Hi family and friends,
We are writing today with mixed emotions ranging from excitement to anxiety. We have made a decision that will impact the rest of our lives. We are starting the journey of adopting through our foster care system! It brings a smile to my face as I write these words, because this is a long time coming. We had pursued adoption 5 years ago with negative results from an agency regarding our Blindness. We prayed that if this wasn’t God’s will that He take the desire away. However, the more we prayed the greater the desire became.
So, here we are…
We’ve done much praying, planning and research in the past month. From homeschooling, to research on various disabilities, the logistics of being foster-adopt parents, raising children in the adminission of the Lord, choosing supplies and child proofing our home. Crazy as it sounds, the research is not even close to being over!
With the agency we have chosen, we will first become foster parents before we adopt. This comes with a couple implications. First, it allows for a faster process. Meaning, a child could be placed with us before parental rights have been terminated and they are legally free for adoption. If we choose to only accept children who are legally free for adoption, our odds of getting a placement in a useful amount of time would be very slim. We are aware that we are taking a big risk by going about this the way we have chosen. The main goal of foster care is to reunify children with their parent(s). However, if that is not possible for whatever reason, that is when they would become legally free for adoption. Furthermore, we are aware that the first child who comes into our home may also leave. This could happen multiple times in fact, and although it will be hard to see these precious ones leave our home, we also know that each child who enters our home needs our love and the love of Jesus Christ.
Contrary to what some may believe, it is also wise to attach to each child. These children need to know that they are safe and loved.
We are seeking one child between 0-3 years of age. Since I teach voice lessons in our home, we have the room for only one child. We chose ages 0-3 so the adoption will have time to be finalized before the child begins being homeschooled. With as much as these young children go through change, we don’t want to have them in the public school system while they’re in foster care, and once the adoption is finalized pull them out to be homeschooled.
We’ve heard that the feelings we will experience as we walk this road of adoption are similar to those of parents expecting their first biological child. We’ve already had some highs and lows, and this journey is far from over!
This coming Tuesday, we will attend our foster care orientation meeting. This will give us an overview of how the foster care system works and what our responsibilities will be. We went to this orientation when we looked in to adoption 5 years ago, so we’re familiar with how it will go. After this orientation, we will go in for an application interview, have a family assessment done (including physicals and providing the agency with 3 references) and go through 15 hours of foster care training.
We know you may have many questions, and we want to be able to answer each of them! We also ask for your prayers, patience, encouragement and support as we walk this journey.
Thank you for traveling with us, and we’ll keep you updated as we walk this road of becoming a child’s forever family!
With Love, Andy and Miranda
