Adoption Balloons

Jason and I are very excited to announce that we hope to adopt our family. This time next year our little family of four (Jason, myself, and our two dogs) could suddenly be a family of seven! There are so many things that go into this process but we are making a conscious decision and even though it's scary at times, it's really what we feel is right for us and we pray what is right for a sibling group of three that we don't yet know but who need a place to call home.

Our journey has placed us on track with the state of Iowa to become licensed to foster and adopt via a 10 week class called "PS-MAPP" (Permanence and Safety-Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting). At this class each week we learn at least a few things that other parents say "I wish there had been a class for me on that". And, we also always leave feeling a heavy sense of burden. We spend a lot of time talking about loss, grief, and the disruption of a child's development and coping through that. This is our current reality and it's just plain sad. We realize that we are the over-eager, bubbly, first-time parents that need to just tone it all down about 50 notches, but we also still hang onto hope that God really does have a plan and that there really is a family merger waiting for us. We must have been called to this for a reason.

At our last class session a discussion ensued mostly born from everyone's similar anxieties. They hope that what they are doing is right and that it will go well even though the odds don't seem to be in our favor. We've felt a gentle (or not so gentle) nudge from most of the people we've come into contact with thus far to open ourselves up to foster care and not to go the adoption only route. Jason and I really feel like that's a bit disingenuous because we know that we really want a permanent situation. But the people who are encouraging us really do know what they are doing. During the class discussion we learned that our current case-worker isn't really the person who helps us through the whole process as we had thought but is the person that will certify or license our home now and that's about it. After she writes our report it's up to us again to get to know social workers, people who do respite care, and people who place children who might come to know us (and hopefully like us). Not only were we unsure about who would be our advocate, we live an an area of the state placement lines that feels like a bit of a "dead zone". We are by one thing, but not very near another, and the counties closest to us aren't really in the same zone. We misunderstood parts of the process in the beginning and we really left from the conversation feeling a bit alone.

We drove home from our meeting and processed with each other how hard this is but how we both just have this sort of gut feeling that we are still "on the right track". Jason then stopped at a gas station and I checked my phone to see what I'd missed over the last four hours. There sitting in my inbox delivered at nearly exactly the moment of our heightened confusion an hour earlier was an email from a "post adoption support specialist" inviting us to an "adoptive/foster parent support group". Our area hadn't had one for a long time and a group of people are trying to get it going again. The first session will be held exactly three days after our last class. That felt to us like a direct beacon of hope from God at a moment when we needed to feel His direction, mercy, and care.

We have no idea who we will get to know and how God will use this story. But we do know that we are on the right uncertainty laden path. We are every bit the eager, expectant, excited, new parents that you might anticipate us to be. And though we won't barrage our potentially shocked children at the door with balloons and the zealous joy we feel in our hearts-- we will very, very slowly unfold a world that does include balloons to them.