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Sunday, November 24, 2002

By Dennis B. Roddy, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Janet and Jim Medlen are the parents of two sons named Eric. It is a pretty good hint that the children who have come to share their lives arrived well past the cradle and with histories requiring a steady home and a wise heart.

The Medien family gathers together after yesterday's adoptions. Standing from left, D.J., Bobby Joe, Darnell and Eric; seated from left, Antonio, Janet and Jim. (John Beale, Post-Gazette)

The Medlens, parents of Bobby, 25, Eric, 24, Eric, 16 and Douglas, 16, stepped onto the witness stand yesterday in the courtroom of Juvenile Court Judge Eugene Strassburger and were questioned about two new children.

They were asked, under oath, if they loved Darnell, 14, and Antonio, 11. They answered yes. Darnell and Antonio Knight now become, respectively, Darnell Knight Medlen and Antonio Knight Medlen and there will be two more place settings at the Thanksgiving table this week.

"Oh, yeah. This is a great match," said Fred Smith, the Children Youth and Families division caseworker who watched the two boys grow into the Medlen family over the last year.

The Medlens, a Washington County couple -- no, make that family -- were a passing moment in National Adoption Day ceremonies that turned the Allegheny County Family Division courts into something resembling an airport terminal.

Parents and adoptive children poured through the corridors, siblings, lawyers and caseworkers in tow. By day's end, 80 families had adopted 97 children.

Charlotte Matthews, an adoption caseworker, stood in the back of Strassburger's courtroom fighting back tears.

"These kids have been waiting for five years," Matthews said. Darnell and Antonio have moved from placement to placement. After one placement failed, they were sent to the Medlens on what is called "an emergency respite."

It lasted two years.

	In another courtroom yesterday, SadyAnn Elaine May, 5, gives her mom-to-be, ZoAnn May of New Brighton, a hug before SadyAnn's adoption was finalized yesterday. About 17 friends and family members came to the Allegheny County Family Court to celebrate. ZoAnn, a single parent, has had SadyAnn as a foster child for two years. (John Beale, Post-Gazette)

"The Medlens even tried to find a family to adopt them, but then they fell in love with them," said Jill Shaffer, a foster care caseworker for Pressley Ridge school.

Jim drives a truck for Waste Management, a trash collection company. Janet stays home with the kids. They adopted their oldest son, Bobby Joe, who is learning disabled.

A few years later Eric, then 12, came along. Because he is part Native American, the Medlens not only had to negotiate the courtrooms, but needed approval from a tribal council. The next Eric arrived a few years later. Then came Douglas, who prefers "D.J."

"It was my last chance," said D.J., now 16. "I'd been in all kinds of group homes."

Now he's with the Medlens.

"We got an extra room downstairs and if they came tomorrow with another two brothers we'd take 'em," Jim Medlen said. "This is what we do."

The legal niceties in Strassburger's courtroom took mere minutes as Darnell and Antonio, brothers by birth and now brothers to four others by adoption, sat at a table where volunteers had put crayons and paper for fidgety kids who might precede or follow them.

"It's not very often that judges get to do things that make people happy," Strassburger said.

The family gathered for a few snapshots with the judge. Hugs went round the room. Smith, the caseworker, laughed, imagining a Thanksgiving table with six brothers.

"All that testosterone at the table. Trying to out-eat each other," he laughed.

Matthews brushed a hand across her left eye. She had worried about how this would turn out. There are kids -- siblings, maybe learning disabled, often, like Darnell and Antonio, racial minorities -- who don't get this moment.

When good things don't happen, "we try to teach them some independent living skills," Matthews said. "But this is a happy ending."