Adoption Update: A look back at our journey.

Recently we got a little more insight on what is happening with our latest little one. It looks like everything is lining up for us to be adoptive parents soon! I can't wait to be her official forever family. We seem to have been on this journey for a really long time but timing has a way of working itself out. We are crossing all of our fingers and toes to have this little one officially join our family sometime before Thanksgiving. Prayers and positive thoughts/energy are very much appreciated :)

Our adoption journey began quite a while ago. Back in 2009, my husband had the opportunity to work with his children's choir at a local Spaulding for Children Adoption Fair. He was so moved by the stories being told that day that he came home talking up a storm about finally being ready to "do this." You see, when we first met, I had brought up the possibility of adopting in the future and he wasn't the biggest fan of this idea. Since I was a child, I always envisioned that I would have a ton of adoptive babies. I recall my mom laughing about it and telling me I was crazy. My little sister and I would talk about all the kids who were homeless (back in we lived in Mexico) and needed homes. We felt compelled to help somehow but only being children ourselves, were kind of at a road block. Anyway, getting off track here. When my husband shot the idea down, I was kind of bummed but decided to tuck the idea back into the back of my mind. An adoption would never work if weren't both on the same page. How could we love and accept any child if we were not on the same page. If he wasn't ready for this, I didn't want to force it on him. So after 10 years of our relationship, he finally came around and decided that adoption was something we should look into as a family. 

At this point, we already had two young boys and had to talk to them and see if this would be something they would be ok with. After all, it wasn't just Kevin and me anymore. The boys seemed thrilled at the idea of having our family grow! We went through trainings, classes, more trainings, retreats, support meetings, background checks, and finger printings. The process was slow, and long. We volunteered in hopes to meet some of the children who had already found their forever homes. We wanted to absorb everything that came with this adoption process. You see, we didn't opt to find a newborn baby at a private agency. We chose to go through the foster care system. 

There are thousands of children in and out of the system daily. So many of them have permanently lost their biological families. Every day they wait to see if someone will come forward and welcome them permanently into their home. Many of these children never find their forever family especially if they are over the age of 8. They age out of a broken system that sets them up for a difficult life. It's truly heart breaking. We anxiously wanted to be parents to one of these children. Even though many times, I wanted to help them all. 

Kevin and I were blessed to meet so many children and prayed that we had found the child that would join our family, only to learn that we were not matched. We didn't give up. About a year and a half into the process, we learned that we had been matched to a sibling group of three. Three!!! We were going to grow from a family of four to a family of seven! The excitement was building but we held reservations since we knew nothing was final until the ink was dry. Upon finding out that our family was matched, we learned that we were expecting a baby. We were torn, confused, nervous, and excited all at once. Ultimately we came to the conclusion that a newborn and three additional "newborns" (in a sense, since we would all be learning to live together initially) would probably not be the best decision and we made an extremely difficult decision to stop our process of adoption. The children didn't know about us so there was no harm done to them. My heart however, was crushed into a million pieces. 

After our healthy pregnancy and new bouncing baby boy, we decided to jump back on the horse and keep going. We weren't giving up yet. We started looking into being foster parents and began that process. Our little guy was only 5 months old when we officially opened our foster home. 5 placements later, here we are, at the adoption court's door. Anxiously waiting to forever change our family. We feel incredibly blessed. Our journey hasn't always been the easiest. We've seen good days, bad days, incredibly trying days, and heart wrenching days. We've had our hopes up and our hearts broken multiple times. Every challenge has made us a little bit stronger and more ready for this stage of our lives. I hope our family can be everything this little one needs to live a life filled with love and acceptance. She's our little piece of heaven and I can't imagine our life without her. I hope that the next update is about our new official family member. :::crossing all fingers and toes again:::

~Norm