My 3 sons: Adoption makes for a happy Dalton family

November is National Adoption Awareness Month, and as part of that national recognition of adoption, we are doing stories this month on the adoption triad of birth mother, adoptive parents and adoptee. This month we are featuring the Katie and Richard “Rich” Miller family, who adopted three African American sons: Ozzie, Nolan and Aaron. All three boys were adopted as infants, but they each have their own adoption story.

Ozzie, the oldest, now a senior at Ohio Northern University, was adopted as an infant when the Millers received a phone call about a baby available for adoption in Michigan, shortly after they completed all their adoption paperwork.

“We had tried to start a family for several years,” Katie Miller said. “One Sunday at church, we had asked for prayer that we could start a family, and within days we were led to a conversation with another adoptive parent. She put us in touch with an agency, and we got started on our paperwork.

“Shortly thereafter we got the phone call that there was a baby boy available for adoption in Michigan. We drove to Michigan and met our 1-day-old son.”

Baby No. 2 was Nolan, now a sophomore at Miami University. This time the Millers were more experienced with the adoption process and submitted their paperwork to several agencies they found online after determining they wanted a second son.

“After submitting our paperwork to a variety of agencies, we got a call about a baby boy born in Tennessee who needed a family,” Katie Miller said. “We met our second son when he was 13 days old.”

The final adoption for the growing family was son No. 3, Aaron, a senior at Dalton High School studying at the Wayne County Schools Career Center. His story is a bit different from the others.

“While we were adopting Nolan,” Miller said, “we met up with his biological mother and her family and decided to keep in touch. When she found out she was expecting again, she asked us upfront if we would take that baby as well. We said yes. When she went into labor, we headed to Tennessee the next morning. I was blessed to be able to be in the delivery room to meet our third son.”

Nolan and Aaron are not just adoptive siblings, but also biological siblings.

The Millers also have an open adoption with both birth mothers.

“The boys contact their birth mothers regularly and visit with them when they can,” Miller said. “We sent letters and photos back and forth at first. Open adoptions worked for us in our particular situations. It’s been really helpful to have access to medical information that is hard to obtain.”

Miller said one of the keys to raising adoptive children is to be open and honest.

“We don’t know all the circumstances as to why our boys were placed for adoption, and that is OK,” she said. “We were able to reassure each son that his birth mother loved him enough to take care of him, deliver him safely and made the super-hard choice of placing him for adoption. We have never hidden the fact that the boys were adopted and celebrated adoption-day milestones each year.

“We also made sure to share accomplishments the boys have had with their birth moms. Nobody on social media got excited when our kid memorized the 50 digits of PI, but his bio mom sure did.”

Dalton has proved a wonderful and accepting environment in which to raise their three sons.

“Dalton is a very adoption-friendly community, and there has been a lot of support from our local communities of color,” Miller said. “Our only regret is not adopting sooner. Perhaps we could have adopted a few more kids had we started earlier and been younger.”