National Adoption Month: Vanderpool family grows through adoption

PHOENIX -- November is National Adoption Month and it shines the spotlight on fostering and adopting. Here's one family's story:

From one bar to the next little Bronx is taking one swing at a time on the monkey bars at just 3-years-old. What he learns here in his backyard will prove to be life lessons for years to come.

"A lot of times, I say maybe we can do one more," said Christine Vanderpool.

But life has given them such gifts today, for which they are so very grateful.

"You might be able to tell.. have your hands full with a 5 and a 3-year-old and loving every minute of it," said Scott Vanderpool.

Loving life with little London, they adopted her and Bronx at birth and are now strong supporters of the adoption process.

"It is thorough, it is potentially grueling, depending how you look at it, but when you think why it is that way, it's a really positive experience," said Scott.

"I think we felt like a little more pressure than if we had a biological child, because now we are saying of course we would want to take care of this child and they chose us to be the mom and dad of these kids and we want to make sure we do a great job," said Christine.

Even with the challenges that come with it.

"They get a chance to grow up and kind of gives us a unique family in terms of the four of us coming together from different backgrounds and stories," said Scott.

Stories that fill every moment of each day with such joy. London is 5, full of energy with big personality. Mom still remembers how nervous she felt meeting London's birth mother for the first time.

"When we met London's birth mom, afterwards now that we're close.. and you forget that they are nervous too," said Christine.

One big family with stories to share. When the Vanderpools had challenges with giving birth to biological children of their own, they chose adoption and now fostering could be next.

"My grandma and papa were foster parents. That was always interesting to me," said Christine.

Scott added, "So the journey is not over, we just don't know what direction we're going next.. there is a lot of uncertainty.. questions.. an entire range of emotions, but at the end of it, you know just as much as I would assume a biological parent does.. that this was meant for you and your journey in life."