I am hoping to blog several times this month about various topics that are related to adoption, but I don't know if that's going to happen or not. Hugh took his first walking steps in a row yesterday, and now he's really got me on my toes!!
I think I'd like to start my series of posts, by blogging about foster care adoption.
Let me start by saying that I don't have experience with foster care at all. In a lot of ways, it confuses me and honestly, scares me a bit. However, I do know that there is something about it that has always stirred emotion inside me. I feel like I've been called to it, but I keep pushing it away.
I cannot imagine what it's like to be a child without parents. I cannot imagine what it's like to know that you DO have a mom and/or dad, and you cannot be with them. How anguishing is that thought? As a human, our deepest desire is to be loved, and it kills me to think that there are children who cry themselves to sleep at night because they feel unloved.
I wanted to be pregnant and to experience what it feels like to be so connected to something growing inside me. I wanted to experience feeling kicks and movement from my baby. However, I never really had the desire to labor and deliver a child. As a kid, one of my greatest fears was actually delivering a baby... and the other side of the coin was the fear of never being able to get pregnant. While I still yearn for pregnancy, it's not something I am fixated on. Quite honestly, I'm 37 and the window of a safe and healthy pregnancy is almost completely closed on me.
However, I've always wanted three kids. I've also always wanted a daughter. I have two amazing boys and I was delighted to be able to call them mine as newborns. Gus was five hours old when I met him, and Hugh took his first breath as I was in the room to see him enter the world. I am so blessed.
But there is still a desire to have a daughter and to have three kids. I know getting pregnant isn't something that's going to happen, and we cannot afford to adopt again.
I don't want to even think about this right now, but in the future when Gus and Hugh are older, I'd like to look into foster to adopt. I have this feeling that I am meant to adopt a child through foster care. I just don't know how much strength I have for it. I know I don't want to be a foster parent, I just want to adopt. Is that something that you can even do?
All I know is open adoption. Foster care is a totally different thing and there are so many things to take into consideration when adopting from the foster care system. However, when I think about all the drawbacks, I can't get past how awesome it is to adopt a child who doesn't have a family.
There was a thing on the news recently, where a teenager in Florida went before his church and asked for someone, anyone, to adopt him. He said he knew it'd be a hard road, and he's got anger issues from his past that he needs to work on, but he was desperate for someone to love him and to be there to support him.
That got me. I mean, if this kid is out there and is asking for someone to adopt him, how many other kids are like him?
When we were looking into adoption back in 2009, I did look into foster care. What I found were a lot of special needs children. It made me wonder if they were born with special needs and that's why they were placed into foster care, or if they are special needs because they are in foster care and not getting their development needs met. Maybe even both.
I wish I knew someone who was knowledgeable about this and could openly and honestly answer my questions about foster to adopt. Maybe someday, when the boys are older, we can look into adoption again and provide a loving home for a child in need.
I hope that God will lead us to where we're meant to go with building and creating our family. I pray about it and I know it's up to Him to decide where we go. However, it breaks my heart to think about the children out there without families.
If you're waiting to adopt, or looking to build a family, please consider foster adoption. I hope to add a third child to our family (much later down the road) by adopting through the foster care system.
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