SHAPLEIGH — Sounds of young voices fill the room. One youngster wants to sit on Dad’s knee, another goes over to an older brother to be picked up and held. A third is running a red crayon willy-nilly across a page while the fourth stands on a chair, her face beaming.

It’s three days before Christmas in the Flaherty residence, and there’s a full house – as there has been for the past few years.

And Ed and Christine Flaherty say wouldn’t have it any other way.

A few years ago, what was a household of four – two adults and two teenagers – morphed overnight into a family of seven. A year and a half later, it grew by one more.

The four littlest ones joined the family because their birth mother, Ed’s daughter by a previous marriage, is addicted to drugs – specifically heroin, according to Ed and Christine. And while there have been challenges adapting to having a house full of small children, the couple and their two teenagers are happy they’re here.

Ed and Christine are Dad and Mom to the little ones.

“They’re better off with us,” said Ed.

“They’re all together, and that’s the most important thing,” added Christine.

Ed has two children from a previous marriage, an adult daughter and son. Christine has three. One is an adult who lives on his own, but her two teenagers, Devin, 17, and Gabrielle, 15, help make up the Flaherty household.

On the Tuesday before Christmas, with a tree decorated in the corner and stockings hung nearby, the couple talked while the teenagers hung out and the little ones – Autumn, 5, Michael, 4, Payton, 3, and Roxanne “Roxie,” 1½ – played and giggled and colored.

The couple and their two teenagers were living a typical Maine life. Then one night, a few months after Ed and Christine got married, the telephone rang. The caller was from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services notifying them that the department was removing Ed’s daughter’s three children from her care. The caller said DHHS was looking for a safe place to bring them, and asked if the couple would be willing to take them in.

Ed and his daughter had been estranged for a while, but when the call came, there was no hesitation.

“Of course we picked them up,” said Christine.

The children were all of an age to be in diapers – except there weren’t any, Ed recalled. And the children… well, they were filthy.

Christine remembers following through that night with a requirement that the children be taken immediately to a local hospital for an evaluation, when the little ones’ poor condition elicited stares from others in the waiting room.

Except for a bottle for Payton, who was 6 weeks old, “We brought them home with nothing,” said Christine. Ed’s next paycheck went for supplies – a crib, clothing and other essentials. Friends and family helped too.

They were required to make efforts to reunite the children with their birth mother, but often, she wouldn’t show up. Then she had another child, Roxanne, who was born addicted to heroin. The baby spent more than two months in the hospital, withdrawing.

“It was horrible,” said Christine.

But Roxie was a fighter. Christine and Ed said the nurses called her “the little warrior.”

Roxie went home with her birth mother, but two weeks later, Ed and Christine got a call from DHHS – and Roxie joined the others.

Certainly, there have been challenges. Ed, a mechanic, is the sole breadwinner. But Christine said she’s a good budgeter and an avid couponer. She buys meat in bulk to save money, and during the summer, the couple has a hydroponic garden in which they grow their own vegetables. Family entertainment, especially in the summer, consists of hiking, walking and lots of berry picking.

“It’s been stressful, but we love each other, we love the kids, and we just have to make it work,” said Christine in a follow-up email Wednesday. “These children have blessed us in more ways than one.”

It’s been challenging for the two teens in the house as well. There wasn’t much freedom at first with the younger children around, Devin pointed out. Gabrielle agreed. All of a sudden, the family had grown, and the teens pitched in to help care for the children.

Ed’s daughter started on her path to addiction with painkillers as a teenager, Christine said, then moved on to heroin. She’s attempted rehab a few times – as recently as last week. She called the Flahertys for help – the first time they’d heard from her in months – and they were able to get her into a detox program operated by Milestone in Portland. But two days into the program, Christine said, she walked away.

John Martins, public health information officer at DHHS, said addiction has a profound impact on child welfare.

“In 2014 and 2015, more than half of all substantiated and indicated child abuse had a family risk factor of drug or alcohol abuse and currently, 60 percent of families involved in reunification efforts are receiving substance abuse services,” said Martins in an email.

The Flahertys have adopted two of the children, and are in the process of adopting the other two.

They’re also looking for a new home, because their current rental home is too small to accommodate eight people. Eventually, they hope to buy a house, but are assuming their next home will be a rental if they can find a landlord willing to rent to such a large family.

With the trimmings on the Christmas tree winking and the little ones busy, the couple spoke of each other with love in their eyes.

“He’s my hero,” said Christine, noting that Ed gets up every day and goes to work for his family.

“She took (the little children) as her own,” said Ed of Christine.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 327 or twells@journaltribune.com.

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