Four families celebrated the final step of their adoptions with the public Friday. As part of National Adoption Day, Starke Circuit Court welcomed the public to watch the normally-closed-door adoption hearings.
Those attending got a chance to hear a firsthand account of the impact that adoption can have on a child’s life. Judge Kim Hall introduced Paige Hodge, who first appeared in his courtroom under trying circumstances. “About four years ago, here in Starke County, two parents offered their 12-year-old daughter to a 22-year-old man for a sexual relationship in exchange for drugs,” Hall said. “At 12 years old, their daughter got pregnant.”
Hall said that both parents and the man were arrested, prosecuted, and convicted, while Paige was removed from the household and gave birth to a son. On Friday, she returned to Starke Circuit Court to share her experience. “When I first walked in this courtroom, I was 12, and when I walked in, I was so scared,” she recalled. “I didn’t know what was going to happen, didn’t know where I was going to go. And that continued for many years. I went from placement to placement, about 11 within the time of three years, and then I was finally sent to White’s.”
While she was in the residential facility, Paige wasn’t able to have her son, Oakley, with her. But she did meet Hannah, a staff member who eventually became her mom and reunited Paige with Oakley permanently.
Hannah said Paige has grown from being a victim to a survivor. “The only way I can explain it is it was God’s calling to get her,” Hanna said. “I didn’t even ask my husband before taking her in and contacting her county. . . . My kids are two and four, so taking in, at the time, a 15-year-old was crazy, but she’s fit right in and so has Oakley, and she’s just always been ours, before she was.”
Paige said that while it was rocky in the beginning, somehow, they all got along. “Really, adoption is trial and error,” she said. “You don’t really know what you’re going to get, but you get it anyway. But the thing is with adoption, you try as hard as you can. You don’t just get something and let it go, which is what my mom did. So yeah, here I am. I’m a senior. I have full custody of my son. I graduate in May, and I’m as happy as could be.”
Judge Hall says the goal of opening the adoption hearings to the public once a year is to promote the option to those who might be considering it. “Fortunately, in this county, we have so many people willing to step up and fill that role as a parent,” Hall says, “whether they be grandparents – I’ve even had great-grandparents adopt children and aunts and uncles and cousins and then even friends and associates and foster parents, for sure.” Hall estimates that he sees 20 to 30 uncontested adoptions a year.
