Oakland County family needs public's help to adopt pregnant teen

The Sartors aren't your traditional family. 

"My oldest biological child and my youngest biological child have a 10-year span and we thought wouldn't it be cool to have one right in the middle," says Julie Sartor. "So we started looking into foster and adopt."

It didn't stop there, and eventually the Sartor family added three more children to their family by way of adoption.

"There are so many kids out there that need homes," Sartor says.

The one thing the Commerce Township family is lacking is room. This 8-person family is expecting to grow by two more in short order. They're looking to adopt a pregnant teen who is currently under the care of the state and about to age out of the system.

"I was a single mom for three years and I know what that is like," Sartor says. "And I know that when you are young it can go two ways. It would be just a great opportunity to help."

The plan was to convert the basement, which is used for storage now, into a usable bedroom. That takes money, and now the family is finding out also a lot more work than they originally thought.

The family already has an egress window allowing people to get and out in case of an emergency, but they were told by the Department of Human Services that one window wasn't enough.

"With the licensing requirements we found out that to build that bedroom, we need to have another egress window," Sartor says.

They Sartors estimate it will cost about $1,500 to install the window alone.

"This is one of our kids. It takes a village and we kind of need our villagers," Sartor says.

The family has set up a GoFundMe page to help raise the money needed to make it happen, and say it needs to happen fast.

"First, there is the fact that she is due at the end of April," Sartor says. "So we want her in the house and comfortable. But yeah, if we can't this done and everything falls apart it would be chaotic and it might not work."

Sartor has set up an online donation page for those who would like to make a donation to help the family get the egress window. Click here to view her GoFundMe account.