Inside the Horton house, parents Janine and Dave Horton can never quite sit still without one of their four young children crawling over them or tugging an arm for attention.
Seven years ago, frustrated by fertility problems, children seemed like a far-off reality. Then they learned of a three-month-old boy with cerebral palsy and a colostomy bag in foster care that needed special care.
Janine, a licensed practical nurse, put their names forward.
"Three weeks later we had Tony," said Dave of their now-adopted seven-year-old son. A year later Tony's half-sister Shayla, now six, was also in their home.
The couple eased into adoption, after years of being told "over and over" they would only be foster parents. But Tony and Shayla's biological mother gave her permission, and a year ago the adoption was official. The couple also have three-year-old twins Cooper and Tyler, born with the help of fertility treatment.
"We didn't really plan this," said Dave, 31. "When people view what our family is, they view it as this beautiful thing that we planned out and it's so honourable, but realistically we couldn't have kids.
"It's very unromantic but it's reality and it's full of love even though it's lacking in romanticism," he said.
Shayla and Tony represented two of about 1,000 children in B.C. waiting for adoption each year, according to the Ministry of Children and Family Development.
The couple is used to getting questions about their family and said not enough is known about adoption as an option for families.
"Common questions and misconceptions are a lot to do with money," said Janine, 30. "They think it will be too expensive, not realizing when you adopt provincially through the Ministry that there is no costs. That's a huge perk."
"And that there's support post-adoption too," Dave added.
"There's just a lot of fear surrounding it when you talk to people about fostering and adoption," said Janine.
"That they couldn't do it or they couldn't love somebody else's child as much as their own, or enough - whatever enough is."
Bev Fowlie, who works at the Prince George branch of Adoptive Families Association of B.C., has made it her mission to make the idea of adoption more accessible.
"We need all sorts of families to adopt children," said Fowlie, who has put together an adoption open house today. The Prince George branch has recently opened its new office. Earlier this month, Mayor Lyn Hall signed a proclamation making November adoption awareness month.
Many people write themselves off, Fowlie said, thinking they won't be accepted as parents.
"I used to say to families, 'We're not looking for a white-picketfence kind of family,'" said Fowlie, who worked as an adoption social worker within the Ministry for 15 years.
"The struggles you've had in your life could actually be something that benefits. The families that haven't had any issues are the families that might have the most difficulties," she added, because often adoptive children have already been through a lot in their short lives.
"Often the families that have struggled in their own lives with whatever, they can relate," she said.
Fowlie also said cost can be a question for potential families - but the main financial commitment is a criminal record check and medical test.
"I'd really like to make adoption more out there. There is also such a need," she said, citing the association's statistics: last year the province had 350 adoptions out of more than 900 on the waitlist; there are 375 children over 12 year old on the list, who often age out of the system before they find a "forever family."
According to a June 2014 report by that name for B.C.'s Representative for Children and Youth (RCY), the numbers have gotten worse for kids in care.
It looked at a six-year period starting in 2007, and found overall adoptions by MCFD declined by more than one-third. In that time the number of newly approved adoptive homes also fell, from a high of 386 in 2005-06 to 213 in 2012-13, the report said.
Fowlie's open house comes five months after the organization started offering a new program for first-time adoptive parents called PASS, or the Parent Adoptive Support Services program.
"I go in and, through play, help the parents focus more on relationships, for working through behavioural issues, so trying to connect with the child," said Janice Butler, the therapist who is working with five local families.
It's the first time PASS - available in the Lower Mainland, Victoria, Kelowna, Kamloops, Vernon and Nelson - has been offered in the north.
"They've had really good success with it so I'm really pleased they're doing it up here," said Butler, who is working with five families in Prince George, who are "thrilled that they've had the support."
"Some kids come with some very severe emotional trauma," said Butler, and that's where the organization comes in - to help ease parental fears.
"Some of the fears are a lot around the behaviour: am I going to be able to manage this? We're saying we're going to be here, we're going to help you manage it. Let's start with a relationship."
With those parents, she counsels to "stick with the present. That's the anxiety talking."
Dave Horton said it's healthier to just admit you're scared as an adoptive parent, and move past that.
"Don't lie to yourself and tell yourself you're unable to do something that you've never tried," he said.
Fowlie can relate. She didn't consider adopting her daughter until her mother put the idea in her head.
"My reaction was 'I'm too old and I'm too single. I was 50."
Alexis, now 21, became Fowlie's daughter at the age of eight. While Fowlie doesn't like to only "paint a rosy picture" of raising a child, Fowlie said adoption can be the right choice for so many more families.
According to the RCY study, Aboriginal children are vastly over-represented in B.C.'s in-care population. One of its recommendations was to encourage more adoptive First Nations families to step forward.
In the Hortons' case they had the family's permission to adopt, but still went through a cultural plan to ensure Shayla and Tony have an understanding of their Kwantlen heritage.
Dave and Janine reject the "rescuer mentality" that can come with how people regard adoption.
"In our case, these kids were a gift to us," he said.
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