The latest on our adoption process

  I get so many sweet emails from so many of you wondering where is our adoption process is at?  You guys are the absolute best, do you know that?  Big hugs from me to you! I can’t believe that I have blogged for 3 1/2 years about this …..and still nothing.  There is a tab at the top of my blog with all of my posts relating to our adoption process, but I will give you the highlights. Almost 4 years ago, my husband and I felt led to adopt.  We have 3 beautiful, healthy biological children and we could have had more ….but I have always, always wanted to adopt.  And my husband was 100% on board.  We felt like we had the room in our hearts and our home, our kids wanted to adopt, we could financially swing it, and I work the majority of the time from home.  So, we started the paperwork and signed on with a private adoption agency in Kansas City.  We did not care about race at all, but we did want to adopt a baby girl.   We waited a year and a half.  A dozen or so birth moms looked at our profile, but the majority of the time they selected families that already had an adopted child in them (as to not have their child be the only adopted one  – I totally get and respect that).  Or, they selected families that didn’t already have 3 kids.  I can understand that too. So the process felt stalled. In the meantime, we were getting older and Ava was getting older and in our hearts….we wanted Ava and our next daughter to be close in age.  So, we decided to try to adopt from the foster care system.  We did more hours of training than I care to add up for this blog post. We sat thru Saturday after Saturday after Saturday of trainings.  We had more fingerprinting and home studies than I ever thought possible and we got our license to both foster and to adopt.  We prayed on it and were in agreement that we did not feel led to foster.  We wanted to adopt only and wanted a girl under the age of Ava as not to disrupt birth order.  So, a girl under the age of 6, any race and no major medical conditions. Shockingly, in 2 years, only 3  situations have been presented to us that we were able to put our profile in for.  One situation was for a sibling set of 2 children and we are certain we could have adopted them.  But after much praying….we said no and I blogged about it here.  And, we were obviously not selected for the other 2 little girls.  *sigh* And so, here we are… almost 4 years after starting the process and Ava just asked again yesterday if she will ever get a baby sister.  Then in the next breath, she also asked about getting a dog.  So I think she will be ok.  Ha. My heart is fine as long as I don’t talk about it much or blog about it much.  But of course, I am not certain if I will ever understand WHY we have never gotten another child.  I can sit here before you and honestly say, I don’t even know that the “why” even matters anymore. Because here is what I do know and this is why I am ok with where we are at:

• We have been obedient to what we felt like God has been asking us to do.
• My husband and I have been in agreement the entire way of this process.
• We have went thru the process to the very best of our abilities.
• We have involved our biological children in prayer and decisions and home study meetings.  We have been able to demonstrate to them, we hope, what faith and obedience looks like even when we don’t like the results.
• We have become closer as a family thru this process.
• We know that we know that we know that God’s plan for our family is a GOOD one.  And one word from God can change EVERYTHING.

No, we don’t think “we heard from God wrong” as one well-meaning person asked us.  No, we don’t think it was a total waste of time and money and energy.  Had we not went for it, we would have been disobedient.  That I know. So, I want you to know, we have not given up. Until God slams this adoption door shut, we will continue to stand here with our hearts and our home wide open.  No, we still do not feel led to foster.  No, we still haven’t considered adopting internationally (and yet I totally understand why people do) .  No, we are not interested in continuing to adopt a newborn (did I mention I am almost 43??).  Yes, if we know that a child is currently being fostered and parental rights are leaning towards termination….we would totally consider that. So thank you for asking. I’m always humbled by your questions and your prayers.  I know many, many of you have adopted and you understand our journey.   And if I could lean thru this computer screen and give you a hug, I would.  Because I still believe in adoption so, so, much…..even though our dreams of adopting have not come true just yet. But who knows what may happen one day.  Right?   Until then and in Christ, Jennifer