And Then There Were Three by Linda Riely

About the book

Nearly 550,000 children were in foster care in the United States in 1999. Approximately one-fifth of these children needed an adoptive home. Having been abused or neglected, and feeling unloved and rejected, many of these hurt children came into foster care with tremendous behavioral problems. An overloaded and failing foster care system subdues these problems with amphetamine and methamphetamine drugs. However, the underlying problems remain.
Linda and Charles Riely adopted a child, Samantha, who had spent over five of her first eight years in this system. Born to a mildly mentally retarded mother and an abusive, alcoholic father, Samantha spent most of her first three years in foster care. Samantha stayed with her birth mother the next two and one-half years. At age five, she was sexually molested by her mother s live-in boy friend and the state again took custody.
Being extremely hyperactive, aggressive, and defiant, Samantha was rejected by two foster homes. She finally settled into a home with a foster mother and six other girls. This experienced foster mother quickly got a prescription for Ritalin, a Schedule II narcotic, in an attempt to control Samantha. Still lacking a loving, stable family, her behavior worsened, and her psychiatrist placed her on Desoxyn, a methamphetamine.
While Samantha grew up with neglect, abuse, and medication, Charles and Linda went about the business of living. They first considered adoption when Samantha was six and had been in her final foster home for nearly a year. Over the next two years, they went through adoption classes, an all-inclusive home study, and seemingly endless bureaucracy. The Rielys also used this time to learn about the horrible abuses that children suffer and the long-term behavior problems the abuse creates. They also learned techniques for helping to heal the emotional wounds that cause the behavior problems.
Shortly after Samantha s eighth birthday, the Riely s learned Samantha's story and welcomed her into their home. Samantha did have behavior problems when she moved into the Riely home, but Charles and Linda refused to use methamphetamine to subdue her. They sought better help and found it. Working with a doctor specializing in environmental medicine, they eliminated all possible toxins from Samantha's environment. They created a timeline of Samantha's life to help her understand the source of her anger. They consistently loved her even when she behaved badly.
Three years later, Samantha had become an exceptional young lady who was the delight of her real parents lives. Having been so greatly rewarded in their quest to adopt, the Rielys sought to adopt another girl but found that a malfunctioning system had gotten even worse. Mismanaged departments running antiquated systems warehouse children in foster homes using drugs to keep them manageable. The Rielys saved one girl from this fate. They know that many more could be saved. In hopes of helping these children, Linda Riely wrote about the family's experience in And Then We Were Three.