The Cost of Loving Emmett - A True Adoption Story of an older child, (Paperback)

**He used all three wishes on a Mommy.** <p>In the middle of a pandemic, Skylar saw a photo that changed everything - a sad boy in the back seat of a car. Not staged. Not smiling. Just waiting. </p><p>His name was Emmett. He was eight years old with thirty chapters of behavioral documentation and a system that had already given up on him. He'd been warehoused in a behavioral facility since he was six. He asked everyone he met - bus drivers, staff, strangers - the same question: *Will you adopt me?* </p><p>Skylar and her husband George already had a full house and four daughters. But Skylar couldn't look away. Her own father had been abandoned in an orphanage as a child. She wasn't going to let another boy be left behind. </p><p>After searching sixty-three files and hitting sixty-three dead ends, she found him. What followed was three and a half years of fierce love, terrifying violence, impossible challenges, and a family pushed to its absolute breaking point - not by the child, but by a foster care system more interested in checking boxes than saving him. </p><p>They gave him his firsts. First birthday party. First family vacation. First Christmas morning where someone actually cared what he opened. First time someone fought for him instead of giving up. </p><p>And when they asked the system for help - when they begged for the support they were promised - they were punished for it. Investigated. Blamed. Dragged through court for fourteen months. All while the boy who needed more help than any family could provide alone was left to spiral further out of control. </p><p>Since leaving their home, Emmett has been through eight more placements. Eight more families who couldn't do what George and Skylar did. Eight more failures that proved everything they'd warned the system about. </p><p>Somewhere, there are walls in facilities across Massachusetts with "I love Skylar" carved into them. Not destruction - but declaration. </p><p>**The Cost of Loving Emmett** is a raw, unflinching true story about what happens when a family refuses to give up on a child - and a system refuses to let them succeed. It is a story about love that doesn't quit, a broken bureaucracy that punishes the people trying hardest, and the devastating price of caring too much in a world that doesn't care enough. </p><p>*You were never unwanted. You were loved beyond measure. We will always be your loving family.*</p>

• The Cost of Loving Emmett - A True Adoption Story of an older child, (Paperback)
• Author: Independently Published
• ISBN: 9798255102600
• Format: Paperback
• Publication Date: 2026-04-05
• Page Count: 260