FORT WORTH, Texas — A Tarrant County teenager, days away from her 18th birthday and aging out of the foster care system, found her forever family Wednesday.
We first met Rose at a Comanche Nation powwow in Oklahoma when we profiled her for Wednesday's Child. As she connected with her ancestral roots, the foster child told us of her desires for a forever family.
"Hopefully I do find someone that will take me in and accept me for who I am," she said in November 2019.
We're here to tell you: Her dreams came true.
In a virtual Tarrant County Courtroom Wednesday, Judge Alex Kim presided over her adoption.
"We’re here for a final adoption," he said in the video hearing, held because of the pandemic. "Very unconventional. First time I’ve done it on Zoom."
But in that Zoom courtroom, people gathered to watch Rose become a daughter and a sister.
"And are you asking me to grant this adoption so Damon and Erica will be your forever family, your forever mom and dad, forever and ever?" Kim asked Rose.
"Yes," she said
After 1,486 days in foster care, Rose was officially adopted.
"It feels good," she told us after the hearing. "I’m just… grateful to have a family now and someone who accepts me for who I am."
We visited via video chat with Rose and her new parents, Damon and Erica.
Their love was palpable, even through a computer screen.
"We say the same thing all the time," Erica and Rose said, laughing and smiling. "We always jinx each other, all the time."
Her new father also shares a Native American heritage. They met Rose the very day we shot her Wednesday's Child story at the powwow and connected over the experience.
It's now a connection that will carry them a lifetime.
"I feel really happy. I just love it," said Rose, who plans on studying music at Tarrant County College.
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