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The More the Merrier
Sun, Mar. 30, 2003
By Allyson Reynolds Dixon
Special to the Star-Telegram
Household with 11 children demonstrates possibilities of success with a mix including hard-to-place youngsters
McKINNEY - When Kari Sanders began taking two of her sons to visit their birth mother a few years ago, she did all she could to learn about her.
The boys were very young, and Kari wanted to give them some memories of the woman who bore them but soon would die of AIDS.
"I'm very excited that I will be able to tell my boys that they've got their mom's hands," Sanders said. "When we would take them to see her, I would try to memorize as much stuff about her as I could, and her hands were one of those."
All of Sanders' 11 children are important to her: the four she had from a previous marriage, the one from her husband, Shane's, previous marriage; the three they've had together; and the three hard-to-place children the couple has adopted. They aren't done, though, as they want to adopt a large sibling group next.
People such as the Sanderses are one reason adoptions of hard-to-place children have steadily increased in the Fort Worth-Dallas area in recent years, said Marleigh Meisner of Child Protective Services. Although numbers are not available for 2002, in 2001, 605 children were adopted, up from 457 the previous year, a 32 percent increase.
CPS officials credit the department's increased awareness efforts for the increase, as well as a public more willing to provide what they call "forever homes" for children who are hard to place. Those children include older teens, sibling groups, minorities and children with disabilities.
Meisner said that in recent years, CPS has started using a variety of ways to increase awareness about children who need adopting, including a Web site and working with private child-placement agencies.
"The bottom line is that these are our kids," Meisner said. "And we want the best families for those kids, and sometimes those families aren't CPS families."
The Sanderses, though, are a die-hard CPS family. Kari Sanders grew up in a home where foster children and adopted siblings were a normal thing.
Her parents have been involved in the lives of more than 170 foster and adopted children, so she is accustomed to having lots of children around.
The Sanderses' children range in age from 1 to 14. Some of their adopted children have special needs such as autism and other medical issues.
Kari was 8 months pregnant when the couple adopted their first child. The second time they adopted, she was pregnant again.
"It just makes us sad to think there's somebody who will have no one to come home to when they grow up," she said.
Shane Sanders said that several years ago he told his wife that the family couldn't grow any larger, but she convinced him otherwise. He decided he would just have to be a good father to a large family.
"She's very persuasive," said Shane, a computer network administrator for Printing Research Inc. in Dallas. "It's a little crazy around here sometimes, but we have our quiet times. We live for those sometimes."
Shane Sanders said adoption isn't for everyone, but he's glad he and Kari have made the family they have.
"If you expect to get a perfect little child out of it, then you're in the wrong business," he said. "A lot of these children have challenges, and you have to look at that and be ready for it. And when it's the right thing, it's a really great feeling.
"With our first adopted one, it took a little while to appreciate things. It takes awhile to feel like that child is yours. But once that bond happens, and it does, it's really cool. I don't feel like any of them are any less my child."
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