Growing up in Tennessee, Brittney Conroy’s home life was riddled with divorce, addiction, and mental health struggles. The conflict and confusion left Brittney feeling lonely and different from kids who came from stable homes. The thing that saved her, she said, was her knack for finding good families to latch onto.
“These families, usually my friends’ parents, would wrap their arms around me and let me stay at their home a lot and go to church with them,” she said. “I would go to church and see families like the Lillard’s who fostered over 40 children. I naively thought they were the perfect family and longed for that in my own family. What I didn’t realize until later was that was God planting a seed in my heart that would stay with me forever.”
That seed bore fruit. Now 41, Brittney and her husband Frank, 42, are the proud adoptive parents of four sisters they first cared for as Epworth foster parents. The sisters are Gia, 5, Renny, 7, Taalyiah, 18, and Monica, 20. The girls joined the Conroy’s three biological children – Crosby, 6, Sully, 10, and Cash, 14 – to create the circle of love that is their family today. Their home is lively and chaotic in a good way, and all the children are thriving.
The couple overcame a few obstacles in their quest to create their big, beautiful family.
“Frank is from a large Irish Catholic family,” Brittney said. “When we were dating, I told him that I wanted to be a foster parent, and he said I was crazy and that he would never do that.”
Famous last words. After they were married, they had their three sons, and eventually Frank’s job as a U.S. Marshall brought them to Columbia. They wanted more children, but the complications Brittney had suffered with her three pregnancies led them to revisit the foster care topic in 2020 when their youngest son was six months old. By this time, Frank had changed his perspective and was on board 100 percent.
“I asked God to send me signs if He really wanted foster care to be a part of our life and I couldn’t deny the clear messages,” Frank said.
After hearing good things about Epworth, the couple applied to become foster parents. Once their foster care license was approved, the Conroy’s were asked to take in then 11-month-old Gia and 2-year-old Renny. The sisters were part of a family of 9 children from a home where there were complicated problems.
“Gia was so tiny, she almost looked like a newborn,” Brittney recalled. “She was an angel. Renny was terrified and did not talk. She screamed. She screamed for months, in fact. We soon realized she had speech delays and cognitive issues.”
Fortunately, Brittney’s job as an emergency pediatric nurse allowed her to stay at home with the children most of the time. She traveled to California once a month to work multiple hospital shifts over a long weekend, earning as much as she would in a full-time nursing job. Frank stayed home with the children on Brittney’s work weekend.
Brittney began lining up the therapeutic services the girls needed. She became friends with the foster parents who cared for the girls’ older siblings and arranged playdates.
“The girls also had two teenage sisters living at Epworth – Taalyiah and Monica – and in time I arranged for Gia and Renny to visit them,” she said. “After the first sibling visit I knew I had to meet them. Gia was turning 1 and both girls came home with an armload of gifts. I was told the sisters saved their Epworth allowance to purchase them.”
Brittney and Frank started picking the teens up on weekends and holidays to spend time at the Conroy home with their sisters.
“They had never been on holidays, and we took them to Carowinds, the beach, and other fun places,” she said. “Eventually, they made it clear that they would like to live with us too. Frank and I prayed and ultimately arranged for them to come live with us as fosters.”
Taaliyah was a helpful child from the start. But after a honeymoon period, older teen Monica rebelled over rules. Epworth staff helped Brittney navigate the challenges of this period and even helped arrange for Monica to attend a high school that was a better fit.
About 18 months after the children came to live with the Conroys, a judge ordered that all the children were to be immediately returned to their parents with no transitional period. The parents seemed to have improved their living conditions and circumstances. But once back in her old environment, Taalyiah used a cell phone to record incidences that showed that in fact little had changed. After 12 weeks, the children came back to the Conroys’ home.
Soon, the biological parents voluntarily relinquished parental rights of the teens, and the Conroys applied for full custody of the younger siblings. Their adoption of the four girls went through in March of this year. It was a joyful day, Brittney said.
“As soon as Taalyiah received her new birth certificate, she went the very next day to have her name on her driver’s license changed to Conroy,” she said.
Today, Monica is in her junior year at the University of South Carolina, where she is majoring in international business. Fun, outgoing, determined, and very bright, Monica dreams of traveling the world while working in business.
Kind, helpful Taalyiah is in her senior year of high school.
“She came to us at 14 and we did not think that college would ever have been on the horizon for her,” Brittney said. “But she has maintained a 3.6 GPA in high school and has been accepted to attend Spartanburg Methodist College next year.”
Today Renny, 7, is in the first grade. The child who could do nothing but scream the first few months is now known for something different.
“She is our calm leader of the pack when it comes to the three littles that we call the triplets,” Brittney said. “She’s come so far and brings us all together with her kindness. She loves music, dancing, tumbling, and all things girly. “
Gia is now 5 and in kindergarten. Brittney describes her as “the typical baby of the family…sweet, nosy, bossy at times, very girly.” She said Gia loves dancing, singing, pink, and purple.
The Conroy boys are also thriving. Six-year-old Crosby is in kindergarten.
“Mom is his favorite person, but second to that is Renny,” Brittney said.
Sully, 10, is in the fifth grade and Cash, 14, is in the eighth grade. Both boys love singing and theatre.
Sadly, Brittney’s mother and both older brothers passed over the last few years. The most recent death happened this past July. Brittney admits that juggling all the responsibilities of mothering seven children while she grieved has not been easy.
“But I believe God told us it was going to be like this, because many stories in the Bible are of people whose lives are pretty hard and messed up,” she said. “It hasn’t been easy, but what great things are? I think that God put us on earth to live an extraordinary life and that is a hard life. By accepting this, you open yourself up to so much more.”
Were you made for more? Many South Carolina children need loving foster parents. To learn more about fostering, contact Epworth foster care staff at (803) 256-7394.
