Family affair: Sugar House couple's home becomes 'mini-U.N.'

SALT LAKE CITY — Emily Waddoups became a foster mom at age 27. Overnight, the decision made her a single mother, working full time to provide for another woman's son.

Her choice surprised friends and co-workers, who then went into full-blown "warning" mode when she decided to adopt Isaac a few months later. "Everyone had an opinion. They'd say, 'You really need to think about this. You're young and not married. You have a lot of life ahead of you.' "

Characteristic of the determination she had built through a difficult childhood, Waddoups told them, "That's what I want to do. I feel good about it."

She's one of hundreds of foster care parents who enter Utah's pool of willing adults each year. In the past decade, the number of Utah children being served by the system dipped from 2001 to 2004 but began rising in 2005. For 2008 — the most recent year for which numbers are available — 4,401 children were served by the state's foster care system. The trend is different from national numbers, which show a slight dip in the numbers of children in foster care nationally in 2008.

By the time Emily Waddoups made the decision to adopt, her then-fiancé, Thad, agreed to give her foster son, Isaac, his last name because they planned to be married shortly. Thad learned Emily was already a mother when they began dating, but she "roped him into foster care," she says, smiling.

Apparently, he liked the lasso. Three years later, the couple has three children — all adopted through foster care and all with different ethnic backgrounds.

By their own description, the Waddoups family has a mini-United Nations going on at home: Their children are African-American, Spanish and Hispanic. While that might intimidate some parents looking to add to their own families, the couple says they couldn't be happier about it.

The couple agrees they probably made history, at least in Utah, by choosing to start their family through adoption before they had even married. "For Thad to marry into something like this — I'm sure it happens, but I'm sure it's rare," said Emily Waddoups, who recalls that there were one or two other single women who attended the 32-hour training sessions required of potential foster parents in Utah.

The Waddoupses are so enthusiastic about their own form of family planning, they continue to share their story with other families through the Utah Foster Care Foundation in a bid to attract new parents for hundreds of local children looking for a place to call home.