The other day I looked at our blog to see when we last posted something, and realized it's been almost two months. Oops. Then, I had the thought to see when we last posted an update on the adoption process, and was shocked to find it has been over a year. Double oops. So Mackenzie and I agreed it was way past time to give a little update.
But to be honest there isn't a whole lot to share. When people ask where we're at in the process or how things are going, I usually reply with "We're in the hurry-up-and-wait phase." There have been a few possibilities along the way (phone calls and emails about potential leads) that haven't moved forward or worked out for one reason or another, but by in large we've been continuing to wait and pray for the child or children God has planned for us.
Last February (almost a year after we started the process) was the closest we came to having a child placed in our home (literally twenty-four hours away before the birth mom decided to continue raising her eight-month-old son). It was by far one of the hardest and lowest points in this journey, but also one where we experienced God's comfort and peace most evidently through the people he's placed in our lives.
After that experience we struggled to be as excited about the process, and started to feel like a child being placed in our home was never going to happen. We discussed whether we should consider other possibilities, like international adoption, but agreed to wait until the end of this year to make any changes.
Well, about a month or so ago, we both started to sense God calling us to consider getting our foster to adopt license, even though we had both been resistant to that option from the very beginning (be careful what you tell God you won't do). We're on an email chain that periodically sends out info on kids in need of a family and home. Oftentimes, the kids are older than what we've been hoping and praying for (usually five and up), but in the last month or so there have been a couple of kids in the age range we're considering.
In both cases it initially seemed as if the kids were legally free (i.e. ready for adoption), but turned out they were still in foster care and pursuing the possibility of adoption. Because we don't have our foster license, we weren't eligible to have those kids placed with us (plus they were so darn cute there were several families interested). But this led to us having a serious conversation about getting our license.
So we contacted the social worker in our area of King County who oversees the foster to adopt program, got another packet of paperwork to complete (oh joy!), went to an info meeting last week, and are now planning to do another round of home visits in January. It's still possible that an opportunity for a private adoption could come along, but God continues to challenge our notion of what this whole thing is going to look like.
Foster to adopt would mean that any child or children placed in our home would technically be in foster care, which means the State's ultimate goal would be reunification with their biological parents (most often the mother). But at that point the state would have determined that adoption is a viable option to pursue, often because biological parents haven't met the requirements for their child/children to be returned to them. As you can imagine, this means there's a greater "risk" for us as the potential adoptive family, but we believe God is calling us to love any child in our home for a long as he has them there. As our friend, Michele, explained at our initial adoption info meeting, none of us is guaranteed any amount of time with our children, regardless of whether they're biological kids or not.
So I guess there's more "update" to share in our adoption journey than I initially realized. We appreciate your continued prayers and support, and hope to do a better job this coming year sharing periodic updates. Specifically, please pray that the licensing process moves quickly (we got fingerprinted this morning), so that we can be considered for possible placements soon. And as always, please pray for patience and faith as we continue to wait.
