After spending the first 10 years of her life in and out of the foster care system, 12-year-old St. James Middle School student Abby Franks has been adopted by her new parents, David and Katie Franks.

Abby was born into the foster care system and had no biological parent who could take care of her. After briefly being under the care of her grandmother, the state removed her from the home for her safety. 

An emergency placement was made with the Franks family, which was intended to be temporary while the state found her a more permanent place to stay. 

David and Katie Franks had been foster parents for four years, and were only keeping their license open so they could finalize the adoption of their son. Once that was complete, they intended to stop fostering.

But then they got the call about Abby.

“It was like seven o’clock in the morning, and I told David, I said, ‘it’s just an emergency placement. We’re only gonna have her for a couple of days,’” Katie said.

Those couple of days went by, and Katie said that’s all it took for them to fall in love with her. 

“She seemed to be kind of a missing piece to our family that we didn’t even know that was missing until we got her,” Katie said. “And so we had called her caseworker and said, ‘hey, I know we are only supposed to keep her for a couple of days, but we kind of want to keep her forever, if we can.’”

The adoption was finalized March 17 in Waynesville. The entire process took about a year-and-a-half from the time Abby was first placed with the Franks family, due to a setback with an attorney. David and Katie Franks said having the adoption finalized felt like a relief for the whole family, including Abby.

“In her words she had said, it means that me and David Franks are her parents, the same as if we were biological, there’s no difference,” Katie said.

They said that, just like any other child in foster care, it took Abby some time to adjust to her new home and family. 

“It took her a while to realize, the home that (she) was in with the family that (she) was with was not safe for (her), and now (she’s) somewhere where (she is) safe and (she is) loved and taken care of and provided for,” Katie explained.

David and Katie Franks are looking forward to giving Abby a stable environment where she can grow and be loved. They have three other children: Brenden and Caleb, who they adopted from foster care last year, and Kennedy, who is the same age as Abby. 

“Her and Kennedy are definitely sisters,” Katie said. “There are days that they are best friends, and they do everything together, and they are inseparable, and there are days where, ‘well, she stole my hairbrush,’ ‘well she’s wearing my favorite jacket.’”

Kennedy was one of the reasons the Franks decided to begin fostering. For years, she’d been asking for a sister her age to play with. After going through some fertility issues, David and Katie Franks decided to start fostering with the intent to eventually adopt.

Over four years, they fostered a total of 10 children. Though it was rewarding, it wasn’t always easy. Especially when it came to fostering older children, they worked through past trauma and behavioral issues.

Their advice to those in the community considering becoming foster parents is to be patient, and don’t shy away from older kids who need a home, too.

“Every child is going to bring different challenges, but at the same time, every child is going to bring a different joy because of their personalities,” David Franks said. “And once you actually see that, that’s probably the best part, is just seeing the kids slowly come out of their shell, and you see that smile get bigger and brighter.”

“There’s a lot of kids that, more than anything, they just want to be loved, and they want a home,” Katie said “They just want one place, one stable place that they can call home and a family that they can call theirs. That’s all they want. So as long as you’re willing to love them through the hard days and be there with them, then it’s really not as hard as it seems.”