Gay Dads Who Wanted to Adopt an Abandoned Boy End up as Parents to 14 Kids

A gay couple once jumped at the chance to foster a Hispanic boy named Michael, not knowing that he would be the beginning of many. The young kid wouldn't shut up about his siblings, so the lovers had decided to help him meet them.

Steven and Roger Ham and their fourteen kids make an unusual family because it is not every day we see gay men coming out to show streaks of parenthood, proving that what women can do, men can also do, perhaps even better.

Steven works as the company's vice president, while his partner Roger works for the Phoenix school district. Both jobs are regular ones that have given the couple a chance to raise their children and cater to their needs.

Even having a single child is considered a big deal in today's world, but somehow these two men have raised their kids without any visible consequences. This is a short story of how they got the southwestern state they live in to accept gay parenting rights.

THEY WANTED ONLY ONE CHILD

Steven and Roger are both from large families, but when the two men started looking into fostering and adopting kids, they initially decided to adopt one. It began in 2000 when Steven abruptly announced that he wanted a child.

At first, Roger was not exactly enthused about the whole concept; however, he joined the bandwagon for the ride to parenthood. The first step they took was to enroll in classes in the foster care system because they didn't know a lot of prospects.

They tried to do some research by reaching out to various area placement agencies and informing them that they were a gay couple looking to adopt. The responses they got were many, with some saying, "We don't serve your kind.'"

Despite that, the couple kept attending the foster classes. The fact that they had to take the classes started grating on Steven at this point because he knew most straight couples did not have to pass through it to become parents.

By April of that year, the pair were done with the preliminaries. However, the state failed to give them a call for about three months afterward.

It did not matter that before finishing the classes they took to learn about foster care, they had been told that there was no shortage of kids they could pick from.

When August came, the couple started to give up on their dream, thinking perhaps the world was not yet ready for such an occurrence.

THEY STARTED WITH ONE CHILD

The first child the couple was allowed to adopt was a Hispanic boy named Michael. He didn't meet the criteria they had laid out, but the pair decided beggars can't be choosers, so they rushed to see him.

It was love at first sight, and the following day, Roger and Steven had him home, ready to begin his new life, or so they thought.

Once he was settled in, Michael started to talk about his siblings, Andrew and Elizabeth. They were four years old and three years old, respectively, and had been getting moved toward an adoptive placement elsewhere at the time.

When the boy wouldn't stop talking about them, Roger and Steven decided to help him meet them. When he finally did, the couple witnessed their emotional reunion and knew they couldn't ignore it.

The family of three became five just like that, but they weren't done yet. After securing Andrew and Elizabeth, Michael started clamoring for two other siblings, twins who had severe mental disabilities.

Again the couple had no plans to take them in, but the result was the same, and they decided to adopt the twins even though their foster mother tried all she could to discourage them.

Eventually, they got custody of the twins and inducted them into the family, but Steven was still not satisfied. They had adopted toddlers between ages two and five, but he wanted a baby, so they adopted a 15 months old child named Marcus.

In one way or the other, the couple kept coming across kids that tugged at their hearts, and they always took them in until their family of three became one of 16.

The two men run a wonderful and quiet home, and according to Heather Shew-Plummer, the Hams' adoption caseworker, they've been able to turn the lives of those children around for the better.