A Fort Hood couple fought battle after battle on their road to adoption, but they never gave up.
By pressing on, CW4 John Oravetz and his wife Stephanie are meeting a great need in central Texas.
In 2010, both Bell and Coryell were among the top 40 Texas counties for child abuse.
Now the Oravetzes want others to know that there's always a chance to give a child a new beginning.
"We are here on petition for adoption," said the judge as they stood before him at the Coryell County Courthouse Friday.
They're realizing a dream several months in the making.
"I've always felt a calling to adopt," says Stephanie.
But the journey that brought 2-year old Joseph and 4-year old Evan into their lives wasn't easy.
It started when they tried to have their second child between John's deployments, but found out they weren't able to.
"We just thought when God blesses us with another one, we'll have another one, but it just never happened," Stephanie said.
Then they planned to adopt two boys, only to be told they'd been placed in another home.
"So we decided ok, well maybe, God had got another path for us," Stephanie said.
Just ten minutes after receiving the sad news, they received the call about Evan and Joseph, whom they've been fostering to adopt ever since.
John says, "Now I can't even let them go, and I just couldn't imagine having just one child anymore."
Then something even more unexpected happened -- Stephanie was pregnant.
"Like, whoa, we're going from one kid to four in a year's time," she says.
So now John Jr. is due in just three months, and the adoption of his big brothers is made official.
"The order is now signed," said the judge, as everyone erupted into cheers.
"There's been some really rough parts of our journey," Stephanie said, "It was just finally good to come to this point where we're able to call them our boys."
Reporter: Sophia Stamas sstamas@kcentv.com
Photographer: Chris Buford cbuford@kcentv.com
