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Children who don’t have parents usually end up in the “system” where they are passed around from adoption agency to foster parents until one day hopefuly they get their forever home. Unfortunately, millions of children all around the world stay stuck in the “system” until they are adults and never get to truly experience childhood in a caring, loving and stable environment. Mentally this can take a great toll on these poor kids as they carry this pain with them into adulthood and sometimes even for their entire lives.
The sad fact of the matter is most of these parentless kids never ever find that loving caring home and are forced to live a life nobody would ever want. For some very lucky few, there are good parents out there looking to adopt and raise children in a happy and stable home.
Sometimes these parents already have children of their own, so these adopted kids also get to experience life with brothers and sisters which can really help them get the proper socialization they need to become self-sufficient functioning adults in society.
In today’s story we will feature the Palmer couple Mandy and Tyler who spent close to a year and half proving that they were worthy, loving and good enough parents to adopt a very special child. The husband Tyler was had enlisted in 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army. After basic training, Tyler was immediately shipped off to Afghanistan to serve his country.
Tyler finished up his first tour and came back home to reintegrate into society as a civilian. Although, physically he was okay, being at war messed his head up and he needed time to recover mentally and emotionally. As he struggled through PTSD and his traumas he met a beautiful woman named Mandy. The two immediately hit it off and they could just tell almost immediately that they were soulmates.
Just like Tyler, Mandy had also been struggling with her own health issues and was suffering from Chrohn’s Disease, so being together as a support system made things easier for both of them.
But just as quick as they hit it off, Tyler was shipped back off to do his second tour of duty for the Army for 9 months. They wrote each other letters, video chatted called each other during the full 9 months and 4 weeks after his second tour ended he got down on one knee and asked Mandy to marry him. She said yes and within a month they were a married couple!
After they got married Tyler decided it was time for him to retire from the army, begin a new life with his wife and start a beautiful family. For many years they tried to have a child, but Mandy’s health problems stood in the way and they were unable to conceive. They tried and tried but nothing seemed to work at all. The sad truth finally settled in that Mandy would never be able to get pregnant because of her Chron’s Disease so they would have to try a different path to begin their family.
The looked at fertility treatments, surrogacy and few other options but finally decided that adoption would be the best path for them to take. You would think because there are so many children in desperate need of adoption that it would be a pretty simple and straight forward process however, due to Tyler’s PTSD struggles and Mandy’s health issues getting the go-ahead and approval as worthy parents would take months and months.
First they would have to get licensed as foster parents, where they could be tested to see if they were even capable of caring for a child. After tons of paperwork, training and tests they were finally approved after close to a year.
After they received their license to become foster parents they got a call that a week old baby named Hunter needed a foster home and they immediately said yes to taking him and caring for the infant first as fast parents and if all went well they could become his permanent adopted parents.
After they agreed to take in baby Hunter, they ran to all the baby stores bought everything they needed for his nursery and to child-proof the house and make it the best possible environment a child could ever have.
They knew in the back of their minds that at this point they were just his foster parents and another couple could end up becoming his permanent adopted parents but they didn’t care, they were determined to give this infant the best life possible!
Then their worst fear happened, another couple was scheduled to be Hunter’s permanent adoptive parents and they were absolutely devastated! With that being said, the couple wasn’t going to give up and would fight for custody of baby Hunter as hard as they possibly could. For months the battle raged on through the courts and nobody truly knew what the final outcome would be.
After 17 months, Hunter had gone from a few day old infant to a happy little toddler who loved Tyler and Mandy so much. They were of course the only parents he ever had and knew. Over that 17 month period they had to go from court to court to fight to truly become his permanent legal guardians.
Finally, 17 months in they were about to go to their final court date where the judge would make his final ruling on the future of the boy. Their whole family and all their friends went to court with them that day. The judge finally made it official and read out his legal and official new name Hunter Palmer!
Before anybody could even react to the amazing news, Hunter would scream something to his dad that would leave the entire court in tears…
Watch the video below for the full story:
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