Meet the Hearne Family!
Twenty years ago, we were a young couple dreaming of filling our home with lots of love and lots of children! I had geared my undergraduate and graduate education around learning how to help children who lived through trauma, neglect, and abandonment. My area of study was clinical social work, and I worked with many children over the years as a trauma therapist. I deeply cared about the children I worked with and wanted to make a true difference in their lives.
In our personal life, nearly a decade passed with no children, as we struggled with infertility, multiple miscarriages, and infant loss. After a long and hard season of heartache and loss, our home quickly became filled with “lots of love and lots of children!”
We had four biological children from 2008 to 2013, and then two years after our last biological child was born, we adopted a sibling group of four brothers. Our biological children had been taught since infancy that our home would be a place where we would welcome children into our family through foster care and adoption, as this had been our desire since getting married.
The transition into adoption brought myriad emotions and adventures! While there were times of loneliness and exhaustion trying to keep up with diapers, feedings, bath time, washing clothes, reading to, and playing with many children under the age of eight (four of whom were in diapers when we first adopted), the lessons learned during this time were many! We learned how to be patient when things did not go smoothly. We learned the importance of being intentional with our children and in our marriage. We learned about the power and reward of setting good boundaries with outside activities, learning to say no to things that were not necessary, which freed us up to love our children well and give our best selves to them. Overall, we learned about having grace toward one another, and that family is forever. These are all lessons our children are also learning as we do life together. When we adopted our boys, they were very young. Josiah was 5, Elijah was 2, Dominic was 10 months, and—three months after the older boys came to us—Asher was born and brought directly into our family. Two of our boys spent their early life in foster care until they came to our home. Our oldest, Josiah, lived with his biological mother until age three when he entered foster care. He was exposed to various traumatic situations, including violence, drug use by adults in his house, and ongoing unpredictability and chaos. One of the biggest ways we have been able to bring comfort to him is to allow him to process his memories out loud when he chooses to, and then to reassure him he will always be our son, that we chose him and his brothers to be our children, and that nothing they will ever say or do will stop our love for them and protection over them.
It has been our goal to help each of our children discover their unique talents and gifts, and we expose them to varied situations where they can learn what they are good at and what they love! Our oldest two boys are talented artists, and all four excel in soccer. We also understand the connection that forms when parents spend quality time individually with children. We started the tradition of “dude-dates” and “chick-dates” soon after we adopted. This is where either my husband or I will take each child out individually to do an activity that they choose. Some of their favorites are ice cream and a river path walk, coffee and reading at the park, and lunch dates together. Another favorite is working on house construction projects with dad and earning spending money!
We are passionate about keeping sibling groups together in adoption. In addition, we believe in strengthening legislation around reducing the time children stay in foster care awaiting permanency. There are many good families who want to adopt, but barriers can prevent that from happening in a timely manner, and children struggle with feeling unwanted and disconnected from a family. This is a tragedy and creates unnecessary trauma in children. We are so thankful our boys are part of our family and cannot imagine life without each and every one of the kids that make up our big, boisterous family!
