“Our story of foster parenting began in 2002 when we met a little girl named Olenka,” Iryna Shvora, a foster mom.

Olenka was sent for treatment to the Kherson Regional Children’s Tuberculosis Hospital in Oleshkya, where Iryna worked as a nurse.

The child was quite small, thin, afraid of people, especially doctors. But with Iryna, her frightened eyes began to glow with warmth. Olenka captured everyone’s hearts.

Together with her husband, Iryna was already raising two teenage children. At the family council, everyone decided that this was their girl, their child. The path to making the dream of becoming Olenka’s parents a reality was very difficult and took 9 months!

“Even despite the fact that we wanted to adopt her! My husband and I went through a lot of challenges, but we had caring people by our side,  specialists of My Home who supported us on the path of parenthood,” Iryna says.

And finally – Olenka is in our family! All the family members surrounded her with love, care and affection. Olenka had a whole “bouquet” of diseases that her parents had no idea about. The fight for her physical condition and health began. Every year the girl grew and got stronger. Gradually, doctors began to remove those terrible diagnoses.

“At the age of 10-12, we began to have difficulties communicating with the child: she began to tell lies, commit petty thefts, Olenka became withdrawn, did not make contact. Every day was like a battlefield: us or her? Persuasion and conversations did not give a positive result. My husband and I began to think: “”What did we do to deserve this? So much effort, so much time! Disappointment – WE failed. I don’t have the strength to endure anymore,” Iryna recalls.

Therefore, the Shvora family decided to seek help from the specialists of “My Home”. Told everything as it was. A psychologist started the work: “It was a young girl, Darina. Few people believed in success. But this psychologist was able to get through to our rebel, find the reasons for her behavior, and give us, parents, valuable recommendations.

Talking to Olenka, Darina found out that the stolen money was spent on girls from school. It happens that adopted children very often want everything and everyone at once. The girl thought she could “buy” friendship. And her classmates used her and then ignored her. And it troubled the child, her heart ached. She was also very afraid of losing her family.

Darina was able to show her parents a fragile, moving, loving and timid Olena. She turned the parents to the child.

From that moment on, the family experienced a turning point in their relationship: Olenka seemed to “break through”, and she spoke frankly with her mother almost all night.

Taking the advice of the psychologist, parents transferred their child to another school, where she was placed into a friendly class, where she developed a close, trusting relationship with the class teacher.

Olenka finished school well and entered the Ternopil Medical University. Studying was very difficult and she was so far from home.

“Olenka knew that we love her, we are always ready to listen and understand. The girl shared her feelings with us, talked about her difficulties in education. We advised her to transfer to another school.

The girl began studying at the college of Ivan Franko University in Lviv to become a primary school teacher. After graduation, she married a nice guy. The young couple has their own home, she works as a teacher in a private kindergarten,” Iryna says.

All the years of her staying with the family, Olenka helped a lot with other children, so that everyone could better understand their experiences, joys and problems. Olenka was the first in this family. And then there were Natalia, Alyona, Yuliia, Oleksandra (biological), Anna, Denis. To this day, children often turn to Olenka for advice as their older sister.

“I often think, what would have happened if we had not met Darina in our lives back then? Would we have such a strong relationship?

It is great when everyone does their own thing and can help others.

We are grateful to God for our Olenka, for the difficulties we have overcome together, for the ability to find a common language and go through life together!

Now we are waiting for Olenka and her husband to give us grandchildren!” – Iryna says.

The life of adoptive parents is not an easy path, but when you realize that there is one less orphan in the world, it inspires you, gives you strength and motivation not to give up, but to move forward.

It is good that now there is training for both parents and “candidates” to be parents. It’s not just a dry theory, there are examples from the lives of adoptive parents and their children.

Measures are also being taken to prevent burnout among parents.

“In general, our life as adoptive parents was different: there were big failures, tears, there were also small victories. But my husband and I do not regret that we are involved in the topic of orphanhood!” – Iryna adds to her story.