noah, 3, and Chase, 22 months, who both needed a home.
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“Almost instantaneously these two seem to capture our hearts, and it wasn’t very long before I knew that if the chance arose I wanted to have them in our lives forever,” Melissa wrote in a blog post for the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. “Perhaps it was fate, perhaps it was divine intervention, I don’t know, but what I do know was that the boys’ ‘short’ stay with us turned into adoption.”
Photo: Facebook/Melissa Grove: Scott and Melissa Grove
Less than year later, the Groves received another call from the case worker. The brothers were due for another sibling, a boy named Garrett, who hadn’t yet been born, but would also need a home. “There was no question, how could I deny my sons and this new child the possibility of being together?” wrote Melissa. Eleven months later, the couple got another surprise. The siblings had a new brother, a boy named Hayden who had been born premature and drug exposed with a cleft lip.
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Over the following years, the Groves took in 4-month-old Ashton and in 2009, newborn Curran. ‘We had every reason to say no—not enough money, not enough time, etc. but somehow things seemed to fall into place and the following June we found ourselves in a hospital waiting room awaiting the arrival of our son, Bryer,” wrote Melissa. In October 2013, Zayn was born premature and with Down syndrome.
Melissa told ABC News on Monday that the children’s birth mother hopes to be a mother each and every time she gets pregnant, however, she struggles with a drug problem. “She’s not a bad person. I can’t even imagine the pain that she’s gone through,” Melissa said.
At the adoption hearing on Sunday, little Zayn began applauding, catching the attention of the judge who noted that the couple’s love for their latest addition is clear. “We call it sweet chaos,” Melissa told local news station KETV on Sunday of her family, “because that’s exactly what it is, always something going on.”