Within two weeks, it became clear Dominic's birth mother could not raise him. He was returned to Pam, but the scar on Pam's heart lasted longer than the scratches on her neck: As long as she was his foster mother, she feared she would lose him again.

Until Tuesday.

In a Dade City courtroom, she and her husband, Mike, adopted Dominic, now 3, and two of his foster siblings, dropping the foster from "foster mom."

"What two other people started by creating a life, Mike and I can pick it up and shape it," Pam Gary said. "They're going to have a family."

Today she will have three more 3-foot-tall reasons to celebrate Mother's Day. Tuesday was the early celebration, legal style. The first family photo included a judge.

The setting was appropriate. Pam and Mike Gary's struggle to adopt these kids has been a saga of court dates, delays and paperwork, lasting more than two years.

Pam, 35, and Mike, 61, remain foster parents to six other children: ages 1, 2, 8, 9, 14 and 17. They live on a rural spread of land north of Dade City.

Pam is a student at the University of South Florida, an environmental consultant and president of the Pasco Foster Parent Association. Mike owns an air conditioning repair company.

They hope to adopt another of their foster children, the only one who may become eligible for adoption. This time, Pam has reason to hope the process will be smoother.

The state is getting out of the social service business, and it has handed over the reins to local agencies. Last month, Family Continuity, a St. Petersburg-based non-profit, assumed control of the services in Pasco County for children of troubled families. These services include adoption and foster care. It's part of a landmark experiment called community-based care, and Pasco is the state's third county to complete the changeover.

The agency promises to bring new approaches to the age-old problem of damaged families.

For one, it wants more foster kids to return to their birth parents, like the state tried -- unsuccessfully -- to do with Dominic. However, when that becomes an unachievable goal, it plans to speed up the grueling and bureaucratic adoption process.

Pam Gary hopes it works.

"With the emotional pains," said Pam, who also has two children from previous marriages, "labor would have been easier."

Fruits of a struggle

For days after the state tore Dominic from her arms, Pam couldn't sit at the dinner table. His empty seat made her cry.

"It was like my child just died," she said.

The authorities returned Dominic to Pam in spring 1999. At that point, logically, the adoption should have proceeded swiftly: She wanted Dominic; the state wanted her to have him.

But the struggle was just beginning.

Dominic's plight was hitched to the future of his half-sister Kaylee, now 2, and her half-sister Emily, now 3. He couldn't be adopted until they were ready.

The three kids come from an intertwined set of problems. Two mothers and two fathers produced them. (Dominic's birth mother and Emily's birth father are Kaylee's parents.)

All three kids lived in Pam Gary's home, but she couldn't adopt any of them until their parents had failed all of them.

Over the next year, they did just that.

Twice in one day, Kaylee and Emily's birth father trudged into the courtroom, dressed in an orange jumpsuit. His handcuffs were unlocked so he could sign away the rights to his kids.

The other parents did the same, signed away their kids -- except Dominic's father.

All summer he ducked and dodged his subpoena. It took until Aug. 23 for his parental rights to be forceably terminated. Pam thought she was getting close.

Not yet.

As standard procedure, the children's cases were shifted from the state's foster care department to the adoption department. It seemed to Pam like she had to start over again.

In its files, the state had the Garys' foster home study, an annually updated and thorough look at the physical structure of their house and the personalities within it. Now it needed to do an adoption study, and the person doing it knew nothing of the Gary family.

The state worker asked her, "What can I tell you about these kids?"

Pam's thought: "Well, I could probably tell you everything about these kids, and you could probably tell me nothing."

They each had lived with her for at least a year. Dominic had slept in a crib at the foot of Pam's bed. Every time he stirred, she woke.

Then, in the middle of the process, the adoption caseworker quit.

No one from the state showed at a March 6 hearing to discuss the kids.

It took an angry judge to put an end to the process. Circuit Judge Lynn Tepper set Tuesday's hearing to make the adoptions final.

It lasted just 20 minutes.

Pam cried. Kaylee slept though most of the proceeding.

"It's my pleasure to make it official," Tepper said. "He is now Dominic Gary. She is Emily Gary, and she is Kaylee Gary.

"It's been a long time coming. Thank you for your persistence."

They celebrated with a trip to McDonald's. Dominic loves cheeseburger Happy Meals.

Focus on reunification

In foster training, parents are told, in no uncertain terms, "Don't get too attached to the kids."

It's a firm understanding that grows soft when the kids take their first step in your family room, kiss you and grab for your leg every time they're scared.

Until about 20 years ago, foster parents weren't allowed to adopt their foster kids. Part of the thinking was they would pull the kids away from their birth parents.

And while foster parent adoption is now allowed, it's still not preferred. It's not even option No. 2.

The first hope is to reunite the children with their parents. In every case, excluding those where abuse is egregious, a parent is given a case plan. If a parent can get a job, stay off drugs and learn to parent, the child is his or hers to raise. When both parents fail, officials turn to relatives.

Only if the relatives fail do they turn to foster parents.

Family Continuity expects to put a new emphasis on reunification.

The agency is new to much of foster care and adoption. But it has been putting broken families back together again since it opened in Florida in 1992.

When executive director Jeff Richard saw that just 61 percent percent of Pinellas and Pasco parents with kids in foster care are reunited with the children they conceived, he said he could do better.

To fix a family, workers must act fast. A 1997 federal law requires agencies to find a permanent home for the kids within a year. It's better for the kids, officials have said. It also happens to be cheaper.

It's an often unrealistic goal, but there's a growing sentiment to try to meet it.

Right now the average stay in Pinellas and Pasco foster care is 18.2 months, according to a 2001 state report. That doesn't include kids with multiple failed adoptions who have been in the system for an average of 71.4 months.

Richard thinks he can make it shorter.

His agency is structured so that there is no distinction between adoption and foster care case workers.

When it's time for an adoption home study, which held up the Gary adoptions for six months, the same case worker should simply be able to update the foster home study.

Pam supports Family Continuity's goals. Now it has to act on them, she said.

"The goal should be permanency," she said, "However, that comes about. (Reunification) can't always be the goal. You can't always change the parents. That's obvious."

Dominic and Kaylee's mother is due to have a third baby this month.

Pam Gary's dinner table is full.

- Ryan Davis covers higher education and social services in Pasco. He can be reached at 1-800-333-7505 ext. 3452.

Back to Pasco County news

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright

From today's
Pasco Times

Future of condo, its owner up in air

Finally, a family

Mother devotes her life to studying local graffiti

Commissioner thankful for mentor's help

Police reports

Courthouse deals with noisy rehab

Royal Knight signs with Virginia school

Nationals are next stop -- maybe

Course yields six aces