The Greatest Joy of Our Lives

While Children’s Aid and Family Services has a rich history of placing children with adoptive parents, the focus more recently has been on finding homes for older children. Nonetheless, when a young woman who was pregnant came to Children’s Aid for birth parent support services, Adoption Specialist Dina Cioffi provided Options Counseling services, which explores ways in which the birth mother could parent the child, have a kinship /legal guardianship situation, or place the child for adoption. After much consideration, she decided to put her child up for adoption. Dina then contacted Children’s Home Society in Trenton, an agency that works with connecting birth parents with waiting families interested in infant adoption. After looking through books of prospective parents and meeting with Caroline and Loukas twice, the birth mother chose them to be the baby’s adoptive parents

Married in 2010, Caroline and Loukas’ path to parenthood wasn’t a traditional one. Caroline’s father and sister both tragically passed away, and she and Loukas later learned of a contributing genetic condition that Caroline is a genetic carrier for, so adoption, for them, was the best option. Their hope was to find a child close to home. “We felt there was a child we were supposed to have and they would be brought to us when they were supposed to,” says Caroline. Approved in 2021 as adoptive parents with Children’s Home Society, they connected with the birth mother through Children’s Aid and mutually decided on an open adoption process with photos, videos and visits planned after the birth. Robert was born in March of last year and is the first grandchild in the family, says Caroline. They look forward to a future where he learns more about where he came from. “I told his birth mom she’s our hero,” says Caroline. “She had so much strength, courage and bravery to put the baby first. We expect Robert to want to connect with her and know his family history as he gets older.”

As he grows in his first year, Robert has become a naturally curious, fun and happy child who loves music, says Caroline. “The greatest joy of our life is having Robert. Our family experienced a lot of loss in the years leading up to the adoption. Robert becoming part of our family is the sweetest experience we’ve had in a long time. And working with Children’s Aid has been a great experience, they made us feel comfortable throughout the whole process.”