This is an interesting, touching and frustrating story about a gay couple's experiences as foster parents.
Dad writes about saving - then losing - foster triplets
"Brian, I want to have children," he blurted. "I think I'm meant to."
It was an acknowledgment that changed their lives, sending the two on a journey of love and loss, and turning the formerly "witty gay couple with time for cocktails" into "two sleep-deprived middle-aged men" parenting triplets. It also was a journey that exposed the blessings and risks of being foster parents, and the added hardship that the two say they faced because they are gay.
They were triplets born prematurely, at 32 weeks. None weighed more than 5 pounds. All were hypertonic and medically at risk. One of the babies was born with a punctured intestine and was undergoing surgery for repair of a heart valve.
The article goes on to describe the struggle over the determination of a social worker to return the children to a mother who was a diagnosed schizophrenic with a long history of multiple problems. It was the social worker's position that a woman could give them real love that two gay men could not.
Brian and Kevin lost those children who were eventually dumped in a group home when the reunification plan failed. However, their personal story has turned out to have a happier turn. They took in two other boys, both of whom were born with drug addictions and managed to raise them into healthy boys. During the brief open window in California in 2008 Brian and Kevin got married and have now legally adopted Zane and Aiden.
Kevin has written a book about their experiences.
Song for Lost Angels: How Daddy and Papa Fought to Save Their Family
There is a range of stories about the experience of gay men as foster and adoptive parents. This story proves that the horror stories don't just happen in red states. The availability of legal marriage is one help in the ability of gay parents to gain full legal adoption but it is by no means a complete solution.