When he was 3 years old, Alex entered foster care for the first time. He went through 15 families in 11 years but found his long-term home in 2018 at the age of 13. In October 2017, Jenny and Stephen Madkour first saw Alex on Jeff Gianola’s “Wednesday’s Child” segment. They realized they wanted to meet him after learning about the boy’s history and that he had begun to give up hope of being adopted.
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Alex had grown up never having had his own home to call his own, which made it difficult for him to believe that being adopted was still possible. During his interview with Gianola, he stated that he had few long-term connections in the past, which struck a chord with Jenny and Stephen. They felt they understood his issues and wanted the opportunity to get to know him better.
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Alex met the Madkour family through Boys and Girls Aid, and they hit it off right away. Alex said he had trouble trusting adults because of his history of being shuffled around in foster care, but that he felt secure with Jenny and Stephen from the start. The couple first met Alex before Thanksgiving 2017, when they invited him to move in a little before Christmas. They officially adopted him in 2018.
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Alex, Jenny, and Stephen reside in Portland, Oregon, where there are few available homes for foster children. There were 200 kids on the waiting list to be adopted in 2018 and 800 children currently housed in foster care.
