There's a huge need for families in San Diego to adopt older children. And one local family says adopting a 10-year-old daughter was the perfect way to complete their family and hope others consider doing the same.
It was exactly two years, when Nakaylah joined her forever family and this is her heartwarming success story.
Getting pampered with pedicures together is a relatively new treat for 12-year-old Nakaylah and her mom DeShonda.
Once a family with only two sons, they decided to adopt a daughter two years ago.
"We always wanted a girl, because we had the boys, so we wanted to bring that balance into the house," said father Raymond.
"It's pretty amazing. It's fun, exciting, lots of laughter," added Nakaylah.
"It's exciting to have someone to shop with and decorate with and cook with and help around the house more. So that's awesome, I've been waiting for that for a long time," DeShonda continued.
And Nakaylah is equally grateful for mother-daughter time.
"Scrapbooking, cooking, helping her cook, gardening a lot, shopping of course, love shopping and just talking sometimes," Nakaylah said.
It's a far cry from the difficult life, filled with uncertainty, Nakaylah used to live.
"Wasn't able to tell how the day was going to go, bad or good, anxiety, nervous," noted Nakaylah.
Nakaylah, who did not grow up around men, went from no men in her life, to three. She's now enjoying daddy-daughter dates with her father Raymond and hanging out with her two older brothers – 22-year-old RayShon and 17-year-old DeVonté - who she considers:
"Annoying, I'm just kidding," laughed Nakaylah. She continued to describe her brothers as: "Fun, caring, protective."
And her brothers say family dynamics have changed for the better. The brothers explain:
"Being more loving and kinder with words, so that was a huge thing to look out for."
"Growing up it was just me and my brother so that's what I was used to. Now I'm learning how to be sensitive and things like that. I love her, it's been awesome."
Nakaylah was 10-years-old when she joined her forever family.
"We didn't want to start too young, we didn't want to go back to diapers," Raymond explained.
And after taking pre-adoption classes through San Diego County, they learned about the huge need for families to adopt older children.
"A lot of times these children feel very hopeless and that no one wants them and no one wants to love them and as you can see this beautiful girl that we have," DeShonda said.
DeShonda and Raymond are also calling on African American families to consider adoption, which they say is often considered taboo.
"There's a lot of myths about opening a home up to a stranger in our culture," DeShonda continued. "We would ask a lot of our friends and families about why don't they adopt and they just said, ‘that's just not something we do, you raise your own children and we don't' and that's really sad, that's really sad, because there is a lot of need for African American children."
"It's made our family more complete, more loving because it's easy when you just have your family and you don't know what it's like to stretch your heart bigger and give back and so I feel it's really helped us as a family to grow and become better people, so just adopt," DeShonda said.
If you're interested in adopting or becoming a foster family, call 1-877-I-ADOPT-U during regular business hours.
