That sense of urgency for these kids moved the state of Texas to pass a law in 2017 that made it mandatory for all children entering into conservatorship to have a medical exam within three business days after the child was removed from their home.

While the law is an important one to the well-being of the child, the reality of providing timely and thorough medical exams within three days proved to be a difficult task for many parents.

The exam is a medical screening that is intended to provide a baseline of a child’s physical health upon entering foster care. It is also an opportunity for the caregiver to obtain necessary treatment and medications for a child that may not have been obtained at the time of removal, such as an asthma inhaler or eczema cream.

The child abuse experts at Cook Children’s understood the need for foster parents in the community to meet the requirements of the state.

Jamye Coffman, M.D., medical director of the Cook Children’s Center for Prevention and Child Abuse and Neglect and the CARE team​, said it was clear there was an issue and Cook Children’s wanted to aide in the solution.

The result? The Cook Children’s Fostering Health clinic that launched in 2018. The clinic provides comprehensive services for all kids living with foster parents from foster infants to young adults, as well as foster children who have become parents.

Dr. Coffman says one of the goals of the clinic is to help foster parents better understand trauma behavior in children and to take more time with the families than just a quick appointment in a primary care office.

“We knew there was going to be a problem getting children into a clinic within three days, because they would be new patients with insurance and billing issues to figure out,” Dr. Coffman explained.

Cory and Maddie Churchman are foster parents who’ve brought four children through the clinic. The couple express their gratitude for the resource they say “has never failed them.”

“We know several families who’ve had to take their child to the emergency room or urgent care, just to have them seen within three days,” Maddie said.

The Churchman family says many offices won’t accept Medicaid insurance, or the office is full and not accepting new patients, so having the foster care clinic at Cook Children’s alleviates that stress.

The clinic allows an hour per visit for every patient they see. Dr. Coffman says this is important because evaluations usually take time because many children enter their new homes and the foster parents know little or nothing about the child.

“Before they even come in our door, we’ve already gathered medical records, immunization records and trauma history, and spoken with Child Protective Services (CPS) to help those parents transition,” Dr. Coffman explains.

The Churchmans say they are prime examples of not having any information on their children when they enter the home. The family adopted the first child they fostered, a one-year-old girl, and said they had doctors ask them for information they weren’t always able to provide.

“There are many doctors who don’t specialize in foster care who ask us as foster parents things we don’t know the answer to. We don’t know if they’re vaccinated or anything,” Maddie said. “We show up at the (Cook Children’s) clinic, and they’ve already looked into everything, which is a huge help.”

The Churchman family says they tell other foster parents to allow people to help you who are in place to do so.

“They saw a need and they are standing in the gap,” Maddie said. “I just want everyone to know they are there, they get it, and they really want to help you.”

The Churchman family is always eager to take their daughter back to see the staff when they have other appointments for their new foster placements.

“We are very grateful that they’re there for us and continue to do their jobs every single day,” Maddie said.

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption utilizes survey results collected from employers across the country to identify organizations striving to make adoption a supported option for every working parent, according to the Foundation. Participants are scored and named to the list based on three criteria—financial reimbursement, paid leave and the number of employees eligible for the benefit.

“Cook Children’s adoption assistance program is a cornerstone of the benefits we offer to our employees,” said Keith Holtz, chief administrative officer at Cook Children’s Health Care System. “It is deeply rooted in our belief that every child’s life is sacred and we are honored to be recognized as one of the best adoption-friendly workplaces.”

The road to adoption can be one marked with peaks and valleys, not the least of which is the financial strain associated with application fees, medical expenses and travel costs. But, as many adoptive parents will tell you, it’s a road worth traveling.

“Adoption is a journey filled with foreign paths, fear, disappointments and doubts,” said Megan Mansfield, Au.D., a pediatric audiologist at Cook Children’s and an adoptive mother of two. “But watching my two girls, one dark and the other fair, bent over in belly-rocking giggles at the simple bliss of splashing together in a bathtub full of bubbles, I say with ardent assurance that the road they came by holds no regrets.”

Mansfield said receiving the adoption reimbursement from Cook Children’s brought her to tears.

“Adoption is just one of those processes that seems to have endless outgoing costs with very little financial support from outside sources,” she said. “It pains me to think how many families cannot experience the incredible blessing of adoption not because of the lack of love, desire or support but because of lack of funds. This adoption benefit is rare and it was an immense blessing to our family.”

In 2019, Cook Children’s significantly increased reimbursement limits to employees completing adoptions from $5,000 to the full 2020 IRS limit of $14,300, signaling its commitment to supporting employees welcoming a new life into their homes and hearts. Reimbursements are tax free and cover adoption-associated expenses such as legal and agency fees and home checks. In addition, Cook Children’s added two weeks of paid leave for court dates and any travel necessary for completing the adoption—a benefit separate from and in addition to the health system’s FMLA policy.

“A lot of organizations cap their reimbursement well below the IRS limit,” said Derek Zingg, director of benefits at Cook Children’s. “We wanted to allow the full IRS limit knowing that, for many adoptions, the reimbursement makes only a small dent in the overall cost. But if we can help an employee expand their family and help a child find a home, the benefit is a rewarding one.”

The change in policy was a gift to Claire Cartmel, M.S. Ed., assistant principal at Cook Children’s Jane Justin School. When the Cartmel family’s first attempt to adopt fell through, they were devastated, feeling the pain both emotionally and financially.

“Unfortunately, when a match fails, you lose a decent amount of money that has already been paid for adoption expenses,” Cartmel said. “In our case, we lost a little over $10,000.”

The Cartmels were quickly re-matched. So quickly, in fact, that they welcomed their daughter into the world just four days after the news of their initial failed match. Thanks to the Cook Children’s adoption reimbursement program, the lost fees were recovered, too.

“While our quick re-match was a huge blessing, it came with fear surrounding our bottom line,” Cartmel said. “Once we received the benefit from Cook, we were shocked to see it just about covered the expenses we lost and helped us keep our adoption expenses in a more comfortable range for us.”

Deann Kenaley, RN, BSN, CPN, grew her family through adoption, but not in the way she and her husband had initially planned. In 2015, the Kenaleys began the process of adopting an infant through the Gladney Center for Adoption. In an unexpected twist, the Kenaley’s received a call from child protective services in August 2016 asking them to foster their nephews.

“This changed everything for us,” said Kenaley, a pediatric nurse at Cook Children’s. “We were in line to have an infant, not 4-year-old and 6-year-old boys. But we soon became foster certified and were willing to do anything we needed to do for these two boys to come live with us.”

On November 16, 2017, the Kenaley’s nephews officially became their sons. By the following March the family was ready to open their home and hearts again. It would require many more months of waiting and a great deal of expense.

“The adoption benefit was very helpful for us,” Kenaley said. “We had to put some extra expenses on a credit card and were able to pay it off with that added benefit. So we now have no debt due to our adoption, where many families aren’t as fortunate.”

On January 13, 2020, the Kenaleys brought home their infant daughter.

“Although it was the longest journey ever, it was well worth it,” Kenaley said. “Within five years we became parents to three wonderful children.”

Cook Children’s is honored to be recognized as an adoption-friendly workplace and proud of the role its adoption assistance program plays in helping employees grow their families.

Want to know more? Read our employees' entire adoption stories here.

“Congratulations. You’ve been chosen to be the mother of a beautiful baby girl.”

Excited. Shocked. Joyful. Overwhelmed. I imagine most people would have similar feelings upon hearing those words, especially when just 48 hours earlier neither my husband nor I knew that our daughter was preparing to enter the world.

I remember that day vividly--the day of her birth. I lived three states away from her birthplace and spent morning entirely unaware how much our lives were about to change. I’d taken our two- year-old daughter, Gracie (who is also adopted), to the splash pad park. I was watching her with soaked hair in a neon floral swimsuit as she tried to scoot her way down a blue slide when I received an email notification. It was from our adoption agency and was marked urgent.

Four months earlier the adoption of Gracie’s half-brother fell through on the day he was born. Needless to say, our hearts were broken and it took us months to feel ready to begin the matching process with an agency. We had been approved to start again just two weeks earlier. I opened the email to see that a birth mom was on her way to the hospital at that moment and when she arrived she wanted to view profiles of prospective adoptive families. If we wanted to be considered we needed to let our agency know immediately.

As I stared at the words, a half dozen fears came pouring into my head. We weren’t ready. We hadn’t made arrangements. There was so little information available about the situation, etc., etc.—on and on my head went. Yet my heart was strangely warm and still. It was telling me the answer. I quickly called my husband and asked him to read the email. After asking how he felt, he said, “I don’t know if this will be our baby but I feel we need to try.”

She was born that June 5th day. After being told we’d been in the birth mom’s top two, it was radio silence. We’d had situations fall through when trying to adopt our older daughter and, of course, the failed adoption four months earlier. We weren’t strangers to disappointment. Still, we couldn’t help feeling disheartened after jumping at every text, email or phone call for the last 36 hours. My husband and I had determined the lack of news was not good news.

This is likely the reason for my amplified shock when I answered my phone driving home from work that day. I could barely comprehend as I replied in broken sentences (fairly certain I squealed), tearing up as I replied, “Wait, wha... Are you serious? What does that mean?” The social worker chuckled and said, “It means you need to get on an airplane real fast. We need you at the hospital at 9 tomorrow morning.”

Lots of packing, little sleep and a 5 a.m. flight later, we landed in another state, anxiously raced toward the hospital and, with excitement bouncing in our bellies, met the social worker at the nurse’s station of the birth hospital’s newborn unit. Our two-year-old daughter was not allowed back so my husband stayed with her as I was led into the nursery. It’s possibly best described as a slightly humorous reversed telling of the children’s book “Are You My Mother?” as I walked past tiny bundles in clear bassinets thinking as we neared each one, “Are you my baby? Are you my baby? Are you my baby?”

As we approached a far corner I spotted two nurses standing beside a pediatrician carefully examining a small baby with big eyes, a perfectly round head, smooth skin and a slightly upturned nose laying on a fuzzy blanket decorated in pink and blue footprints. She was my baby. Our Everly.

It’s impossible to recount that moment without emotion. Picking up my daughter for the first time. Cradling her to my chest in the dim corner of the nursery. Whispering in her ear as those chocolate-colored eyes absorbed me. Feeling her incredible warmth when we first did skin-to-skin. The absolute unparalleled joy of wheeling her into a room to meet her impatiently waiting daddy and sister. Tears poured from my husband’s eyes as he held her in his big arms. Protecting her, as he has every day since. We both smiled as Gracie kept asking to see Everly’s toes and saying, “Put her in car seat. We take her home now.” Everly patiently tolerated her countless kisses, toe tickles and lots of head patting. They’ve been each other’s biggest fan ever since.

Adoption is a journey. One filled with foreign paths, fear, disappointments and doubts. But watching my two girls, one dark and the other fair, bent over in belly-rocking giggles at the simple bliss of splashing together in a bathtub full of bubbles, I say with ardent assurance that the road they came by holds no regrets. The doors that didn’t open, the opportunities we couldn’t take, they led us all to their loving arms and slobbery kisses. If I lived two lifetimes I would never find adequate words to describe the debt. The small moments I’ve shared with their birth mothers are sacred. They gave our girls life. Then gave us the supreme gift to raise them in it.

Yes, adoption is a journey. Our journey. And the destination is so much better than we ever could have imagined.

Deann Kenaly’s Adoption Story

My husband and I started our domestic infant adoption journey with Gladney Center for Adoption in 2015. We attended classes in person and online, became CPR certified and had our lives and home dug deep into before becoming “ready to adopt.” The waiting was long and hard, until August 2016, when we got a call from CPS asking us to foster our nephews.

This changed everything for us. We were in line to have an infant, not 4 and 6-year-old boys. We soon became foster-certified and were willing to do anything we needed to do for these two boys to come live with us. We put our domestic adoption with Gladney on hold at this time. On November 16, 2017, we welcomed Joseph and Jesse into our lives forever and officially adopted them.

In March 2018, we were ready to continue our journey with Gladney. We had a few more bumps in the road along the way. On December 31, 2019, we got a call from our Gladney caseworker presenting us with a potential birth mom, which is something she commonly did, so not out of the ordinary. She told me the history and background of this little baby girl. She was already born on December 10, 2019, and she is healthy and beautiful. I immediately said, “Yes, please show this birth mom our profile book.” Our caseworker then said, “Deann, she is yours. The birth mom has already given up her rights and this perfect little girl is yours!”

I didn’t know what to do but cry tears of joy and repeatedly say, “Really, are you serious?” I was then able to call and share the news with my husband. That night we shared our happy news with the boys. With the New Year’s holiday and some paperwork that had to be completed we were able to pick up our little girl on Monday, January 13, 2020. We waited to tell our immediate family until the night before we picked up our little girl.

Monday morning came and we all got dressed up to go to Gladney to meet baby Stella and bring her home. We were ecstatic to finally meet and bring home our sweet baby girl. On July 10, 2020, Stella finally became an “official” part of our family. Although it was the longest journey ever, it was well worth it. Within 5 years we became parents to three wonderful children--Joseph, 10, Jesse, 8, and Stella, 9 months.

Claire Cartmel’s Adoption Story

We’ve always wanted to adopt. It’s been part of our conversations for years. My background of volunteering and working social services, combined with our love for children, made this desire a no-brainer. We struggled with knowing when the time would be right to grow our family through adoption. It’s hard to know when to hit the ground running toward a journey well known for its ups and downs.

After wading through mounds of paperwork, we became active in February of 2020 and matched with a mother due six months later. For reasons that are not my story to tell, that match failed, and we found ourselves back at the drawing board sad but hopeful.

The morning after we got this news, our social worker set up a phone call for us to talk with another expectant mother. Instead of a phone call at our agreed upon time, we got a text telling us to hang tight. We soon learned that the mother was on her way to the hospital, unsure if she was in labor. When it was clear that she was, we spent the next couple of hours packing, buying last minute things and trying to enjoy the unfolding journey. Our daughter was born the next morning as we traveled to meet her—22 minutes into our 8-hour drive, and just four days after the news of our failed match.

While 2020 hasn’t been the poster year for many things, it has been a particularly memorable one for us. Stay-at-home orders have afforded us more time with our family than we could have ever imagined. We finalized our adoption this summer and marvel daily at the precious gift that she is to our family.

After trying to get pregnant for more than three years, the couple decided to seek help through a fertility specialist. But before doing so, Kriss was diagnosed with Graves’ disease and hypertension. The radiation pill Kriss needed for her treatment meant she would have to put the fertility specialist on hold.

“We started praying that wherever our child was that God put his arms around them and protect them until they could come home,” Kriss said.

Little did the couple know their prayers were waiting to be answered at Cook Children’s.

From the time she was 5 years old, Kriss dreamed of becoming a mom. She was devastated to learn that she was diagnosed with a severe polycystic ovarian syndrome as an early teen. Doctors told her then that she would have difficulty trying to conceive a child.

Kriss married Riley in March 1998. By Christmas 2003, the couple had tried Clomid and injectable fertility drugs but every attempt to have a baby ended with disappointment. Shortly after the holidays and much reflection, the couple decided to adopt.

In May 2004, Kriss and Riley made the decision of their lifetime … at least up to that point.

“During that week a friend of mine approached us and asked us to call a local fostering and adoption agency who handles children from child protective services,” Kriss said. “We thought about it and decided what do we have to lose. These are children who really need homes.”

That was the summer the Stewarts' prayer was answered with a phone call from CPS.

They were told a 5-day-old baby boy had been tossed from a second story apartment window and landed between two air conditioners and a railroad tie on the grass. The agency told Kriss and Riley the baby was fine and being cared for at Cook Children’s.

“When we first arrived at the medical center for our little boy after his fall they treated us so kindly,” Kriss said. “We were immediately seen as mom and dad to this baby. They helped me learn how to care for him since he had a seizure and brain bleed. I was allowed to go back for his CT scans and they allowed me to care for him immediately. When I left Cook Children’s I felt completely comfortable because of the time and teaching that was given. I still remember the neurology doctors sitting with me and going over the care and meds he would need.”

But because of all the legal ramifications involved with the child’s injury, he wouldn’t be legally available for adoption yet. Despite all of this, the couple decided to bring the little boy into their home.

“That in itself was a leap of faith and it was a scary, uncertain time,” Kriss said. “When I got home from work Riley was shouting for me to come to the living room because the story of our little boy was in the news. It was then they showed a picture of his sister.”

Her first reaction was, “It’s a shame we couldn’t have her too.”

Those words proved to be prophetic because the next day when Riley and Kriss showed up to sign paperwork for the boy they found out the state wasn’t going to split the siblings up. The couple was shocked. They took a moment to think about everything that was happening.

After years of trying to have a baby, they were now faced with the reality of taking home two children. They talked and prayed before deciding that their choice was an obvious one.

“What a blessing,” Kriss said. “That night we got up to go to Cook Children’s and see our son and hold him for the first time. It was the most emotional moment because it seemed so unreal. For him sustaining such a horrible fall, he had no bruising and no broken bones. He was perfect. It was as if God had cupped him in his hands and gently lowered him to the ground.”

They took their new boy, Brady, home first and then two weeks later they got to bring home Britney, who was nearly 3 years old.

Kriss and Riley fostered the two children for a total of 10 months before they could finalize their adoption. They became a “forever family” on Aug. 29, 2005.

And while this story is amazing enough at this point, there were more surprises awaiting the Stewart family.

Following the adoption of Brady and Britney, the Stewarts received a letter in the mail telling them that the children’s biological parents were pregnant and the baby was due in two months. They were asked if they would be interested in raising the baby with the other two kids. Because of a felony charge (injury to a child), the birth parents weren’t able to keep the child.

“When I first found out, I couldn’t help but cry,” Kriss said.

After much discussion, Kriss and Riley made the decision to adopt the third child. After working with CPS over the next two months, the family brought Benjamin into their family at only 30 hours old.

But the couple's story wasn't over. They  still had one more miracle awaiting them. Well, actually two more because in 2012 Kriss learned she was pregnant with twins. Barrett and Brennen Stewart were born on May 22, 2013.

Cook Children’s has helped with everything from Ben’s broken hand to taking Britney to Carla Morton, Ph.D., a neuropsychologist, to determine her age equivalency for her delays, caused by physical abuse from her biological family. Dr. Morton has asked to continue to monitor Britney until she turns 18 to help get her services into adulthood.

“Cook Children’s has been super helpful in navigating our daughter’s long term brain injury. We are fortunate to live so close to the hospital. They have been with us every step of the way,” Kriss said. “We’ve been married 21 years. We are so busy living our lives, but sometimes when we stop and reflect on everything, we just go, ‘wow!’ We have been able to make sure our kids have had their needs taken care of and Cook Children’s has helped us meet those needs. I’m just so humbled to get to be the ones to raise these kids. All of them. Especially when I think about where they would be if we didn’t take them, especially with all of their needs.”