At 2 a.m., after driving through a fierce snowstorm from a volunteer center in the Des Moines area, Amy Popillion, and her teen twins were finally home.

Amy, lecturer in human development and family studies, and her husband, Jason, had volunteered with a youth center where they met an at-risk teenager. While working with her, the teen became pregnant.

The Popillions had only been married for a year when they invited the young woman and her twins into their home.

“There was lots of uncertainty of what would be to come. We had a lot to learn,” Amy said.

The teenager lived with Amy and Jason for a short time before voluntarily giving her twins up for adoption. She moved into an independent-living program, a program that helps at-risk young adults learn to live on their own. The twins stayed with the Popillions, who are official foster parents, for 14 months before being adopted by another family.

Ten years later, the Popillion family is much larger.

Amy and Jason now have three biological children, one adopted daughter and a foster son, ranging in age from 6 months to 18 years.

The family has had about 10 foster children and several emergency placements, which have lasted as short as seven hours.

“The kids become an extension of the family,” Amy said. “You really build those relationships.”

Many foster children feel very fortunate to be able to build those relationships, as well.

SaBreena Boyd was in foster care for a year and a half before she was adopted. She ran away from home after being abused, but police returned her home, where her mother voluntarily put her in foster care.

Her first foster family had two adopted children and four foster children.

“I was uncomfortable and overwhelmed; I didn’t know what to expect,” she said.

Her biological mother’s rights to care for SaBreena were terminated when she did not meet criteria, such as attending therapy.

While living with her third foster family, SaBreena was able to speak at her church.

“I gave a speech and said that I wanted to be adopted by a Christian family,” she said.

A couple in the audience answered her request, went through the necessary training and were approved to be adoptive parents. Boyd and her younger sister then moved in with the family. She was 14 at the time.

“There were a lot of stereotypes to break,” she said.

When other students at her high school found out she was a foster child, they thought she wouldn’t be able to graduate.

“Not only did I graduate, but I finished early and at the top of my class,” she said.

Many people think foster children have drug problems or were physically abused, but her case wasn’t that way, Amy Popillion said.

“Every child, every situation is different,” she said.

Boyd said some of her peers thought she had drug and behavioral problems.

“My mother had those problems. I didn’t,” she said.

Stephanie DuRocher, foster and adoption home coordinator for Children and Families of Iowa, said the organization is always looking for more families to foster.

“There is no ideal family,” Popillion said. “A lot of people think they can’t be foster parents because they have this issue or that issue. … you don’t have to be a perfect family.”