Journey Anniversary

February has always been kind of an anniversary month for us. It’s the month we chose to tell all of our family and friends of our decision to adopt. So many mixed emotions come with thinking back to when we told our immediate family. Excitement and fear.

The excitement knowing hubs and I were going to be parents. Having children naturally wasn’t something we really worried over. We knew so many children were already out there. Waiting. Needing. We had many decisions to make. The biggest was with whom we were going to have us help through the process. We chose not to go through the state process. The classes were never going to fit into our current schedule. We chose a private agency, they offered the classes we needed online and on our schedule. We also knew there would be a huge cost financially choosing private adoption, but we knew it would all work out.

The fear part of this was what people would say about us having children this way. I spoke with my mom first. She was sad in the beginning. She wanted me to have a daughter who was exactly like me. She came around though. Hubs and I took her to a toy section of a store one day and we looked at all the nerf guns and legos. Her mind eased knowing we weren’t jumping into this decision lightly. Now when it came to hubs parents that conversation didn’t go so great. They kept asking what was wrong with us that we couldn’t have our own children naturally. We didn’t answer those kind of questions for the simple fact it wasn’t their business. We said we would love to have their support with this. If not, that’s ok too. His dad was very upset with not having his last name being carried on. I just rolled my eyes to this. Any child we adopt would have his last name.

It has been six years into this journey! The first year we spent doing online classes and filling out so much paperwork. As soon as the next round of paperwork was released to us, I was doing it that very day. I was trying to go through the process as quickly as possible. The part that took the longest was this form we had to do called the child characteristic form. We had to choose what kind of children we were willing to raise. Lots of words on there I did not know. I called my mom for a lot of the medical terms. The form took lots of self-reflection and honesty of the children we could raise in the county were we live. We knew some children with very specific needs would not be able to receive the care they needed. We also spent lots of time deciding what age we would raise.

After ten long months we finally had an approved home study. We could now begin to find our children. Months of searching would go by and so much heartbreak. We kept inquiring though. One day we received an email from Missouri! A case worker had seen our home study and profile and believed we would be a possible match for a sibling group. A girl ten years old and a boy eight years old. I was super excited. I asked if they would be willing to send a picture. The caseworker sent us one and I fell in love immediately.

How do you fall in love so fast? With a picture! I just looked into their eyes and saw hope. My husband didn’t have the same reaction. Typical guy. The heart of a mom just knows. There is no other way to describe it. We looked over all of their paperwork and decided we would like to go through the matching process with these children. We had an interview over the phone with their caseworker, foster parents, lawyer, and a children’s service lawyer. After many questions back and forth, they said they would call us back with their decision. We didn’t know when that would be. We responded by, “Can’t wait”. Not even half an hour later they called back. We were shocked. We thought for sure we would hear back next week. We answered, holding our breath. They gave us the great news, we had been ‘matched’. We were going to be parents.