the potential match

Shortly after we started back to work after spring break we had a discussion with our caseworker. The two boys we were hoping to match with found their match with a different family. Its a weird emotion to experience joy for the kids' potentially forever match and sorrow for your missed match at the same time. That's adoption from foster care for you.

I'm told we will experience a lot of those weird conflicting emotions in our journey.


Our conversation was not all bittersweet though. We found out that our previous caseworker (the one we loved that went out on maternity leave) had been in contact with another caseworker about a different sibling group of children for us before she went on maternity leave. That caseworker hadn't said anything else since we made the switch to our new caseworker, so nobody had told Steve and I that there was a possible match in the works.

Turns out, there was. We have a match!

For those of you who have never been in this position, let me be the first to tell you: it is intense. Before, we worked in generalities for the most part.
Yes- we will consider these special needs.
No - we will not consider that diagnosis.
Now we have a specific set of children to consider with all kinds of specifics to pour over and make decisions about. How do we feel about this situation, can we handle that behavior.... Are we even capable of going from no kids to 4 kids practically overnight?

All of this within the context of forever. If we proceed with this match the end result is this set of kids becoming ours forever. This formal match process is the only time we have to decide whether we are the right adults to take on the privilege of parenting these specific children.

Do our strengths with regard to their situation and specific needs outweigh our weaknesses?

I promise I'm not trying to be a downer. I'm just trying to express what a complete mindfuck this last week has been. And I know those experiences have just begun.

Let me tell you what the next steps are... That's always the question I get asked by people when we talk about the adoption:

1) document presentation: Sit down with our caseworker and go over every piece of paperwork related to these kids since they came into care. Usually psychological evaluations, reports, medical reports, school records, IEPs if there are any... that kind of thing. It's exciting because you find out little things like names, birthdays, favorite foods, what they like to do... but also sobering things like why and when they came into care. Ours is scheduled for Monday afternoon.

2) formal staffing: meeting with everyone involved with the case - Steve and I, our caseworker, the kids' caseworker, foster parent, and regional adoption coordinator. We meet at the DFCS office in the county where the kids reside and Steve and I get to ask all of our questions about the kids we have based on their documentation. We also get to talk with people who actually know the kids and get their input since no kid is as one-dimensional as they seem on paper. This meeting is also when we create our visitation plan.

3) visitation - This is when we finally meet the kids. It starts with a brief meeting (around 2 hours, usually at the kids' foster home) and proceeds from there with visits gradually increasing in duration and eventually leading to visitations in our home with the kids spending the night.

4) move in - If all the previous steps go well, the kids move in with Steve and I permanently. We have them 24/7, every day. This period before finalization allows us to get an idea of what day to day life will be like with the kids. We experience getting them ready for school, eating dinner together, taking them to their various appointments and activities, interacting with friends and family.... the things that make up real life.

5) finalization - a minimum of 6 months from move in day is when finalization occurs. This is when we go down to the courthouse and a judge issues the final adoption paperwork. From this point we are officially, legally, a forever family.

If I haven't made this clear... I am BEYOND excited to begin this process and potentially meet my kids. I am trying to be cautiously optimistic, but I'm the kind of person who puts my whole heart into something or none at all. Staring down potential heartbreak is intense... but it is way better than the alternative of never experiencing something worth risking my heart for.

SPRING BREAK!!!

I love my job. I do. really. But, as with everything we put our whole self into, it can be draining.

Enter: spring break!

Steve and I both needed an opportunity to get the heck out of dodge and try to remember how to relax. So, we went to the capitol of relaxation... the beach.

We left bright and early Monday morning to drop the dogs off at K9 Planet (their very favorite doggy daycare/boarding facility) to play with their friends. After that we jumped on the interstate and drove south until we hit ocean.

Not literally. We stopped in the parking lot of a hotel and walked the rest of the way to the water. ;)

We spent three GLORIOUS days lounging on the beach and generally being lazy bums.

It. was. FABULOUS!

Yes, the all caps is necessary. I don't think anyone, least of all Steve and I, knew how much we absolutely needed to have that down time together. It wasn't until we were laying on beach loungers, covered in sunscreen, soaking up the warm rays that we noticed just how much the last few years have been weighing on us.

I'm not talking about just adoption and baby-making stuff either. Obviously that has been a giant issue, but little things have been weighing us down too. Things like walking that fine line of building up our savings while also paying down debt.

Things like the day-to-day stress of dealing with traffic and workplace drama.

Things like health issues both physical and mental. After all, I had pneumonia and the flu this year in addition to two broken toes and a multitude of ear infections.

Normally we deal with these things and they roll off our backs. But when you haven't had a break from that day-to-day craziness in almost 4 years (not including our trip to DC for my cousin's graduation since that trip was about helping family, not relaxing) it becomes significantly more difficult to let it go at the end of the day.

Now that we have had that time to recharge, we are ready again to face the issues life is planning to throw at us. We are still waiting for news regarding our potential match. We are still working out the little home renovation things we are doing to prepare for whatever kiddos we get.

The Waiting Game

I promise I haven't been silent so long on purpose. Just as I tell my friends when they ask me at work and on Facebook, there is't much to report.

I have come to understand that this process of adoptin through Foster Care is very much a "hurry up and wait" kind of situation. When something DOES happen, it must be done quickly. But you go through long periods where nothing is really happening.

Okay, that's not really true. You go through long periods where it APPEARS that nothing is happening. Behind the scenes at agencies and state facilities there is a lot going on. We just aren't privy to those things.

And a good thing too because it would likely bore us out of our skulls.

Suffice it to say, we are awaiting a response from the caseworker for a sibling group we are interested in matching with. It's the season for Spring Break vacations, so we likely will not hear anything back until the middle of this month.

Our [substitute] caseworker has assured me that, if we do get paperwork back after spring break confirming our selection as a match, things will move very quickly and we may even be able to begin visitation before April ends. That would be awesome. Not the least of which because it puts the kiddos moving in just after school ends over Memorial Day weekend and gives all of us lots of time to settle in before next school year begins.

But I'm getting ahead of myself....

Right now we are continuing our prayers for guidance, patience in this period of waiting, and wisdom for everyone involved.

State Adoption Match Meeting recap

This past Thursday was the big state-wide adoption event for DFCS called the State Adoption Match Meeting. It's essentially an opportunity for every region and county in the state to present all of their waiting children to families looking to adopt from foster care. It's not just for people with an approved homestudy either, it's for anyone interested in adopting older children from foster care.

Our caseworker recommended we go since we are not exclusively matched with anyone yet and, in the end, I'm incredibly glad we went.

The event was held at the Hilton Atlanta Airport and was much more organized than I was expecting! They had a check-in table for families set up outside of the main event space when you first walked in. Then, there was a space with tables and chairs for families to sit and sort through information away from the matching event space. They also had food, drinks, and snacks. A HUGE perk in my opinion.

Inside the main event space each region had their own space which was decorated in a unique theme. One was railroad themed, one baseball, one was the beach, and there were actually two regions with Star Wars themes! Within each region's area they had their caseworkers and adoption coordinators present to answer questions and help families identify children matching their preferences.

I thought I would be overwhelmed by the event, but it wasn't as crazy as I expected. There were a lot of people and a lot going on, but being able to leave and sit in a separate room to gather my thoughts was incredibly helpful to staying in a clam state of mind.

Major kudos to the state offices for thinking of that!

Our agency and caseworker were also there to provide support for us. We met with several caseworkers about various families and walked away feeling confident that something good would come from attending. We spoke with the caseworker for the kids we currently have a pending match with. She gave us some helpful information about the state of things with that. We also found out about another sibling set we might pursue a match with.

It felt good to walk away from an event feeling so positive after such an emotional week.

another maybe

I feel like lately Steve and I have been on this weird loop. We get a match, it falls through, we go back to waiting.

We have another match. We are still waiting for confirmation of everything and a "game plan" of sorts. There are many possibilities, of course, but nothing concrete. I am not fond of uncertainty, but I'm told that parenthood comes with a lot of it and to get used to it.

I'm making a concentrated effort.

I also feel like I am annoying the poo out of our caseworker. We have only called her twice this week. But it's also only Tuesday. Once per day isn't too bad, right? Right?!?!?

This month also marks 3 years since we have been actively trying to grow our family. I think that in and of itself is having an effect on my ability to deal lately. I find myself reflecting on the past few years of trying to conceive/ trying to adopt and the years before of patiently waiting for us to be able to try. I go through all of the woulda, coulda, shouldas. I end up being really harsh on myself without really meaning to.

The hardest part of it all? Making peace with my body.

Since starting the TTC journey I have gained 50 pounds. Not that weight is everything, but it makes me uncomfortable. Once we hit the 1 year TTC mark I stopped exercising because I thought THAT was preventing me from getting pregnant. Then, once we realized something was really wrong, I was so angry at my body for what I perceived as betrayal, I stopped caring enough to make healthy choices.

Now, here I am with a large physical reminder of my emotional journey.

Today, I look at myself in the mirror and I see all of the pain and sorrow from the last three years. If it weren't for the tiny spark of hope I have now in the form of being homestudy approved and potentially matched, I wouldn't recognize myself at all.

The red hair doesn't help.

This journey has completely changed me, not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually. I can admit now that maybe some of those changes needed to happen. Maybe I needed to change in order to be the parent I want to be... maybe even the parent I need to be. It doesn't make the process hurt any less, but I do find comfort in the knowledge that God doesn't allow us to suffer without using it for our own spiritual refinement.

My prayer at this weird, emotional time of my life is to honor the journey I've already gone through and look forward with hope and optimism.

not so much

The potential match I posted about recently did not work out.

It was our decision not to move forward and we had some genuine, big reasons for not pursuing it further. Still, it stings. 

It stings because we met and bonded with these children. It stings because we dared to hope that our journey toward parenthood was coming to an end.

To quote John Green, "It hurts because it mattered".

One positive thing to come out of this mess is that we received our official state approval earlier than expected. We are officially "paper pregnant" as of February 10, 2016.

That term feels so weird. I'm not sure I like it, but it seems fitting and others around us have sort of latched onto the saying. 

Meh. Whatever makes them happy, I guess.

As disappointed and saddened as we are, we are still moving forward and open to any new matches that might come our way. Our caseworker is awesome (as is our agency) and this team behind us is working with us toward finding our family. 

This process has shown me time and time again that God's timing is perfect.

I'm trusting him with this completely.

Is this real life?

I can't say much right now, but things are happening. They are happening quickly.

Children (yes, children. three of them to be exact) have been identified for us and we have a pending match. We are expecting word from the state in the next day or so.

Things just got really real.

I will update when I can.