The longest-waiting child in the Arkansas foster care system has finally been adopted, after nearly 17 years, in a heartwarming moment captured on video.
Jose, who remains disabled after suffering from shaken baby syndrome at the hands of a caretaker, spent a staggering 6,183 days in foster care after his biological family abandoned him in a care facility when he was just one year old, KARK reported.
Dr. Mary Zhang was the one who became Jose’s medical advocate, as he suffers from verbal and visual impairments and is mostly paralyzed.
“When I first visited my intention was to be an advocate for him medically speaking,” Zhang told the local outlet:
“And as we visited him more and more we just knew that we wanted him a part of our family,” she said of her and her husband, Patrick Sullivan.
After getting to know Jose, the couple felt called to adopt the teenager.
“You know, you had kind of gotten to where he needs someone and I was like let’s do it,” Sullivan said.
“He’s lived his entire life in a facility,” Zhang said tearfully. “Like I mean, how do you?”
Courtroom video shows the emotional couple pledging to love Jose as their son.
While he will remain in a care facility because of his 24-hour needs, his adoptive parents will be daily visitors.
“When we look into his eyes and rub his face, he knows that we love him,” Zhang said.