5798335292_635e407540_q[1]Just a year and a half ago, my husband and I were trying to adopt from foster care. We had a failed adoption 1 year prior to that so we were trying to be cautious on how we move forward.  We decided that we would not be in a rush and take our time to see what God has in store for us. We got matched within a month of our home study being updated with a six year old girl. Her behavioral needs were pretty great so much so that it would have required for her parent(s) to be accessible to pick her up from school when they called. I knew that this was not the situation for us at that time. It was painstakingly hard to say no because the child needed a family, however, we were not the right family for her.

A couple of months later, we were invited to an adoption party. An adoption party is usually an event that is held somewhere like a bowling alley or a park and has available children from foster care there along with social workers for you to meet. My husband and I decided to go since it was just down the road from us. When we got there, we received a list that had all of the children that would be there that day. We played with a lot of kids throughout the day and were able to speak with their social workers about them. My husband and I met a little girl that we enjoyed being around but she was a little bit older than we had hoped for. After we left my husband and I thought about her more, and while we knew we didn’t want to adopt a child over the age of seven, it was something about her that we liked.

We decided that we would send our home study in to see if we can get more information about her. It took about a month before her social worker got back with us. After learning more about her on paper, we decided to move forward. The next steps were pre-placement visits. We did about eight visits, and then she was placed in our home. We got to know each other a little bit better as each day passed, and once a month her social worker would come to visit. The visits last for about five months and then we received our letter to legalize the adoption. Saturday will be one full year since she was placed in our home. She has grown leaps and bounds since one year ago. We have had our ups and downs as we all tried to adjust to each other, and of course, at times, we still have those moments, because we’re still getting to know one another.

This has been one of the most exciting, draining, tiring, yet rewarding years of my life.  So this Saturday we will be celebrating 1 year since she moved in, but honestly, we were a family from the first time we met!

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