So I have been meaning to blog about the for forever but have not really had the time to sit down and explain it all and write it out, so here it goes...
Anyone who knows me well knows that we have wanted to adopt forever!! But the timing has just not been right or we ended up getting pregnant with Soley. Well now is the time :) Back in December Jon and I sat through the initial meeting for Foster to Adopt, and we signed up for our classes. (You need 30 hours of classes and a home study to be registered foster parents. Plus about a zillion pieces of paper filled out, fingerprints, background, physicals, credit, reference checks, etc, etc!) So over the past two months we have been taking our classes, and this Sat we officially finished our last class!!! It was so exciting, but in a way sad. I have actually really enjoyed these classes, we have learned so much about being a parents in general and being a parent to these kids! In addition to that we have also met some new friends! Some friends soon we will be relying on for help, and friends who will only understand what we are going through very soon! So what's next???
Now that we are done with our classes, we wait for a call from our new social worker (we have our own social worker and the child will have one too) and do our home study, once that is approved, then we wait for a phone call, this phone call could be one day after we are approved or 1 year, you never know. It could be at 3 in the morning, or 7 at night, you just never know! All that we do know is that we have agreed to take a child 3 years old and younger, we don't have a care in the world about the gender of that child or of the race, we know that the lord has placed this on our heart and we know that he will give us the strength to accept the match that is for us, and if needed decline a match that would not fit our family right now. Going through these classes we were able to meet birth moms who had lost their children, foster parents who had adopted, and children actually in foster care right now. It really is such a amazing experience that we are so excited to take part in!
Over the next few months I ask that you pray for our family that we are able to finish our approval process in a timely manner and that our family will follow whatever God's will is for us. Also that Soley is able to adjust to our growing family.
As for us we have decided to do what they call concurrent planning. This means that we will be looking to accept a child that will more then likely be adopted out, we want to have a long term goal of adopting. Now please be aware that there is NEVER any guarantee that you will get to adopt a child, the first priority is to get the child back with their parents, place them with a family member and if those don't work out then they want them with a forever foster home to be adopted. Going into these classes I had a hard time understanding why it was in this order? Why should a parent get there child back after doing all of these horrible things? But during these classes you really learn that the best place for a child is with there family. We also got to see moms who had really changed and tuned there life around and needed their kids back, and the kids needed their moms back. Now I am not saying that is going to be easy in any way if we take a child and have to give them back, but we now have a better understanding on how important that is.
I had thought I had a pretty good idea of how this all would play out, until one class we actually got to ask questions to a panel of current foster parents, some who had adopted and some who had not. One couple up there was a mom and a dad with their 4 month old baby that they were fostering. Just seeing this little girl up there made me so sad! I just could not even imagine what it would feel like to not have your baby with you. I also realized that you can't make anyone change, that these parents have to do it on their own. So whatever happens to us it's a win win, if we take a child and get to adopt it then GREAT! If we take a child and love on it and make it's life better and the mom/dad gets everything together and their life back on track and the baby back, then GREAT! WIN, WIN!
And in the end God's work is being done, all the GLORY goes to him!
If you have any questions please feel free to email me, I would love to answer them! I am so excited to have all of you on this journey with us!
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