In the home of the Kidd family, there is a picture book that begins like this:
One winter day, the most beautiful girl was born. Her name was Miley. Sweet Miley was greeted by a mom, a dad, and six brothers who loved her so much. Miley was a happy baby.
Miley’s mom passed away, and her dad needed some extra help caring for her and her brothers. Miley is loved and taken care of by Kelsey and Pat.
Miley is adopted by a family who thinks she’s awesome. She moves into her forever home and gets her very own Peppa Pig room. Miley will be with her new family forever. Her mom and dad, her sister Regan, and her brothers Dallas and Benson love Miley.
The book tells Miley her own story and was created so that she would know what her family wanted her to know most: that she has her forever family, and that she is home.
Before they ever knew Miley’s name, the Kidd family was already living a life filled with hospital visits and specialists as they navigated their daughter Raegan’s health needs. When Raegan's care required specialized treatment, the family moved from Oregon to Massachusetts to be closer to Raegan’s neurosurgeon.
Adoption wasn’t part of the plan, but through years of advocating for Raegan, Candi and Mike had learned how to live inside uncertainty and were open to whatever a child might need, even if they didn’t yet know what that openness would lead to.
It was during this time that Candi came across a profile through the National Down Syndrome Adoption Network (NDSAN). She remembers seeing Miley’s photo and feeling an immediate pull she couldn’t explain. “My heart knew her heart,” she would later say about their initial meeting. “She was mine, and I was hers.” She describes it as the same feeling she had felt years earlier, meeting her three biological children in the hospital for the first time.
At seven years old, Miley entered foster care. She was cognitively assessed as a newborn and had stopped growing for years after her biological mother died, a severe trauma response that was later explained by doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital. Miley was placed in a medical foster home by a single mom named Kelsey, who fiercely advocated for her. Kelsey saw Miley’s potential and taught her how to use a wheelchair, introduced her to American Sign Language, and fought for her placement in a school equipped to meet her needs. Miley spent two years with Kelsey before moving into another medical foster home run by an 80-year-old woman named Pat, where she spent the next year. Pat had dedicated her life to helping medically complex children, and Miley was one of them.
When Candi and Mike met Miley, three years after she entered foster care, Miley was ten years old. They met her in the foster home, and as soon as they walked back out, they looked at each other and knew. “We’re adopting her,” Mike said. “The connection was instant.”
What followed was the hardest part. Navigating the adoption agency and enduring the waiting process tested their resolve as answers were slow to come and months passed without clarity.
By the time the adoption was finalized, Miley was eleven. Since moving into her new home, she has begun to grow again, quite literally, adding six inches in a short period of time. Now that she is safe and stable, her body is responding, and she is starting to walk and now signs hundreds of words. “She just needed an opportunity to grow,” Mike said.
Growth, however, wasn’t just physical.
For a long time, Candi worried that Miley might not fully understand what adoption meant and that this family was permanent. About a year in, Miley began to look around the room and sign the same three words: Mom? Dad? Home? Candi slowly realized that Miley wasn’t just naming the people and places around her. She was asking if they were hers.
So, every time Miley became upset, Candi would hug her and sign:
I’m your mom. You’re my daughter. This is your home forever. We’re a family.
One of the most common questions the Kidd family heard when starting the adoption process was, “How will this decision affect the other children?” Accustomed to tuning out the noise of outside doubt and unsolicited opinions, Candi would respond by showing photos of the four siblings loving on each other, smiling and laughing. “The impact is that they are kinder, gentler, and more capable humans,” she said. “They are better people.”
Already deeply involved in taking care of Miley, her siblings are excited about learning how to prepare her formula and run her g-tube feedings. Each morning, her oldest brother carries her down the stairs. All of the Kidd siblings have said that when they grow up, they want to adopt, and that they are very open to adopting a child with complex medical needs. The love that they have for their sister is infectious, and they take turns sharing what they love the most about her. Her sassiness, humor, and how easy she is to love are recurring themes.
Photos courtesy of Caiti Kidd
When asked what advice she would give to families considering adopting a child with complex medical needs, Candi didn’t hesitate. “Give it a chance,” she said. “Find ways to meet these kids and spend time with them, even without full commitment. Once you do, your eyes are opened. It’s no longer this big, scary thing.”
“On paper, Miley is scary,” she added. “When you meet her, she’s not. Our day-to-day life is full of sassiness, laughter, and snuggles. It is so different from what I imagined when I first saw that long list.”
Candi is very open with how overwhelming and lost she felt at the beginning. She reflected on the strong support the state of Massachusetts provided through hospital systems, child life specialists, and music therapists, but navigating the layers around special needs adoption was still daunting.
“There are resources,” she said, “but at first I didn’t even know where to look. Miley herself was never the hard part. She’s always been easy to love,” Candi said. “It was the administrative layers, such as making medical decisions without full access to records that felt scary.” It’s a gap Candi now hopes to help bridge for other families navigating foster care and adoption.
Fear also came from the outside. Many people questioned their decision, their opinions shaped by their own doubts and limits. Candi and Mike remembered getting a lot of feedback, and it wasn’t always positive. “One night, I came to Mike weighed down by all the negative feedback we had received about adding a child with significant medical complexities to our family,” Candi shared. “He looked me in the eye and said, ‘It’s you and me and God doing this. To heck with everyone else.’” Mike added, “A lot of people project their own biases and experiences onto you because they wouldn’t want to do it themselves. There’s such a stigma around foster care and adoption, too, since movies make it out to be this crazy, chaotic thing.
In time, the doubt from others faded away, and those who originally once hesitated quickly apologized, offering their support. “Everyone is completely smitten by Miley after meeting her,” Candi said.
Candi is a firm believer that you need to go into adoption by being child centered. “It needs to be what is best for the child, not what is convenient for us,” she shared. This belief and commitment also means honoring Miley’s biological family. The Kidds remain in close contact with Miley’s six brothers and her extended family, nurturing relationships that matter deeply to her. These relationships are a treasured part of her life. This past Halloween, nearly 40 members of Miley’s extended family gathered at the Kidd family farm for their annual celebration. “We’re all part of Miley’s fan club!” Candi shared. Surrounded by an abundance of love, Miley’s story is a reminder of a truth often lost in conversations about foster care: that she was never placed in foster care because of a lack of love, but because of circumstances beyond anyone’s control. She is surrounded by people who adore her, cheer for her, and believe in her, just as every child deserves to be. She has always been, and will always be, deeply loved.
Staying true to saying yes and meeting children where they are is how Candi first became involved with MARE. She began by inquiring about becoming a Visiting Connection for a youth with disabilities and looped in her photography-savvy sister to help provide updated profiles for waiting children. Still hoping to adopt again, the Kidd family continues to live out what it means to always make room for more love.
And just like that, Miley’s story continues to be written, each chapter reflecting the love and light that will always surround her.
