1. Do you have a new child yet?
No. We are still waiting. That's pretty much what we do. I'm super good at it. I'm super chill all the time and I sit around and knit sweaters in my blissful state of waiting. Ask Matt. Just kidding- waiting sucks. But we will wait and fight and act because:
2. WHY did you share your story??
OK, so I don't know that any one actually asked this, but I really do want you to know WHY I wrote the post and WHY I shared it on Facebook. I wrote that post because it was extremely cathartic for me and I needed a way to keep my family, friends and people updated on the progress of our journey. I shared it on Facebook to try and reach as many of those people as possible. I just didn't want to tell the story again and again and again. I hope everyone can appreciate that. I really had no idea how many people would even be interested. I do tend to kind of be an over-sharer. BUT... in some ways that has been a blessing. I have promised God that I will stand as His witness in all times and in all things and in all places. Sharing what He is doing in our lives is one more way to do that.
Matt and I also want people to know that we are trying to adopt. Every now and then a girl in trouble is looking for a family to adopt her baby and if you know someone in this position, please let her know that we would be more than happy to help her. I have already had friends share posts on Facebook about a friend who needs a family for her baby and heard about babies being left at hospitals where my friends work. If women in crisis know that there are strong families willing to raise her child, it will only serve to help these women choose life.
3. Why didn't you accept the three children from Matt's tribe? Why are you only considering children younger than your own?
We have put a great deal of thought and consideration into what ages we are willing to consider. These three children were well above the age range we can accept at this time. There is a great need for foster parents for older children, so I hate to discourage anyone considering that path. Most of our reasons are very personal.
-It's important to us that our children be able to maintain their birth order in our family. This can significantly affect their development. We are very aware that the process of adopting and fostering will cause confusion and heartache and likely even some grief for our children. We want their place in our family to always be secure and their health and well being is the only deal breaker in this process for us.
-My gifts, if you will, are with young children. My education is in Early Childhood and I have worked with and taught young children for over ten years. Children who enter the foster care system have experienced trauma. Regardless of their background, being removed from a birth parent is a trauma. I feel that I would best suited to helping young children deal with these transitions. (I am very aware that they will likely deal with the effects of these traumas throughout their lives, but I feel most apt to develop a trust relationship with young children and that will give us the groundwork to deal with issues later in life.)
-Safety. There is always the very real and very slight possibility that a child who has been victimized will victimize other children. The safety of my first three children will trump all else in this process. If we are blessed with a young child who is dealing with these issues, it would be difficult for them to victimize children older and larger than themselves. We would hopefully be able to deal with these behaviors before the child got too much older!
- There is a MASSIVE amount of brain and personality development that occurs in the first five years of life. There are literal connections in the brain that if NOT made by age five, they cannot be made later in life. We are currently open to foster or adopt up to two children ages 0-5. Again, there are many older foster children who need homes, and I do not want to dissuade anyone from considering that option. I do think it would be wise to consider having children who are younger than your own, whatever age that may be.
4. If you were motivated by your concern for unborn babies, why not just adopt a newborn through a private agency? Wouldn't that be easier?
I have a few answers for this one:
A. When we started talking about adopting back in August, we started discussing the possibility of an older child right away. My friend Mary, whom I mentioned in my previous post has really influenced me so much over the years. I was her visiting teacher at church for several years. A "visiting teacher" goes in and visits a woman each month and ministers to and prays for her family. In this case, it was truly Mary who was teaching me! Anyway, I watched her go through the process of fostering several children, trying and waiting to adopt a newborn through a private agency and finally adopting her two youngest through the foster care system. Matt and I have had babies. I got to do all the baby stages and while I would LOVE to adopt a newborn, neither of us wanted to take that opportunity away from a wonderful family like Mary's. There are SO many families waiting to adopt a newborn through a private adoption.
B. We aren't just trying to get more kids. Neither of us sits around thinking, "I really want more kids!" That may sound bad, but to us, it's a blessing for us to be able to say to our three children, "We aren't doing this because you three aren't enough for us. We will be eternally happy if you three are who we have forever. We are doing this because we love children, we feel like God is calling us to do this and there are children who need families."
C. Adoption is something Matt and I feel called by God to do. We feel a draw to meet a need. While there are many, many families waiting to privately adopt, there are not enough foster parents. There are more orphans than families willing to take them. We want a child. We are praying for a child. But we are praying that we can help a child who otherwise wouldn't have a family. That's rarely the case for newborns.
That said, if you know someone who is pregnant and needs help, who is looking for a family for her baby, please, please tell her about us. Matt has said over and over through this process, "I wish I could just stand outside Planned Parenthood with a sign and offer to adopt a woman's baby. I will pay your medical expenses, I will raise your baby for life, please just let him live."
5. How can we help??
First, thank you for even asking this question! We are so blessed to have so many supportive friends. I have received offers for child care, car seats, baby clothes,etc. These are all great ways to help!
I honestly have no idea whether we will be given a baby or a four year old or both for our next placement. This makes preparing in a fiscally responsible manner almost impossible.
Please pray for us. Pray that this process will be a blessing rather than a hardship for our children. Pray that we will be led to the child whom we can help the most.
Know that if we receive a placement, we may be a bit flaky until we get the hang of things. If there is anything that my minuscule stint in foster care taught me, it was that I could have been vastly more helpful to Mary while she was fostering. I should have and could have done more but I had NO idea. All the sudden having two extra children in your home is not unlike the stress of bringing home a new baby. The first thing Mary did was find someone to bring us a meal for that first evening, which was incredibly thoughtful and so very helpful.
In all truthfulness, I won't know what kind of help we need until we know who we'll be getting! But thank you, thank you, thank you for asking!
In the next question, there are some other answers to this question if you care to read on!
6. How can we find out more about fostering and adopting?
I am so in awe that anyone has asked this question. But they have and I love it! Just the fact that some of you have stirring in your hearts to even find out if this is possible for your family makes my heart happy.
I did not share this information in my original post because I understand that:
Foster Care is not for Everyone.
I do not think that because we have been called to do this that everyone has been called to do this! In fact, I don't think foster care was right for our family until now.
But if you are having those stirrings in your heart, please take the time to find out more.
This website can help you find out the requirements in Utah.
http://utahfostercare.org/
If you find that fostering and adopting is not something that your family can do, there are many other ways to support foster children and foster families. This link shares some of those ideas:
This is OUR Problem (Fixing Foster Care in America)
But...
you should know:
According to the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, there are 397,122 children living in the Foster Care system without a permanent home. There are 101,666 children who are legally available to be adopted but have not yet been adopted. This means that their parent's rights were terminated and a foster family has not come forward to adopt them.
Y'all. There are around 300,000 Christian Church Congregations in the United States.
Do you know what that means??
That means that if one family from every
three congregations adopted a child,
there would be no more children
waiting to be adopted.
What if the Church Destroyed the Foster Care System?
7. What's going on with your adoption plans now?
We are waiting. We are waiting for one of three things to happen:
A. Matt's tribe calls us with a child who is legally available and in the range of ages we can take. This is unlikely. His tribe consists of less than 3,000 people and although they are desperate for foster parents, we can't foster for them because we are out of state.
B. DCFS to call us with a foster placement of one or two children ages 5 and under. This could happen at any time and I have NO idea what the ages would be or the situation or the likelihood of adoption or anything at all. If this happens, it is 99% likely that the parents still have rights to the child and we would only be fostering until the parents either:
1. get their act together and regain custody of the child.
2. Completely fail to get their act together and have parental rights terminated either voluntarily or by the court. In this case, it is likely that we would be able to adopt the child, but they would exhaust all options for placing the child with a relative first.
(There are 1 million different ways fostering can play out.)
C. The caseworker for an out of state child who is already legally available to choose us as the adoptive parents for that child.
You may already be thinking... Well, if no one will adopt them, there is probably a reason.
And you are probably right. In most cases, these children have significant medical issues or behavioral issues. Every now and then there is an exception to that rule.
We are currently pursuing as many options as possible through this avenue. We have submitted inquiries on children who are waiting and know that there are caseworkers reviewing our home study. They may choose us or they may not. If they choose us, it could still take up to a year before the child even comes to our home.
We love you for caring. We love you for reading. We love you for being our people. We love you for praying. I will try to update you as things move along. But as you can see.... it's feast or famine.
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