Did you know Bill Clinton signed a law into effect that children in foster care longer than 15 months should have parental rights terminated so they can be adopted, or reunified, and given permanency? I had NO clue! There is a petition going around for the government to enforce this! PLEASE sign and SHARE
As always, thank you to the amazing Rebecca for bringing this to light.
I am officially quitting my blog. (not a surprise to any of you). Having 5 kids, I really haven’t had time to post and when I get down time, I just want it to be down time and not an obligation. I was planning on continuing blogging, but then I read this
And I am sick to my stomach. People are weird. I hope I was able to help some people struggling with infertility/ adoption/ fostering. I hope I was able to give you some hope. We sure had a difficult road, but my heart is complete. If you have been following our journey since the beginning and would like a link to other, more private, social media comment with your email and link to your blog.
we have our newest addition. I can’t believe how blessed we’ve been. Introducing Apple! She came to us on Sunday with our new private agency. We were officially waiting with them about a week. It’s crazy to think about. If we would have waited to send our profile books until we got home from vacation, we would have missed out on our daughter. God sure knows what He’s doing. We are so insanely in love and our family is complete.
Oh my goodness. I wasn’t going to update my blog until I caught up on my private Flickr account. This is taking WAY too long. Instead of being a year behind, I am only 8 months behind. haha Moral of the story, I take too many pictures of my kids.
So…we updated our homestudy and did our large family assessment. We are going to try for child #5. We are open to an african american or biracial child 0-4. We are switching agencies…and I feel awful about it. I LOVE our agency. I think they are the most ethical agency their ever was. I would recommend them over and over again. But I know this time, we will have a much harder time getting placed (if at all). They told me they would show our book if they didn’t have any waiting families for this particular child and if (s)he would fit in our checklist. That’s the kind of agency they are. Seriously, the best. But the fact of the matter is that they have a much smaller placement number and I know the families I’m “up against” hahaha. They are awesome. So we are going with a larger, but still state based, agency. Other families I know from our local adoption community have put my worries to rest and we are going for it. If it happens it happens, if it doesn’t, that is part of God’s plans. I told our agency that I would be keeping an eye on foster children available and would have them send my homestudy in for any child we think could be a match. Also, if by some act of God a child falls in our lap and we had an identified match, we would do the adoption through our agency.
Let the prayers begin. Our child could very much be alive right now and going through some traumatic situations. Our child could be conceived right now. Or God’s plan is for our four and there are no more (see what I did there).
We have been contemplating trying for #5. Our homestudy expires in January 2016. That would give us until July 2015 to get a placement. We will NOT be renewing our homestudy, so if we don’t have a child by then I am ok with it. We would be open to whatever God has planned. We are specifically looking for a biracial or AA child 0-4. But I feel really weird specifying that. I mean, we did with baby #4 and then we got Koala and I couldn’t imagine life without him. God’s plan is definitely better than ours. We were extremely blessed that our boys had no exposure to drugs or alcohol, which is something we are open to, and don’t know that we would be so lucky again. There is an agency in our state needing homes for infants but I am also considering another agency that works with finding homes for waiting children across the country. We will NOT be fostering again and The Hubs isn’t really into the idea of international anymore. So really those are our only options.
I am VERY VERY VERY happy and in love with my family. For the first time in forever I am 100% satisfied with our family. While I know we would love and welcome another child, I know I would be ok if it didn’t happen for us. It’s a very refreshing place to be. One of the main reasons we are contemplating doing this is because we know it’s in Honey’s best interest to have a sibling that looks like her. The girls are desperately begging for a sister, but we would never specify gender.
This post isn’t saying we are 100% going for it, just an open dialogue on what goes on in my head. We did talk to our social worker and she asked if we would wait to update our homestudy until after they finish their audit.
FINALLY! We officially became a family of 6 (in the eyes of the government). OF COARSE, we were ten minutes late to our son’s adoption finalization. It was 1/4 till and the kids still weren’t in the car when I realized how late we were. I went into scream mode. “EVERYONE IN THE CAR NOW!” We ran, forgot our phones, my MIL was following us at a red light I had the Hubs jump out of the car grab her phone and get back in. We got there in record time and I was able to call my mom to tell our social worker we were on our way. Somehow the judge came out and asked if we were ready about 2 minutes before we got there. My dad was waiting outside for us and paid for our parking spot. I literally threw my keys at the parking attendant and we RAN! We lost Mimi on the way though. Our judge was nice enough. I shouldn’t have brought my “nicer” camera, all of the pictures were out of focus.
Same as with Bear’s, we went to the restaurant my dad eats at EVERY DAY. He works at the courthouse and wanted to show off his grandbabies.
After we said good bye to everyone, we went to the butterfly show.
Pumpkin was picking up butterflies left and right.
Two landed on her bottom
Honey is all about the chase. Once she gets one she is over it and on to the next.
Bear was way more into the ramp (he just walked up and down over and over) but he did stop when Pumpkin showed him hers.
As you can imagine, it’s sort of a butterfly massacre so they release butterflies to make up for the ones that didn’t make it. Pumpkin asked the scientist 100 questions during the release.
Bear was exhausted at this point.
This was just before Pumpkin got in trouble for using her hands. Really she was probably the only kid they didn’t need to worry about.
This kid on the other hand…
At this point Honey was over it and more into the map.
My beautiful beautiful kids. My world.
After the butterfly show, we should have gone home. But we went on. We got our first swim on of the season.
Koala loved it! Of coarse
After this, we rushed home to meet the in laws at the same Italian restaurant we celebrated Bear’s finalization and where we took Bmom and Bdad when we first met out of the agency, and where our rehearsal dinner was.
Minus being late to our son’s finalization, it was an AMAZING day!
Today I stopped at Bmom’s house and I asked her what her opinion would be IF we adopted again. There is an agency in my state that is in desperate need of adoptive parents, specifically for black children. They only work in our state and if they don’t fill the demand, they will have to open up in other states, which is not what they want to do. She knew that for baby #4 we were only going to be open to a biracial or african american child because we didn’t want Honey to be our only black child. Then she found out she was expecting. She knew our position and where we stood. When I asked her what she thought, she didn’t seemed shocked. She said that she knew that’s what we wanted for baby #4 and knew we thought of Koala as a blessing, but she understood. She said she felt like if God wanted us to have another child then we would. Which was kind of my thinking as well. You see, Honey is not a super confident child. She is very much aware that she is different than the rest of her family. We live in a diverse neighborhood, we are involved with the adoption community, have a multiracial playgroup, go to a diverse church, and her school is just the best. But I know from everything I’ve read and all of the speakers I’ve gone to, that depending on the child’s personality, being different in a family can negatively impact that child for the rest of their life. That is a very realistic fear I have for Honey. I also feel tremendous guilt that we were not called on Honey’s half biological sibling (I know it’s God’s plan. And I know there’s nothing I could have done differently). Not to say Honey is the only reason we would be adopting, I wanted 5 kids from the get go. The Hubs wanted 3. And we had NO IDEA that, after becoming infertile, we would have our dream family. We would very much welcome and love another child, if we were so blessed. At the same time I have some major fears. I LOVE our relationship with the boys birthparents. They respect us as parents, they understand our views on things. I don’t know that I will be so lucky again. Would baby/ child #5 need therapies? We don’t have time to put into more therapies. But I feel that God would give us the child that was meant to be, or not meant to be. We aren’t going to keep our homestudy open forever. In fact, we will not be renewing it. So if we weren’t matched by a certain time, then I am ok with that. Really, I am just writing to try to figure it out.
Can I be honest?
I am feeling really guilty about this. As you may remember ( http://addingmembers.blogspot.com/2012/07/hes-here.html ) We were told we had to choose between Petunia and Bear. Our private agency wanted us to only have one baby and then the county gave us one hour to choose. Not knowing Petunia’s future we chose our son. I still feel tremendous guilt about this. I LOVE my boys don’t get me wrong, I am SO blessed to have them in my life, but I feel so guilty about choosing to say goodbye to the baby girl we loved so much. She has since been adopted by the home she went to, I reached out to her mom, but she chose not to have contact with us. On top of this guilt, I reached out to Honey’s birthmom. This was our first contact with her and I am so nervous to see how this relationship develops. She did confirm that she had a boy, Honey’s half biological sibling, that was removed and placed for adoption through the county. He is a few months younger than Bear. So, my heart is breaking all over again because of the What If’s in life. What if we kept Petunia. We would most likely have Honey’s half biological sibling. Did I take that away from Honey? I LOVE my boys with something fierce and I cannot imagine not having them in my life. But I just feel so guilty. I said no to Petunia and as a result, we lost out on Honey’s half bio becoming her brother. I feel bad enough that Honey is the only black child in our family, but now I took this from her. I feel guilty because in a sense, I am happy with my choice. I LOVE my boys. I love their birthparents. I feel like we have it really easy. It just works. But will Honey resent me? I put her through a loss, which is something she greatly struggles with, with losing Petunia (I do think it helped that Bear was there almost immediately after, unlike when we lost S.P. and Peanut) and when she is old enough to realize, I put her through the loss of having her half bio become her brother.
I’m just in a hard spot right now and I feel so bad for Honey. My sweet girl.
Not a day goes by where I don’t think of my sons’ birthparents and pray for them and thank them.
When I saw this pin I got so excited. YES! Someone else gets it!
In this day and age it is pretty uncommon to have a closed adoption. I think a lot of couples going into adoption think they want it closed. Birthparents seem threatening. I can understand that. But the second your agency educates you on what it is to have openness, I don’t understand not changing your mind. I guess that’s where things go sour though. If you don’t have a good agency and you only have one that makes you read a book or little more than total non education, I can see how your opinion would not change.
I have experienced more loss than the typical adoptive parent. And I think the struggle I went/go through with Sweet Potato, Peanut, and Petunia make me more empathetic to the loss that the birthparents feel. I don’t know if that the truth or not but that’s kind of how I feel.
I LOVE our boys birthparents. Like Love Love them. Both of them.
And with that, I think it’s time I tried to reach out to Honey’s birthparents. She goes back and forth, in extremes, one minute wanting me to and the next desperately not. But I think it’s time. I want to reach out to her and give her a place to reach out to me. Our agency said they would be able to send it totally confidential. We will need to build a slow healthy relationship. If at any point Honey doesn’t want to or is acting out, we will cut off contact. She comes first. Her story is different than the boys. She was hurt, badly, by her birthparents. They were not ideal. Hence why they were cut off from her and placed with us. That decision was made for my girl. It was not an act of love. She was harmed and it was proven that going back to her birthparents would be even more harmful. I understand fighting for your child. I understand why she didn’t want to let her go. But there is a selfishness that comes with allowing your child to fester in foster care for years.
I am going to open myself up, see where things go, and hope to find love for Honey’s birthparents. They are part of her. I need to let my resentment go for the harm they caused my sweet girl. So here it goes. The first draft of my letter.
Well to be honest, I am grateful that more people didn’t enter since wordpress wasn’t posting comments in order that they came in I am crazy sick, so I’m sorry for posting this late.
The winner of the necklace is…
CARRIE! I will email you shortly to get your address! Congratulations and thank you to everyone that helped us along the way. Thank you for the prayers. The words of encouragement. The financial blessing. Everything. It means the world to me and I am just so in love with my family. When I learned about my hysterectomy, I just never thought my dreams I had for my family would come true.
adding members 
