Adoption Stories

The Polston Family

By October 11, 2011No Comments

My Life and Times of Having Six Adopted Boys

By: Deborah Ehler Polston

While most of our friends are experiencing the “empty nest”, or being Grand wipes.

The Polston family with their four daughters, six adopted sons, two sons-in-law, andbaby).

I pick up the crying child, round the corner, back down the stairs, grab the diaper and tucked it around the four corners, looked comfortable enough.

By now the baby was fully awake; I knew I had to calm down to be able to get him to calm down. As I rocked and, who then makes his way back up the stairs to finish getting dressed, because he takes the boys to school on his way in to work.

Our day begins; it’s always pretty close to the same every day. So when our friends all share stories of where they’ve been or where they are going, I just smile and kisses.

Our parenting did not begin with these, but with our four biological daughters, 25 years ago. In fact, I thought we had parenting down to a science and I spent several years praying about what we should do; find an infant, or maybe two small children? Do we go international or adopt from the states? There were so many choices, but for us only one answer was the right one.

After looking through the sea of faces on the internet, our hearts became softer toward those children being passed up for babies. You know the ones, they don’t look quite like us, they may have a physical or mental challenge, or they may come in sets of two or three or four. It was the sibling groups that gripped my heart, the biggest challenge most of these kids have is in their numbers. Most people are not willing or able to take on more than one child at the time; at least that’s what we thought. I looked at my husband family. We can do this; we have enough love to share with a sibling group”.

That was the beginning, six years ago, our search for just the right children for our family. As we prayed and into our home within a month. Within the year, they were adopted.

The story does not end here; in fact our story is still going after five years. After the first three boys were placed in our home, we did not know how we were going to do it but were excited to give it everything we had. We knew God would not aband curtains all found their place on the floor. And in the midst of all this, we received a phone call from the same case worker the boys had, saying the birth mother had another son who became the responsibility of the state. Never did we think we would be faced with this decision, to take on the infant brother of the first three or reject him. Of course we took him, at three weeks old; he found his place right outside our bedroom in the study now a baby nursery.

While we were adjusting to all of the changes, we had two daughters getting married just three months apart. As I was buying the food for the second wedding, I got a phone call that the birth mom had another, the fifth son born and I believe he’s ours. God will provide what we need as long as we are doing what He wants us to do.” Of course he had already come to this himself in the three days he had to think about it.

We had two beautiful weddings, gained two new sons-in-laws, and we were all excited!

Today as we wait for the finalization of our baby’s adoption, we are enjoying a very busy household, trying to find laughter in the simple things. The day-to-day stresses seem to melt away with each “I love you” and it is my prayer that we are found faithful in helping to raise them to find their destinies.

Now, if I haven’t scared you off by now with the reality report, let me tell you how these adoptive children, our six boys, have enriched our lives. It took me about three years to realize you cannot raise little boys and brought the boys inside to wait for their Father.

I’m trying, I really am, and make forts out of whatever they can find. And when I ring the dinner bell, yes we have a dinner bell as lame as that sounds, it was the only way they could hear me. You should see them run for the back door when they hear it; usually bringing in something they picked for me like wild flowers or poison ivy. And I have learned to always check their pockets before they come inside, I never know what may crawl out.

This past Spring break I was going to have all the boys at home with me. I knew I had to think of something to make the most of the week. Then it hit me, sand area.

I could see the ground beneath the truck’s tires begin to sink, all of a sudden the back of the truck tilts up and?”

He then said, “I don’t know Maam, give it away to your neighbors, now where do you want it?” I pointed to the small pile of sand.

Okay, this is where you can either use the sand spreading the rest around in the grass. Well, I don’t think the boys will ever forget it, we definitely made a memory.

With the girls, we were able to travel all over the United States and visit each state, camping most of the time. I look forward to doing the same with the boys. Another thing we did with the girls was to take them one at the time, on a trip of their choosing, when they graduated from high school. The boys are already talking about where they might like to go. So when our friends are talking to us about their retirement or empty nest, we just smile at each other because we know we will experience that too, in just about eighteen years from now.

We are not alone, more and show him he has a wonderful future ahead. You too can be that hope for a child that’s lost all hope.