January 31, 2014
I decided to start this blog for a couple of reasons. 1) I thought about starting a journal, but I knew I'd never keep up with it because I just hate writing! Typing is so.much.easier. And 2) We are about to embark on the long, emotional journey of adoption and I thought it would be great to have a place to keep track of the process as we go along. So let's get started...
Adding a second child to our family is something that Jay and I have talked about for probably 7 or 8 years now. Back in '06 and '07 we actually tried getting pregnant (most people don't know that, so if you already knew, then consider yourself one of only few that we told!) After 7 failed attempts at Artificial Insemination, and spending way more money than we had, we decided to tuck it under the rug and forget about it for a while. A long while. But how do you ever really forget??
During the past 4-5 years, we've had a lot of changes in our family. Some financial, some career changes, job loss, emotional changes, and at one point we found ourselves in a real dark and ugly place. Luckily, we overcame all those obstacles and here we are on the other side. Probably about 2 years ago we started revisiting the idea of having another child. We "talked" about fostering to adopt, but I think we've both been really scared at the thought of a temporary situation. Loving a child and then having to give him/her back to their biological family. But last Friday, something happened. Something changed. I'm not a big believer in coincidence, because I like to believe those are "God Moments". Well I had one last Friday. :)
I had to take Liam to the Pediatrician for a trivial matter. We had the appointment for weeks in advance. However, a few days before, I realized he was out of one of his medications and needed a new prescription. So when I called them about it, she said we actually needed an appointment for a med check. So she had to change our original appointment with a nurse to either a physician or physician's assistant. The P.A. that we saw that day was one we've seen many times before, but this time she said something that sparked a conversation that I would LIKE to believe is about to change our lives!
Long story short, we started talking about adoption again and talked about it all weekend. Bless Liam's heart, he is on a new high just thinking about it! He's so excited!! So I called a friend that I know has done the foster-to-adopt and is STILL fostering now as well. She gave me a lot of great information. So Monday of this week, I started making calls to get more information and find out what we have to do to get the ball rolling. We are SO READY!
So....our journey begins tomorrow. We start our certification classes, 2 a day, for the next 4 Saturdays. Then after that we'll have 4 more to make up. We're coming in to the program a little late, but luckily we don't have to take the classes in order. Also, we can take them in any county, so this next month will be in Richland, and we'll have to schedule the last 4 somewhere else.
We haven't decided yet which county we'll get certified in, but that's something we'll probably talk about in the next few weeks.
Elated. I can't put in any other word that better describes how we're all feeling as a family right now.
Let the journey begin.
