Finding Home

By Abby Aldrich

Roxanne Derrick remembers the day she found out she was adopted. At the age of 5 or 6, Derrick became curious about her birth. Her adoptive mother took the opportunity to explain.

“She said, ‘Well, we couldn’t have any babies of our own, and so we chose you,” Derrick said. “You are special because you were chosen.”

Thousands of children need loving, permanent families, which is why November is National Adoption Month. Each year, approximately 140,000 children are adopted by families in the United States.

Adoption can work in one three ways: private, foster care and international adoption. Derrick, now 51, became a part of her family through a private adoption in 1964. She has never tried contacting her biological parents, but has considered it. When Derrick was pregnant with her son, Preston, she thought about contacting them for their medical history.

Roxanne Derrick and her son, Preston.

“It did make me curious if there were any hereditary or medical issues that I need to be concerned about,” Derrick said. “I think potentially if Preston hadn’t turned out so well, it might have made me more interested in finding them.”

Derrick, manager and catering consultant at The Vine in Lubbock, has no hard feelings toward her biological mother.

“I honestly feel that my birth mother wanted to give me a life she couldn’t,” Derrick said. “I think she did it to try and keep her life as intact as possible, and give me a good life. I am extremely grateful for that.”

Derrick’s adoptive parents were not able to have kids on their own. Her dad wanted a girl, and he got his wish.

According to the National Foster Care Adoption Attitudes Survey, girls are more likely to be adopted than boys.

“I was his little princess,” Derrick said. “If I was sick and my mother was with me, he would get up and sit with us because he wanted to make sure that I was alright.”

Some adoptions come later in life, and not through an adoption agency. Sydney Cook grew up without a father during most of her life.

Cook, a junior special education major from Dallas, said her father left her and her mother at the hospital when she was two days old. She remembers classmates in middle school making fun of her because she did not have a father.

Sydney Cook and her adoptive father, Todd.

“They said I wasn’t good enough,” Cook said. “Or my dad didn’t even want an infant who couldn’t do anything for themselves.”

Cook went to counseling to deal with the anger built up from hating her biological father.

But her life got better. When she turned 16, her mother married Todd Cook. At the wedding reception dinner, he asked the entire family if he could adopt Sydney.

She finally found someone to call dad.

“I gained another person to lean on,” Cook said. “It’s nice knowing I have someone else there for me.”

Cook and her family the day she was adopted.

Cook said her father treats her the same as his three biological sons. He expects a lot out of her and loves her as much as his boys.

When she was 18, Cook’s biological father contacted her. She found out he had remarried and adopted his new wife’s son.

“I really felt betrayed by that,” Cook said. “Just makes me feel worse that he adopted someone that was put in the same situation he put me in.”

Even though her biological father’s wife, adopted son and parents have tried to reach her, Cook said she wants no contact with them.

“I think so less of him for putting me through that and then going ahead and adopting someone else,” Cook said. “I just want nothing to do with him, ever.”