‘Yours forever’: A rare glimpse into adoptions

Published 11:28 pm Friday, November 16, 2007

EVERETT — Pastor Ric Martinez raised his right hand Friday and promised to tell the truth.

As the line of courtroom questioning continued, and the emotion of the moment rose, he paused to wipe his eyes before answering.

“You wish to finalize this adoption?” attorney Dean Minor asked him.

“Yes, sir,” Martinez responded.

“You would like to finalize and legalize that relationship, making him yours forever?”

“Yes,” Martinez said.

After Martinez’s wife, Shelli Martinez, was asked a similar round of questions, the couple brought 3-year-old Lucas to the front of the courtroom, joined by their two other children, Madison, 4, and Matthew, 6.

Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Ellen Fair asked Lucas to put a mark on the official adoption papers.

“Great!” Fair said. “Are you satisfied with that? That was awesome.”

The adoption ceremony was one of 16 performed by Snohomish County Superior Court judges on Friday with 22 children formally welcomed as new family members.

The ceremonies were held as part of National Adoption Day, now in its seventh year. In Washington, more than 1,830 foster children are waiting to be adopted.

Usually, these proceedings are held behind closed doors. Once a year the courts open their doors to help bring attention to the needs of foster children.

Fair asked Lucas to use her gavel to signal the adoption was final.

When the result was only a weak tap, Fair smiled at Lucas. “Let’s try that again,” she said.

This time, the gavel came down with such a thud on the judge’s sound block that it echoed throughout the courtroom, which burst into applause.

“Not often you can bang something and everybody claps,” Fair said, chuckling. “Congratulations.”

Adoption “opened a world we didn’t know existed,” Shelli Martinez said.

The couple, who live in Snohomish, battled infertility issues for years before deciding to adopt, she said.

First Madison and Matthew, then Lucas. They also have a fourth child, a baby, they are caring for as foster parents.

“Being foster children, they come with a situation,” Shelli Martinez said. Adoption and a stable home life “changes everything for them.”

Ric Martinez, a pastor at Fairview Church in Seattle, said he has a goal of starting a foster care foundation, in part to help find more permanent homes for foster children.

Carolyn and Tim Dorsey, also from Snohomish, were adopting three children at Friday’s ceremonies: Ashley, 5; Brittany, 10; and BobbiLee, 11.

This in addition to having two children of their own, a daughter, Elizabeth Rodriguez, 22, who is married, and 16-year-old Dewey.

Carolyn Dorsey said she sees the foster children change from having a “lost, hollow look” in their eyes when they first arrive to seeing them wake up with smiles on their faces.

Tim Dorsey said part of his interest in adoption came from his own experience. “I was adopted myself,” he explained.

The joy of adoption is giving kids “a good, stable home,” he said, and “somebody they can call Mom and Dad.”