Late Night Text

I just received a text from our agency worker that the family that has Tiny Baby's sibling has decided against taking him as a placement.  Wow.  So what does that mean for us?

Well, he will remain with us as a foster placement until one of two things happen; One or both of his parents are able to do what is needed to regain custody of him, or parental rights are terminated.  If parental rights are termed then unless another family member wants and is able to parent him then we would be able to adopt him.  The chance of a family member coming forward is slim as no one has even asked to visit him up to this point, and his sibling was adopted by another family just this year.

So this is big news as we move forward.  Now we just love him, pray for his parents, and pray that God would direct the decisions of everyone involved in his care.  This will be a long term placement more than likely as most cases do not go to TPR (termination of parental rights) before one year in care.

5 Weeks - Update

So we are 5 weeks in.  CPS came out today and the visit went really well.  The frustrating thing is that we still have no new news about this "other family" that Tiny baby "might" be moving to.  I do find it strange that five weeks have passed and that we have not been contacted for them to even meet him.  There must be something that they are unsure of.  Please pray that we would get information regarding their intentions and desires quickly.

If they desire to have Tiny Baby placed with them it would be in his best interest to start forming a bond with them.  Right now they are simply names in a file.  If they decide that they are unable to or do not desire to take him then we are very open to the boys (they adopted his brother) having a relationship and would do everything to make sure that happens.  Again, this would depend on their desires.

Our CPS CW told me today that there will not be any family visits right now as no one has come forward asking to see him and his parents are unable to see him right now.

Other than the big unknown, things are going amazing.  He is thriving.  Eating and sleeping well.  We changed his formula and he seems to be more comfortable now too. Routines are slowly getting established and our days are starting to look normal as a family of 4.  Praying God's will over Tiny Baby and his future as we love on him today.

Fostering is Water

My husband, M, had quite the revelation this weekend.  He was talking with a pastor friend about our newest foster baby.  His friend commented on just how hard parenting can be.  But M had to interject that yes, parenting is hard, but fostering is harder.

You see when you are simply parenting, whether it be your bio or adopted children, you are investing in your future with them.  Granted, none of us are guaranteed tomorrow, but you understand what I mean.  When you parent a foster child you are investing in his or her future and the future of their bio family.  There is no personal gain on the investment.  Witnessing the fruits of your labor and their future impact are gone the moment that child leaves your home.

Don't get me wrong, the joy of the moments and the love you shared will stay with you forever.  But more likely than not, this little person  that you loved, sacrificed for, lost sleep over, and helped wounds heal, will take these gifts with them and you will not get to see them bloom, someone else will. You will not be part of any "remember when" moments like the ones I had with my family on a recent visit.  You know, when you sit around your childhood home and reminisce about a million little things, laughing till your sides hurt, soaking up the love of a shared past.

So if you love parenting because you get to see the fruits of your labor brought forth in your children, then fostering may not be for you.  If you can invest all and not ever expect anything in return (long term), then what are you waiting for?

Fostering is the water.  1 Corinthians 3:6-7 says "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow."  Be the water for some children and know that God will carry forth the work,  to bless them and those that love them.

No words needed

Tiny Baby

Well little Mr. Tiny Baby arrived at our home Monday afternoon right from discharge from the hospital.  We had to cut off his arm and ankle bands.  He is so sweet I can't even use words to describe it.  Jamie is just as smitten with him as we are.

So what is the plan for this little man's life?  We are really uncertain right now, however things are pointing towards him being placed with a sibling that was previously adopted.  So, unless something about that situation changes or was misunderstood by my agency, then he will probably only be with us a few weeks.

We are just taking it one day at a time, enjoying him and marveling at the perfection of God's creation.  Our home is always open for any child to stay forever.  However, our arms are open to God's perfect plan for each child and often (as we are learning) that is for us to be a stop on the road but not the final destination.

We are enjoying all the wonders of a newborn baby.  The lack of sleep is not even effecting me yet.  I am sure it will catch up soon enough.

The only challenge we have right now with Tiny Baby is that he was small for gestational age so we are on a two hour feeding schedule to get some weight on him.  Other than that, no issues at all.  

Super quick update

We got a call today to foster a newborn boy.  He was born Friday and weighs 5 lbs 8oz.  We know only a little about his situation and it could be for a few weeks or forever.  Praying God's will over his little life.  We don't even know his name.  CPS should call us in the morning to let us know what time he will be arriving.

We are excited and nervous.  Pray for us.  Headed to bed for the last full night of sleep I will see for a while :-)

Reverse Nesting?

So baby J left Friday.  At first I kind of moped around the house.  Then I got this burst of energy.  It was really odd but I had to reverse nest.  We had just experienced a leaving not a coming.  I cleaned her room, removed all the bedding, put all the clothes away, took the swing and exersaucer out of the living room, rearranged the living room furniture, took the car seat out of the SUV... literally put away everything that was out only for her.

It felt weird but it also felt right.  I think this was my way of grieving.  Mentally I needed some closure.

But I also edited a beautiful photo I took of her Friday morning to print and display proudly in our home.  She will always be a part of us, she just isn't ours.

Jamie and I are headed to visit Grandpa and Mema this week. It will be a relaxing trip with no agenda other than to continue to build relationship.  Our agency will place us back on the opening list Friday.

Another chapter closed

Sweet, sweet baby girl left our home this morning.  The drop off went really well.  Her Mom and Grandmother were there to receive her.  I am at peace.

God really has done a number on my heart since adopting our son.  He has shown me in so many ways that this has nothing to do with us.  It is all about the children.  Don't get me wrong, when you love and let go there will be some hurt.  But God is bigger than our pain and is there for us to run to for comfort.  We are just so blessed that He allowed us to be a part of Baby J's story.

Russell Moore had a great blog post this week here that really helped me keep a proper perspective.  This doesn't just apply to adoption, but to foster care as well.  He say's

"Love of any kind brings risk, and, in a fallen world, brings hurt. Simeon tells our Lord’s mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, that a sword would pierce her heart. That’s true, in some sense, for every mother, every father. Even beyond that, every adoption, every orphan, represents a tragedy."

So true.  But LOVE is what we are called to do.  I want to be honest with you all here.  Fostering was a tragedy that we learned mightily through before we adopted our son.  We thought we could save the world and that the only thing that mattered was love.  We were naive and did not establish appropriate boundaries for ourselves.  We truly overestimated our capabilities.  But once we refocused and allowed ourselves to admit that we had limitations, we were free to love and be loved and to serve these children well.   He talks about the commitment by saying:

"We need a battalion of Christians ready to adopt, foster, and minister to orphans. But that means we need Christians ready to care for real orphans, with all the brokenness and risk that comes with it. We need Christians who can reflect the adopting power of the gospel, which didn’t seek out a boutique nursery but a household of ex-orphans who were found wallowing in our own blood, with Satan’s genes in our bloodstreams."

So we move forward into the next chapter with eyes wide open and a heart tied to God's command to care for orphans.

Who was I kidding?

Okay, so my head knows all the right things to say and feel about foster care.  I know this so well that I have actually convinced my heart that it will not hurt when baby J leaves. Yesterday, my little charade fell apart.

My head had me convinced that she might cry when I picked her up yesterday after he long weekend with her family.  Boy was I wrong.  She was so happy and excited to see us.  She was all smiles and giggles.  When I picked her up she buried her head in my shoulder and hugged my neck.  Needless to say, when I got in the car to drive away (after the family was out of sight) I lost it.  The tears just came like a flood.  The emotions I had been holding at bay since day one finally bubbled to the surface.  I love this girl.  She loves us.

Now, don't get me wrong, I know her family loves her and that she loves them.  This is not about that in any way.

I honestly thought that we could foster children, God's amazing gift, and not fall madly, deeply in love.  But honestly, what good would we be if we didn't?

The weekend

Baby J will be going for a weekend visit with her grandparents.  We just found out today.  I am doing laundry and packing clothes.  The weird thing is that nothing seems real right now.  It doesn't feel like she is really leaving us.  It also doesn't feel like I am no longer working outside the home.  I guess it takes some passage of time to make change seems really real.

I am not sad.  I know this is the first step in her being reunited with her mom.  I know her mom really loves her and has admittedly had her eyes opened by this experience.  I have had the pleasure of getting to know her a little bit.  I am blessed that we have had this openness in our relationship.  I am here to serve baby J and the best way for me to do that is to be a resource to her mom after she goes home.

I am sure things will feel more real when we do our bedtime routine tomorrow and it's just for Jamie.  Or when we wake up on Saturday and only have breakfast as a family of three.  Or walk to the park without the stroller.

She will be back in our home by Sunday night.  CPS tells me that if kinship placement does not take place this week then she will spend next weekend with them as well.  She should be permanently transitioned by the following week.

Decisions Decisions

I am conflicted.  Here are some facts

• Baby J is still with us.
• CPS tells us that she will be going to a kinship placement no later that next week.
• I am officially done with working outside the home
• We have one opening right now.
• We could open our profile for a newborn now.

So now the questions...

• Do I make the call to our agency today to adjust our profile?
• Do I wait until baby J is gone?
• Do I wait until November so that my son and I can travel to see family and take a little break?

Join me in prayer about this. 

Sometimes it hurts...

...that my baby boy had a life before us.  I am pretty sure I feel this way because we do not have contact with his birth family.  I think mostly it hurts because I grieve for his loss.  I grieve for the day he truly understands and it hits his heart like a ton of bricks.  But I also pray that God would take that burden and make it light for him.  I pray that the love of the family he now has can be a comfort to him.

The beauty of adoption is that even though it comes from brokenness, God takes all those pieces (i.e, loss, abuse, neglect, barrenness, etc.) and puts them together to form something new.   A creation more beautiful than the individual parts were before being broken and reconstructed.  Let us not forget that our God is a redeemer!

Crazy Thursday

I have an insane day scheduled for tomorrow.  Why am I still awake?  We have Baby J's weekly two hour parental visits (which equals about 3.5-4 hours out of the house for us).  Then we go to her mandatory dental checkup.  After that to our pastors house for some event planning.  And to cap it all off, mandatory ongoing training with our adoption/foster agency in the evening.  The icing on the cake is that neither of the kids will nap unless it is in the car driving from place to place (this will be a first - we do not mess around with naps in this house).  Oh boy!

I received some good news from Baby J's CW today.  Her mom got a job!  Good step in the right direction for sure.  Praying that this really has been the wake up call that she needed in her life.

Sweet Baby J

Baby J came to us on a hot July evening.  It was an emergency placement and I picked her up at the hospital.  Yes, she came to us with broken bones in her little 9 month old body.  No one knows (or is saying) how it happened.

Baby J's bones are healed now.  She has two new little teeth.  She has gained the confidence to explore her world.  She is strong willed, beautiful, and loved. Most of all she is cherished.  My prayer is that where ever she goes from here that remains true.  You see because if she is cherished then she will be seen as a blessing and not as a burden.  If she is cherished then she will be protected, treasured and loved.  I pray this for my sweet Baby J. 

I knew in my heart from the very beginning that she would not be with us long.  CPS is in the process of a home study on the parental grandparents.  She could be leaving any day now.  I know my precious boy Jamie is going to miss her.  We have been talking about her leaving.  I don't know how much a 2 1/2 year old can understand.  We assure him every time that he is staying forever.  Mommy, Daddy, Jamie, the puppy and kitties will all stay forever.  I have introduced him to Baby J's mother at the weekly visits.  We tell him that we are helping them take care of her right now because they cannot.  I hope his heart understands.  I pray that God would protect him in a way that I cannot.  

Fostering after adoption

So why are we fostering when we had such a great experience with matched adoption?  Well, adopting a 15 month old through CPS is almost unheard of.  Obviously it happened but lightening rarely strikes twice in the same location.  When we decided to continue with our agency after finalizing our son's adoption they didn't give  us many options.  Our choices were
 1) matched adoption but it had to be for a child over the age of 6.
 2) Foster to adopt any age child.
 3) Find another agency if options 1 or 2 didn't work for us.

Option #1 did not work for a few reasons.  I mentioned earlier that our profile for adoption was for a sibling group up to three children.  We were very surprised to be matched with a single child.  That also meant we would be adopting again.  We really feel called to keep birth order for now with our son.  So that meant we would be looking to adopt a child 2 years old or younger.  That eliminated option 1.

Option #3 did not work as we had no desire to start the process over with a new agency.

We prayed long and hard about option #2.  After much prayer we concluded that this is what God was calling us to.  So here we are, foster parents.  Loving and serving the precious children God has placed in our home.  It could be for a little while, it could be forever.  I just have to keep reminding myself that God loves them more than I do!

"You cannot just be into adoption to adopt; you have to be into parenting."

The title is a quote from Jen Hatmaker. I know many of you have read this blog entry. But for those of you that haven't I am linking to it here. It is a beautifully honest account of adoption. A must read for all.

After the Airport

Our Son's Adoption Story

One of my main goals with this blog is to inform and encourage others as they start the journey to adopt.  For that reason I wanted to share some (not all) of the specifics about the adoption of our son.  So often during the process I searched blogs that would give me some insight.  It was difficult to find blogs about adoption through foster care or foster care in general.  I longed to see and hear about others in my shoes.

Our profile for adoption was for a sibling group up to 3 children, ages 0-6, any ethnicity.

May, 2010 we received a call from our agency that we were one of 4 families selected to adopt a 15 month old boy.  We asked "Who else?"  They replied, "No one, a single, 15 month old boy."  We were very surprised and you will see later, how that has shaped where we are today (fostering).  They told us the Selection Staffing would be next week and we would know more then.

The day of the selection staffing we received confirmation that we, yes WE, had been selected to parent this child.  We were over the moon!  Of course we wanted to find out when we could meet him.  The next step was the formal "Presentation" where CPS and all the people involved in his case would "present" his case and history to us so that we could formally say yes or no.  We knew the answer was yes, but this is part of the process.  That meeting was scheduled for a month later.  I don't think I slept for the next month.  All we knew was his name.  We had not even seen a picture of him.  I helped the time pass by preparing his room and getting everything ready for his arrival.

The day of the presentation staffing I was nervous as could be.  I think I was just so afraid that they were not going to like us, or change their mind.  It was all unfounded, but I was nervous none the less.  The staffing went perfect.  We were able to talk with his foster mom via phone and all the people on his case. We formally said "YES" and arrangements were made for us to  meet him the very next day.

Before I get to the meeting, let me bring you up to speed on some of the specifics of our son's case and how God's hand was protecting him.  Jamie (not his real name) entered CPS custody at birth and went home with his foster mom at 3 days old.  He would have one foster mom, one CASA, and only two caseworkers for his entire 16 months in the system.  This is really rare.

So, on a beautiful June day, we met our son for the first time.  Literally saw his sweet face for the first time. We had fallen in love with him long before we saw him, much like other parents do while their children are still in the womb.  He was sleeping when we arrived and he looked like an angel. Jamie wasn't and still isn't quick to warm up to adults.  But we had been praying to our Lord that He would seal our hearts together and allow Jamie to know that we were his parents when he met us. And he did!  We even slept with a stuffed bear for the month prior and left it with him the day we met him.

Let me tell you, leaving him there after meeting him was the hardest thing I have ever done.  Not because he wasn't being cared for, but because I was in love with him and wanted to soak up every breath, every smile, every cry, everything.  We returned the next day for another visit and then the foster mom agreed to bring him to our home every day until placement which was scheduled for the upcoming Friday.

Well the visits went beautifully and placement took place as scheduled.  I am going to skip over the next 6 months and fast forward to finalization.  The next 6 months will be some of the most honest thoughts on this blog.  Parenting is not easy.  We learned a lot and are still learning as we go.  Parenting and adoption is not all roses.  But it is amazing!

We finalized our adoption January of 2011.  It was a perfect ending and beginning all in one.  We kept the first name that his birth-mother gave him for a few reasons.  He already knew it.  It was a family name on my side.  It was biblical like his daddy's.  We liked it.  We did change his middle and last name.  Here is father and son at court.

Jamie's birth-family did not desire to have contact with him.  We do not currently have any insight as to parenting a child in an open adoption due to this.  It was not our desire but we cannot do anything to change this.

So this is a really condensed version of our son's adoption story.  I will share deeper insights in later post about becoming parents, peoples reactions, the highs, the lows and all the in between.

A little history and where we are headed...

My husband and I have been married since 2003.  We knew before we got married that we would grow our family through adoption.  What we did not know is that adoption would be the only way (at least it has been to this point).  After several years of infertility we absolutely knew that assisted reproduction of any sort was not God's plan for our family. After lots and lots of research about adoption and all the different ways it can be done, in October of 2008, we partnered with a local agency to adopt through Foster Care.  We fostered two boys, ages 3 & 4 for two months in 2009.  In July of 2009 we went inactive so that my husband could knock out some more college courses.  We reactivated our profile with our agency again in April of 2010.  We were matched with our son Jamie in June and he came home in July.  We finalized our adoption of him in January, 2011.  We are current foster parents to the sweetest little 10 month girl, baby J.  Her plan is reunification and she will likely be going home at the end of Sept.  So that is the short and quick of where we have been.  I plan to elaborate much more on the adoption of our son over time here.

So where are we headed?  I have been working outside the home during all of this.  As of October, 2011 I will be starting my new full time, 24 hour a day, 168 hour a week job as wife, mother, foster mom, teacher, chef, maid, etc.  My family is so looking forward to this, and so am I.  We will continue to foster after baby J leaves.  We are considering fostering a newborn next.  We are licensed for 3 children so it could be a sibling group as well.  We are committed to serving and loving these children well and seeing them reunited with their family.  However, if/when the plan changes from reunification to adoption then our home is open to them staying forever.  We look forward to seeing what God has planned for all of us!

Our family loves Jesus and we acknowledge that our role as foster parents is a ministry.  It is through God's grace and strength that we are able to persevere in this calling.

"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." James 1:27