‘Some call it chaos but we call it family,” reads the stenciling on the wall of Abbey and Rich Clegg’s Manchester living room.
You also could call it love.
The Cleggs have foster-parented more than two dozen children — and adopted five of them.
Abbey Clegg works as a project manager for Adopt NH, where she recruits adoptive families and tries to match them with children available for adoption through the state Division for Children, Youth and Families.
When you become an adoptive parent, Abbey said, “you’re going to radically rock your world. You’re going to change the way you’re going to live your life.
“But they’re worth it,” she said.
Rich Clegg, pastor of Faithbridge Church in Manchester, said adoption is “a calling and a commitment, and also a great opportunity to help meet a real need in our community.”
“But (it’s) also a chance to experience love,” he said. “Kids love like nobody else can.”
When she was growing up in Virginia, a family in her church fostered infants, Abbey said. “Every time they got a new baby, they’d bring the baby up to church and pray over it, pray that God would bless their lives,” she said.
That family inspired her, and she remembers thinking: “One day I’m going to be a foster parent.”
The Cleggs met and married when they were students at Virginia Tech. When their oldest daughter, Morgann, was 4 years old, the Cleggs took in their first foster child, a baby boy.
They had him for just six weeks, but when he was returned to his birth parents, the Cleggs were unexpectedly devastated, Abbey said.
“We didn’t realize how much it would impact us,” she said.
Abbey Clegg of Manchester high-fives her son Teyson after he arrives home from school.
Love despite difficulty
The goal of foster care, Abbey said, is always to reunite children with their birth parents whenever possible. But it can be heart-wrenching to let them go, she admitted.
Two weeks after that first baby went home, the Cleggs got a call from a social worker about 9-month-old twin boys who needed a foster home. The babies were born with a condition called congenital CMV, which can cause long-term health issues.
“Their birth parents just weren’t able to deal with their complex medical care,” Abbey said.
With the help of “phenomenal” nurses at Elliot Hospital’s pediatric unit, she said, she and her husband learned how to care for the twins, Kaden and Isaiah. Abbey’s mother, a nurse, came to help, but it was still a difficult time.
“Kaden was in and out of the hospital a ton the first two years of his life,” she said. Isaiah struggled with breathing issues, “so he was in the hospital a lot too,” she said.
When it became clear the boys were going to be available for adoption, the Cleggs didn’t hesitate. “We thought, we love them. It’s going to be tough, but they were our kids, and we wanted them to be with us forever,” Abbey said.
They adopted the twins in 2011. A year later, DCYF called to ask if they could foster a 6-month-old baby boy with some medical issues of his own.
It felt overwhelming, Abbey said.
“I just remember clearly just praying about it,” she said. “I felt like God really just said do it.”
When they went to meet the child, “he was this little charming baby with a big smile and big blue eyes,” Abbey said.
That baby, Teyson, overcame his medical issues and is now a happy, healthy 9-year-old. Ask him about his mom and he says enthusiastically, “She’s the best.”
Abbey and Rich Clegg have adopted five children, including from left, Kaden, Teyson and Isaiah. Not pictured are sisters Morgann, Corabelle and Jo.
Three boys, a girl and a baby
Morgann is now 16, a sophomore at Jesse Remington High School, a private Christian school in Candia. She’s “an all-around totally great kid,” and a wonderful big sister, according to her mom.
“She’s such a loving and helpful kid,” she said. “I think through the whole process, she’s always kind of gone with the flow.”
After the three boys had joined the family, however, Morgann did weigh in. “She was definitely adamant: ‘I really want the next one to be a girl,’” Abbey said.
Morgann got her wish. Corabelle was only a few days old when the Cleggs got a call about a baby girl needing an emergency placement. “I knew when I held her: Oh, I think you’re going to be part of our family,” Abbey said.
Corabelle is 6 years old now, a charming and precocious little girl.
“She is spunky and she has a smile that lights up the world,” her mom said. “She knows what she wants and she knows how to get it.”
Corabelle said her mom is special because “she’s so smart at her work, and she works really hard.”
The Cleggs thought their family was complete, but they knew there was a critical need for emergency foster care, so they agreed to remain available for kids in crisis.
Then DCYF called: A one-month-old baby girl needed a short-term home. When the Cleggs met Jo, she weighed just 5 pounds, “a tiny little thing,” Abbey said.
The baby’s birth mom worked hard, but reunification was not possible, she said, and the Cleggs adopted Jo, who is now 4.
“We love her very much, and we can’t imagine her being anywhere else,” Abbey said.
The hardest part of foster care is protecting your own heart while providing as much love as you can to children in need, Abbey said.
“Every case, I try to go in with the attitude that we want to reunite these kiddos with their birth families and work toward reunification,” she said.
But she said, “the kids totally deserve to be fallen in love with and you do fall in love with them. These kids deserve attachment.”
Social science has shown how important forming such bonds is in the first few years of a child’s life.
So in the end, she said, “that’s going to be a sacrifice you’re going to make: You are worth getting your heart broken over.”
Abbey Clegg of Manchester high-fives her son Teyson after he arrives home from school.
Making matches
Fostering and adoption is not for everyone, Abbey said.
“I think it’s super important to become trauma-informed and to understand where these kiddos are coming from,” she said. “They’re coming from some really hard places sometimes.”
The organization where Abbey works, Adopt NH, is a partnership between DCYF, the Endowment for Health and the Adoptive Families for Children Foundation. Its website (adoptnh.org) features children who are available for adoption through DCYF.
“They’re amazing kids that really just are looking for their forever homes,” Abbey said.
DCYF currently has 63 children who are legally free for adoption awaiting a match, according to Jake Leon, director of communications for the state health department. Ideally, the agency would like to have four to six families to choose from when matching a child, he said.
Angela Prince, supervisor of the Manchester district office for DCYF’s child protection services, said the Cleggs have been “invaluable” members of the foster parent community for many years.
“What began as a ‘yes’ to an emergency, short-term placement turned into a forever commitment to two very lucky little boys,” Prince said in an email. “The love and care Abbey and Rich provide these boys, as well as the additional three children they’ve committed forever to, is beyond compare.”
There are other ways to support foster and adoptive families, Abbey said. The Cleggs rely on close friends who help with the kids a couple nights a week.
Organizations such as CASA (casanh.org) and Foster and Adoptive Resource Exchange (farenh.org) always need volunteers and support, she said.
For the Cleggs, choosing adoption has been about putting their faith into action. Abbey is a model of “sacrificial love,” her husband said.
A plaque in their living room offers this from 1 John 3:18: “Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”
“The Bible says to take care of the widows and the orphans,” Abbey said. “The Bible also says to love one another.
“I think that’s how you love,” she said. “It can be hard, but it’s worth it.”
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