Weld County is celebrating National Adoption Day by finalizing the adoptions of 10 children and teens on Friday.
Finalization is the last step in the adoption process. Treats and stuffed animals for the kids will fill a courtroom in the Weld County Courthouse as a judge makes their adoptions offical.
Four years ago, Ashlee Caruth was the mom of three daughters when she learned that her nieces had been placed into foster care. Right away, she started searching for the girls, willing to adopt them.
She found her nieces and kept track of them as they bounced from one foster home to the next. Caruth’s persistence paid off early last year when the three girls came from Arizona to live with her in Colorado.
The girls, now 14, 11 and 10, call her mom and will take her last name.
“Their mom will always, always be the one who brought them into this world,” said Caruth. “I’m just the mom who was chosen to raise them.”
Caruth’s daughters consider their adoption day their “rebirth day,” and they all will celebrate with friends over lunch.
Weld County says foster parents adopt many children and teens from the child welfare system. Colorado Department of Human Services says the state does not restrict adoptions based on race, sexual orientation, physical ability or marital status.
Saturday is the official National Adoption Day. There are 117,000 kids across the country in foster care seeking “forever families,” and about 300 of them are in Colorado.
