Adoption Post #1

I was just reading through my past blogs. It was very cool to see

the posts about what we were going through when considering to foster again. So I decided I needed to do a little blogging about D and us wanting to adopt him.

When we accepted placement of D we'd heard that he was "adoption track". But that can mean a lot of things. I simply verified that we were in no way saying we'd be an adoptive placement for him. We weren't looking to do that. We just figured we were pretty good at the fostering thing and we should do it. I guess that wasn't God's plan.

So, we fell totally and completely in love with D. Fast. I couldn't believe it. About a month after he was with us I finally had time to read his entire file and I realized that not only was he "adoption track" but that he was already available for adoption. His parents' rights had been terminated. That's a sad and happy thing. Sad, because I don't want to think about what his biological family is missing and what they must have gone through. Happy, because terminating rights typically take a LONG time, and that part was already done for David!

However, adopting a child with significant medical needs, not to mention developmental delays is, well, a significant decision. So we decided to take our time with it. A conversation with D's social worker put us at ease in taking our time to make this decision. So we started thinking and praying. It just seemed so, I don't know, STUPID, to even consider something like this. Honestly, my heart was already sure, it was my brain that was questioning. And T played his role as the rational part of our partnership. :) So we prayed and thought.

Well, in July a few things started falling into place. We got a new home nurse who we knew would be short term. That was a little frustrating. Why even bother? But she turned out to be FABULOUS. AND she had adopted a special needs child from foster care. I learned a LOT from her in the time she was here.

Then we went away to family camp at Camp Luther. The pastor in charge of chapel was someone I hadn't met before. He introduced himself, his wife, and their grown daughter to the whole camp. I immediately knew I needed to talk with them. Their daughter has some sort of developmental delays. She lives apart from her parents now, in an assisted living facility. They adopted her when she was a little older than D. I introduced myself to the mom, and we spent pretty much every afternoon in the shade outside the camp pool talking about their decisions and ours.

We'd prayed to God for guidance, and got these wonderful helpers to answer questions and help us think about our decision.

Then in late July, since we didn't have a home health nurse, I took D with me, Z, H, and G to see a dollar movie at the theater. It was Clifford's Big Movie. D loved it! I texted T to tell him it was a hit. He could just imagine D on my lap, laughing at Clifford. He texted back and asked "Is he laughing" and I texted "Yes!" That afternoon we made the call to D's worker to start the adoption ball rolling.

We got our first set of papers in early August. We signed away permissions for our driver's license checks, child abuse registry checks, FBI checks, etc. We gave them earnings statements. I've since then gotten Z, H, and G's health forms filled out. T and I need to go in and have physicals done. D's social worker is getting a copy of our homestudy from H's adoption. She'll just have to update it since John has moved out and almost a year has gone by. That should be fairly quick. I asked her if we might be in front of the judge for the adoption by the end of the year. Probably. So, based on past experience, I'm hoping it will be done by June 2009. I'll keep you posted on our progress.