We've finished all the requirements to renew our current adoption homestudy by early May, but we made a decision this spring (or maybe this winter) that has added some extra work to our plate.
After much prayer and research, we've decided to also pursue Foster-To-Adopt at the same time as Domestic Infant Adoption (the current program we've been waiting in). So guessing you might have some questions... here a few:
What does that mean? Well, in the most basic terms we've been working on all the requirements (20+ hrs of training, mountains of paperwork, extra interviews, etc) to be approved with the state to adopt from the foster care system. We will still be working with our adoption agency and rely on their expertise in the process (there are a number of larger private adoption agencies in the state that the foster care system works with to connect families and children).
Are you giving up on an open adoption/baby? No. Our family profile will still be shown to expectant parents making an adoption plan for their baby (domestic infant adoption), including a few potential profile showings coming up. In all honesty though there haven't been as many profile showings at the agency lately. We will also continue to do the additional networking (website, Facebook, twitter) we've been doing. God is in charge of building families and we are just trying to go where He leads. Maybe foster-adopt is how He's planning to add to our family. Maybe He just wants us to be willing to open that door.
Will you be a foster family? We will not be what I consider a "regular" foster family. Families in the foster-to-adopt program are technically licensed for foster care but only for cases where parental rights have been terminated and the children are ready to be adopted. So for the time a child is placed in our home until the adoption is finalized, we'd technically be their foster family but not what you'd likely think of as a foster family.
Why now? That question is a bit more complicated. Part of the answer has been a heart journey and listening to God's prompting. Another part is due to the fact that now our son is older. Since its important to us for our son to remain the oldest, now we can consider a bit older age range (0-4) than when we started this adoption journey (which began when he was 2.5). Also with him going to kindergarten all day in the fall, as a family we have a little more time to spend with a new child that is coming from a tough start.
What's next? All of our additional paperwork has been mailed, training requirements met, and additional interviews/home inspections completed. Now we are just waiting for everything to get approved and written up in another official homestudy (combined with our original one). And then of course there is more waiting... UPDATE as of 6/5 everything is approved and our wait continues
Is there anything someone else can do to help? Keep praying for us! After we are approved, there could be emails/phone calls about little ones that they are trying to match to families. Some will clearly not be a good fit for any number of reasons (age, part of a sibling group bigger than we can take, issues more severe than we can manage) and others we may end up asking for more detailed information then submitting our homestudy for consideration. We will need a lot of God-given-discernment to know when to keep asking for information and when the situation doesn't seem like a good "fit" for our family. Because all these precious kids need to find the family that is going to be theirs but we are not the family for every kid.
Since May happens to be Foster Care and Foster-To-Adopt month, CreatingAFamily.org created the great graphic below that I thought worth the share. I especially love the prayer near the bottom.
Source: creatingafamily.org
Another note... If our family ends up being matched with a child via the foster care system (after meetings with social workers and a lot of info shared), there will be a defined transition period. During that time and even during the time they are in our home but the adoption has not finalized, there are lots of rules of what info (if at all) can be shared outside of our immediate family. For example, we wouldn't be able to share pictures online at all. So if at some point it sounds like we are being vague about things, there might be good reason :) Also just like if we adopt infant, there likely will be parts of their story we won't share, especially not on the blog, and maybe with no one outside of our immediate family.
There is so much we are still learning about this process, and so continues the journey!
Thanks for the update! So many decisions, paperwork and waiting for you right now - but it will all be worth it! What a great graphic to share too to educate others about the system. Praying for you guys!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your encouragement and prayers Korene! They mean a lot to us.
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