In November of 2006, a feeling kept nagging at Jennifer Groves. She could almost sense a little girl's hand in her own.

She told her husband, Dale, "I think it's time for us to adopt."

The couple, of Danielson, had met later in life, so they already had decided that if they were to have children they would take the adoption route.

They researched their options and found international adoption to be complicated. Besides the travel involved, they didn't like not knowing a child's family health history and - because of their ages: 45 and 51 - they didn't want a baby.

Through the Department of Children and Families, they took a class in Willimantic for potential foster and adoptive parents and had a case worker come to do a home study. Ali Lacey asked if they were really set on a 6-year-old, and as she looked around, said, half-jokingly, "I really see two children here..."

Lacey knew of two sisters, 7 and 10 years old, she had fostered briefly who needed a home.

"We decided what's meant to be is meant to be," Groves said. And once the couple met Jamie and Jaden, "that was it."

She and Dale remember, armed with flowers, visiting the foster home where Jamie and Jaden were living.

"The girls were a little shy at first, but then they dragged us to their room to show us all their stuff," Jennifer says. "We got hugs when we left."

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New London-based Connecticut Adoption & Family Services helps families through the adoption process, whether international or domestic, private or through an agency such as DCF.

But director Sandra Couillard says adoptions of children from the state foster care system have become the primary choice this year.

"In this economy, more people are thinking about it as an option," she says.

She hopes the more than 700 foster children in Connecticut, who have been neglected or abused and are waiting for permanent families to care for them, will benefit from hard economic times.

In 2008, Connecticut Adoption & Family Services assisted with the placement of six foster children in homes. Another five home studies to evaluate a potential DCF placement were also completed.

So far, in 2009, the agency has placed four DCF foster children, while 12 new families are going through the home study process for DCF adoption.

Private adoptions the agency assisted with, meanwhile, decreased from 20 in 2008 to 16 so far in 2009.

While private adoptions can cost from $16,000 to $30,000, the average cost of qualifying a family for a foster care adoption is about $3,000, and is covered through grant funding.

Adopting children in need goes back to the agency's roots back in the 1980s, when concerned citizens in the New London area received a grant to research why minority parents in Eastern Connecticut were not adopting state foster children.

A grassroots commission of primarily African Americans formed to ease the barriers to such adoptions and began recruiting families for the children, eventually leading to the formation of what was previously called C.A.R.A., the Child Adoption Resource Association.

In 2003, budget cuts forced DCF to end funding for C.A.R.A. and most other private adoption agencies involved in finding permanent families for state foster children. But in 2005, the New London agency established Project Connecticut's Child - funded by grants, donations, and other fundraisers - to continue finding families like the Groves.

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"The preconceived ideas people have about foster children are so far from the truth," says Jennifer Groves.

The Groves knew the girls hadn't been in the foster system for a long time, and felt they could all still bond as a family. The girls moved in during the summer of 2007, and the couple had to make some adjustments in going from no kids to two kids. Jennifer took some time off from her jobs at an insurance company and giving private flute lessons, and found a summer program for them.

The only scary part of the process was finalizing the adoption.

"If anybody tries to take them from us, it's not gonna be pretty," Jennifer remembers thinking.

The family was on a trip in Disney World, watching the parade go down Main Street as the characters sang about dreams coming true, when they got the call from DCF, saying the girls' parental rights had been terminated.

"It was entirely the best moment of my life," Jennifer says. "The relief was just unbelieveable."

The girls have thrived in their new home and moved up several reading levels in school. They're athletic and artistic, she says, as Jamie is the "girly-girl" and Jaden more of a tomboy. Jamie draws, paints and writes. She runs cross-country, recently coming in third out of 50 girls, Jennifer says proudly. Jaden is the only girl on an all-boys baseball team and takes trumpet.

"They're cool kids," she says.

The Groves know "bits and pieces" of their daughters' previous lives, and the girls are still in touch with birth family members, but Jennifer hopes that others aren't deterred by the complications that sometimes come with foster children.

"All kids go through growing pains and have issues. That's just part of life," Jennifer says. "We wanted a kid who needed a home ... I consider us very lucky."

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