The Whitney Family

For 27-year-old Brandy Whitney, the hope of becoming a mother had felt like an impossible dream.

In 2005, her son Gabriel passed away one hour after he was born. Genetic testing later confirmed Brandy’s worst fear: she was unable to carry a child to full-term.

But it was her college friend’s inspirational life story that provided Brandy and her husband, Dylan, with a ray of hope. Lessie, whom Brandy had met at Worcester State College in 2000, had endured many hardships while growing up in foster care, but still strived to make the best of her life. Of African American heritage, Lessie showed no shame in calling her Caucasian foster parents “mom and dad,” a gesture which Brandy always remembered and kept close to heart.

“After I heard that I wasn’t able to have kids, I immediately knew that I was going to adopt the rest of my children,” Brandy said. “Lessie was able to overcome all of these issues with the help of her foster family. My husband and I realized we wanted to be a family who could help other children in need, too.”

Having completed the MAPP (Massachusetts Approach to Partnerships in Parenting) training in the fall of 2006, Brandy and Dylan began searching the hundreds of profiles online of children in need of adoption. Brandy realized that newborns were the easiest to place, and decided to seek a sibling group, preferably ages 5 and up, instead.

It was just another day on MARE’s Online Photolisting® when she saw and immediately fell in love with Barry, then 5, and Ga’Mal, then 3 and now named Jay. Trained as a special education teacher, Brandy was drawn to the children’s profile which stated that Jay’s favorite book was The Cat in the Hat, and Barry wanted to learn how to read.

“I called their worker that day and told her we were the parents for them,” Brandy said. “I told her there was nothing we couldn’t handle.”

Barry and Jay are not biologically related. Barry, who is Caucasian, and Jay, who is part Cape Verdean, grew up together in the same foster home and had become inseparable. After seeing how happy they were together, the court decided to treat them as siblings.

Brandy first met Barry, now 6, on her birthday – last April – and he was placed with the Whitneys a week later. Jay, now 4, was then welcomed into the family on Dylan’s birthday in June.

The rest is history.

“It feels so good to be a family,” Brandy said.

The Whitneys now live the hectic life of proud parents – they are constantly carting Barry and Jay to soccer and T-ball practice, cooking their favorite pasta dinner, and getting used to being called “mommy and daddy.”

The first woes of parenthood really hit them when both boys got the stomach flu in August, Brandy said.

“We were taking care of two little sick kids who were hanging on us and it was just this normal feeling,” Brandy added.

But despite the fact that it’s hard to take a moment to breathe, Brandy and her husband feel that raising these children is an experience they wouldn’t trade for the world.

Said Brandy: “I don’t think my boys could be anymore attached to us – or us to them – if I had given birth to them.”