Inside the Oakland flatlands home of Shoshana and Nann Phoenixx-Dawn, a cacophony of sound greets a visitor on a recent weekday evening. Two dogs bark enthusiastically as two boys race around the family living room with pinwheels in hand.

"Baba's on the phone. We have to laugh quietly," Shoshana gently prods her young charges so her partner can wrap up her conversation.

The boys, 3-year-old Isaac and 4-year-old Isaiah, merely smile as they offer their pinwheels to the guest sitting on the couch.

"Bring me the pinwheels please," Nann asks the boys.

The women have opened their doors as foster parents to the two young boys while in the process of trying to adopt them out of the Bay Area foster care system. By doing so they are fostering not just a new home for the boys but a new beginning as well.

"I wish I didn't have to work and could take in 10 more. If we had more room we would have more kids," said Shoshana, 42, the director of older adult and volunteer services at the Jewish Community Center of the East Bay. "I've always wanted to be a mom."

The women went the foster care route in order to avoid the hassles and heartache that can come from trying to work directly with a birth mother, who at any time could change her mind and decide not to put her child up for adoption.

"We know too many people who have been through that anguish," said Nann, 46, who herself was adopted as an infant in Chicago. "We knew we wanted to have more than one. We sort of thought we would end up with a sibling set."

Foremost in their minds, said the couple, was the fact that when foster children turn 18 they are no longer under the care of the state and too often must struggle to survive on their own.

"They do not do well. They are children with no connection, no permanent home where they came from and no parent where they are going," said Nann, who last year quit her job working with an animal welfare agency to become a family coordinator for the East Bay-based Adopt A Special Kid foster family agency. "We know when you invest in these children as your own they succeed."

Adoption officials around the Bay Area are increasingly turning to gays and lesbians to serve as foster or adoptive parents for the roughly 9,000 youth under the age of 18 in need of a home. The number has dropped in recent years from a high of 10,000. In San Francisco there are currently 1,534 kids in foster care, but that represents a 32 percent decline over five years.

Of those children and youth, it is estimated that between 10 percent to 15 percent are LGBT youth. Hard numbers are impossible to ascertain, as agencies do not collect data on the youths' sexual orientation.

"Almost two-thirds of LGBT-identified kids in foster care are there because of their sexual orientation," said Jill Jacobs, the executive director of Family Builders by Adoption.

Jacobs, a lesbian and adoptive mother to two teenage daughters, said roughly 80 percent of the up to 50 families her agency works with per year are gay or lesbian.

"When we were awarded the contract in San Francisco, Family Builders made a really bold emphasis and started in the gay community. We never had the resources or backing to do that before," said Jacobs, whose agency is based in Oakland but also has an office in Noe Valley. "Some people wanted to adopt for a long time but they were so afraid of what they would run into in terms of homophobia."

Now in its third year as San Francisco County's lead adoption agency, Family Builders has launched several campaigns to encourage gays and lesbians to adopt. The latest campaign, which uses the tagline of Pride and Joy, has appealed to women, showing a foster mother gloating about her son and his male prom date.

"There has not been a huge response, to be honest. We have had a few families come through, but not very many," said Jacobs.

Teaming up

The agency has teamed up with organizations in Alameda and San Mateo counties again this year to take part in what is known as the Heart Gallery project. Currently on display inside San Francisco City Hall, the gallery is a series of photographs of children in foster care. May is National Foster Care Month, and there are six different heart galleries being displayed across the state.

"We want to really encourage LGBT families to consider coming in. These are wonderful, incredible, amazing children and youth in the foster care system who need families," said Jacobs.

By showcasing kids of all ages in need of homes, the agencies hope to build awareness about adopting out of the foster care system. This year's gallery includes 37 children, as well as photos of families who have adopted children in previous years, including many LGBT families.

"I think the average person doesn't really know anything about children in foster care," said Fredi Juni with the Alameda County Social Services Agency. "The trick is to get people thinking and have images of these incredible, beautiful, real kids in the community to remind people of what they have thought about since they were young kids themselves."

Over her 20 years working with the adoption program, Juni said she has found LGBT people to be more willing to adopt older children or youth of another race than their own.

"I have found historically the gay, and lesbian, the LGBT families we work with tend to be more flexible and accepting," she said. "They tend to be pretty welcoming and accepting of the diversity of people."

Shoshana and Nann Phoenixx-Dawn said there is little they feel they have missed out on by being foster parents instead of trying to adopt an infant, "except maybe some sleepless nights," said Nann.

The women first met in 1996 but didn't start dating until 2001. They married in 2003 and are registered domestic partners.

"We met the first day she came to the Bay Area. We met at the dog park, how lesbian of us," joked Shoshana.

They have raised "Izzy" since he was 11 months old. Having been placed with them in the month of December, he was their "Hanukkah present," said Shoshana. In the beginning the women were not sure if he would be reunited with his biological mother. But as months stretched into years it became apparent reunification would not work out and they decided to adopt him.

But paperwork snafus and the slow grind of the family court system have delayed the process. They are hopeful they will receive full parental rights for Isaac this year.

"The benefit to him is his life has not been interrupted. He has lived with us for pretty much all of his life," said Nann.

The same was not true of Isaiah, who had bounced around three different foster homes since he was removed from his birth mother. Two years ago the women saw photos of the pensive looking toddler in the Heart Gallery. They applied to bring the young boy, known then as Scorpio, home but were passed over for another couple. Then last year when they learned he had still not been placed with a family, the women sought to try again.

"We found out he was still available and was doing pretty poorly," said Nann.

Last year Isaiah, who is African American, joined the household over Memorial Day weekend. The couple said their decision was not made lightly.

"We were always open to race but now we had three white people adopting an African American child. We put a lot of thought into the fact we were creating an interracial family," said Nann.

Isaiah also entered their home with severe emotional problems, said the women, due to his being juggled between foster homes. He hardly spoke and barely moved. It was as if he had already given up, said the women.

"You could turn a light on and off and that was enough change in his space to have him meltdown," said Nann.

Now at random moments Isaiah will turn to one of his moms and ask, "Is this home?"

"He just wants to hear, 'Yes. This is your forever home,'" said Shoshana.

Within the last year Isaiah has escaped his shell and begun to act as any other little boy should.

"I am not going to change the world but I have changed his entire world," said Nann. "The day he joined our family his entire world turned around."

Twelve months later Isaiah has become increasingly more social and is learning how to control his emotions. After he became upset during the course of the interview, Nann asked him, "Can you put your bad attitude in the closet?"

("In this household that is the only thing we put in the closet," she joked.)

Walking over to the closet, Isaiah rubbed all over his body to shake off his ill mood and toss it into the closet.

"Bye bye bad attitude," he said, before turning to the visitors to apologize. "Sorry about the bad attitude."

The Heart Gallery can be seen inside City Hall's Van Ness Entrance and 4th floor from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. For more information visit http://bayareaheartgallery.com.

To inquire about becoming an adoptive or foster parent in Alameda County, call (510) 259-3575. In San Francisco, Family Builders is located at 3953 24th Street, Suite C-2 or can be reached by calling (510) 272-0204.