Next Steps - Adoption!

We wanted to keep everyone who is interested on our next steps- we are adopting!

We have always wanted to grow our family both through birth and adoption, and have always imagined having many kids. We are thankful we have always desire to adopt, especially now that we cannot have children biologically. In the bible God always tells Israel to look back and remember all the things that he has done, so that they can continue to trust what He will continue to do. We remind ourselves continually of all the goodness and grace God has poured on us and all the manna that he has given us, sometimes just enough to get through the next day, but he is always faithful. We hope that anyone who looks at our lives can see that God is faithful, and hope that we can all remember how he has been faithful and continue to trust Him for our future family.

Here are some of the most frequent questions we get when we tell people we are adopting…

Are you crazy, you already are so busy/overwhelmed with the two kids you have?

-          Yeah, we are probably considered crazy. But, we know that God always shows up in the middle of our crazy when we follow Him. We often talk about how crazy it was when we took D 10 days before going in to the hospital to have Gideon, and then everything we dealt with for Gideon’s nose, and how God just gave us such a peace, perseverance, and amazing support during that crazy time. We know that having another child will be difficult -we also cannot wait to see how God provides and weaves our family together.

Why don’t you “just” adopt from foster care?

-          We hope to, we really do. But guys, the foster care system is SO hard. We are over 20 months into drama, appointments, birth parent visits, and hearings for a child that we were told would either be back home, or his parents rights would be terminated within 30 days from us getting him. We are SO thankful he is still with us, but you just never know what can happen, and adopting a baby from the foster system is a very difficult and a very unlikely situation. We plan on continuing to foster, and of course we love D as if he was our flesh and cannot imagine life without him.

Isn’t adopting expensive?

-          Yes, very. The average adoption is about $40,000. That’s why we are busy playing the lotto. Ha, just kidding.  We have been saving for years by working hard and living modestly hoping to adopt some day. We have a small amount saved for this, and are hoping to have some fundraisers, and apply for grants to help as well.  If anyone has ideas, we would LOVE to hear them!

How does this adoption process work?

-          Well, first we did a home study (which has to be a totally new one from the one we already did for our fostering license…), where an agency comes and looks over your home and spends hours interviewing our whole family about our money, our faith, our neighborhood, our ways of disciplining children, and about a million other questions. We got fingerprinted, and made profile books about us as a family. These books will be presented by either an agency or attorney to moms who are looking for families for their unborn children. If we are chosen, then we will likely go meet with the birth mom to get to know her, and she will decide how much of a role we play in the birth plan, and we will all decide how open we want the adoption to be. We are working with Christian Adoption Consults and my cousin Kim, who is an adoption attorney in Florida. We have not been chosen by any one yet, and this step could take weeks, or years.

Are you sure you are ready for this?

 

-          Yes, as ready as we will ever be! I remember being in the hospital before giving birth to Gideon and not feeling “ready”. We are not trying to replace the baby we lost in April, we have, and still are, grieving that loss. We still have no idea what God was doing during all that, or why he allowed all that to happen. We do know that He has saved us. I have been in counseling, and adoption is not a knee jerk reaction. We have always wanted to adopt as a way to grow our family, and we are excited to start down this journey. 

Please be praying for us during the time, that we can make wise choices and cling closely to our creator and provider. We hope to update our blog more to keep people who are interested updated! Thanks for all your prayers and support friends. 

Love,

Brittany