The COVID-19 pandemic has put a lot of things on hold including adoptions.

While some families have had court dates canceled multiple times, a Garrard County family was given a new option of finalizing the adoption of one-year-old Cataleya.

"We had just been given a date when all this Coronavirus stuff hit," Paul Del Rio said. "So, we were definitely concerned as we saw the closings were happening that it would get postponed until later in the year."

Instead, a Garrard County judge got approval to finalize their adoption as planned over video chat.

"It's always such a long process, and there's always up until the adoption finally happens, there's a little bit of uncertainty," Leesa Del Rio said. "So, it's just nice to know she's official and we feel like our family is completed."

But other Kentucky families like the Campbells remain incomplete, as their court date to finalize the adoption of two of their foster kids gets rescheduled time and time again.

"It's heartbreaking to try to give them the reassurance that this is going to happen when you have doubts yourself because of everything that's going on," Jenny Campbell said.

That's why the Campbells and the Del Rios are pushing for courts across the Commonwealth to take advantage of technology and make sure that COVID-19 doesn't make the adoption process even harder on families.

"In Cataleya's situation, she's not really aware of what's going on and just how special this was," Paul Del Rio said. "But, there are a lot of kids in the system who are caught up right now and things are on hold and they have anxiety just like the waiting parents do, this can get them over that last hurdle and get them finalized into those families that love them so much."