HACKENSACK, N.J. — Steven and Jose Lassalle, of Bloomfield, knew their daughter since she was 8 months old, but she wasn’t theirs to keep. In the back of their minds, they knew Jolie could be torn from their arms at any time, if her birth mother regained custody.

Ericka Williams, of Teaneck, had already raised a son — who is 20 — and was bringing up a daughter — who is 7. But when she lost a baby to a miscarriage, the chance to adopt Sierra seemed a miracle.

Michele Bowman, a single mother from Englewood, took twins Jade and Jaydon directly from the hospital as their foster parent. On a recent Friday, after falling in love with them for two years, she finally was able to call them her own, one of many scenes playing out in observance of National Adoption Day.

Jolie, Sierra, Jade and Jaydon are among the nearly 60 children adopted to Bergen County families this year through New Jersey’s Division of Child Protection and Permanency, the state’s child welfare agency within the Department of Children and Families.

That recent Friday marked a new start for about 24 children officially adopted by 21 families within the county. In observance of the national day, 35 families celebrated their newly formed families and recalled the often grueling paths that got them there.

New Jersey finalizes around 1,000 adoptions of children under the state’s care each year, but the push to find them homes with “forever families” is a continuing effort, said Betty Berzin, assistant director of the Office of Adoption Operations. This year, 889 adoptions are expected to be finalized, said Rosa Mosley, administrative assistant for the office.

In New Jersey, both foster and adoptive placements through the Department of Children and Families are made with licensed “resource families.” The process to become licensed is the same for foster and adoptive parents and entails a thorough investigation of the family’s history.

“The norm for this process is about 150 days, which includes training, multiple home visits and a very intensive home study process to make sure the family has the capabilities needed to foster or adopt,” said Virginia Kenny, a program manager who handles child-specific recruitment and child-exchange programs for the state.

Kenny said the state has support programs available for prospective adoptive parents.

“For the most part, there is an understanding of history, needs, and there is support available,” she said.

The process is tiresome, Jose Lassalle remembered, citing nine interviews, three with him alone, three with Steven Lassalle alone and three as a couple.

Although their minds were set on adoption, the couple also attended rigorous training, providing “eye-opening” lessons on the foster care system.

There was a long checklist of information they needed to provide too, including credit card statements, W-2 forms, fingerprints, work status and copies of car insurance, Steven Lassalle said.

“It was definitely tough to do, but we had a goal to do, and we were determined to do it,” he said.

The process can be lengthy and, in some cases, an emotional roller coaster.

Unless a family has identified a “waiting child” — those whose biological parents’ rights have been terminated — the time before they hear about the availability of a child will vary, depending on the type of child the family is looking for and the flexibility of the family as to the child’s needs.

Steven and Jose Lassalle, both Latino, were open-minded to the gender and race of their future child, as long as they were placed with a child no older than 2. As no child of that criteria was legally available at the time, the Lassalles were placed with Jolie, who had a low legal risk of reunification with her birth mother.

While they welcomed Jolie from the start, they awaited the dreaded phone calls of a family member trying to regain custody.

“It was pretty scary for both of us, because our dream and goal was to adopt a child of our own,” Jose Lassalle said. “The picture was bleak, but we were hopeful.”

Their wait ended with the termination of the rights of Jolie’s birth mother, a legal process that culminated in April when Jolie was 16 months old.

“You fall in love with these children, especially when you have them from birth,” said Williams, who took care of Sierra when the birth mother, Williams’ goddaughter, was unable to do so.

She is a foster parent of Sierra’s 7-month-old brother, Isaiah — and would like to adopt him also. She finds herself plagued by the same questions all over again.

“What will happen when he is removed from my home? How is his life going to change?” she said. When he turns a year old, the state will review the case to decide if parental rights will be terminated, she added.

For Bowman, who has fostered children for years, Jade and Jaydon were the first children she had the option of adopting. Her previous foster children have returned to their birth parents. “As long as you see the parents working hard, I am rooting for them. It opens your home to someone who really needs help,” she said.

Williams has sacrificed more than time in this process, and it wasn’t all easy. But it was clearly worth it, she said.

“She is such a blessing to me, I always know in my heart that this was the child I was supposed to have,” Williams said, explaining that Sierra’s birth came near the time she was expecting to have her own child, lost to a miscarriage.

Later, when the possibility of adopting Sierra’s brother became serious, Williams’ engagement with her fiancée ended. But she remains resilient and confident in her decision to adopt.

“I wouldn’t change it for anything. That’s who I am,” she said. “Things like that happen. They shift your life, but your life always gets better.”

But there still is a level of uncertainty: “There is no control over her heredity and health. We don’t know genetically what may run in their family. We don’t know the father,” Williams said.

Missing information leaves Jose and Steven Lassalle wondering, too. “We don’t know exactly how her mom took care of her when she was pregnant, so it was our job when she came into our arms to keep her healthy,” Steven Lassalle said.

For each of the families, the adoption marked a red-letter day in their lives.

In April, eight months after Steven and Jose Lassalle met their daughter, the adoption was finalized in court.

“Entering the courthouse seeing other families that went through what we went through, I felt like I knew everyone,” Steven Lassalle said.

As they celebrated their new addition that night with relatives, they decided to make their family positively “official,” with a surprise wedding.

“It was truly an amazing day, I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face from the morning until the end of the day,” Jose Lassalle said.

Meanwhile, Sierra was adopted the same day. More than anything, Williams is excited to see the impact she has on her daughter.

Bowman hoped to have the twins adopted by the time they were 2 years old, in September. Her plans were delayed and her case was pushed to Bergen County’s Adoption Day celebration.

Describing her excitement at being “part of this huge event,” she added: “It’s like history.”