Keeping the faith

call and ask if your profile has ever been on "soft hold". They don't volunteer that information becasue soem people find the rollercoaster too much to handle, knowing that they were being considered and then not chosen.Soft hold is when your profile has been given to a bmom too take home and pray about. One of many she may pick out in the office and then decide from.I was told that the average wait time would be 18 months. We waited just over a year. We also didn't end up getting an infant, we were open to any and all children and we were shown profiles of older LDS kids in foster care quite often. I wouldn't change what qualities you're open to just to be shown more often, but you may want to do a bit more research and see if you need to adjust something if you haven't ever been on soft hold.I didn't see soft holds as being rejected, I saw it as something moving forward. One year no news would have killed me, I needed to see evidence of things happening. And I limited myself to only calling once a month to see what had been happening that month...and the secretary could tell me, I didn't need to bother my case worker (who also handled bfamilies).We waited 8 years after being married before applying to adopt. We had been childless for nearly 10 when we were finally chosen. We also had a failed match, and we turned down some situations that didn't feel right. There is nothing else I can think of that lets you live hand in hand with God and lets you feel him guiding your every move. Discouragement is part of the deal unfortunately, but the pure insiration I felt constantly was worth it. I know in my heart the experience of adopting was without a doubt the most spiritual thing I have ever done, nothing else FORCES you to rely on God's will for so long, like adoption...

I am not sure where you live, but we are in Northern CA and were told that average wait was about 1 - 2 years when we were approved with LDSFS. After one year they then told us the average wait was 2 - 3 years. But then I have a friend who adopted 4 infants in 5 years (to the day) from the same office we were with. They were the same ages as us. You just never know. We had a great relationship with our worker(s) we had 3 different ones. I emailed them all the time to see if anything was going on. One year after being approved we also decided to do some of our own advertisting and used parentprofiles.com. I highly recommend it and it is very affordable for LDS families. Your office should have more info on it, but feel free to PM me if you want. But, to make a long story short, after we had been with LDSFS for 2 years and had 2 failed adoptions (both were matches through parent profiles) we knew it was time to move on. It was hard for us to know that we had been trying to have another baby for 5 years and trying to adopt for 2 years and we were waiting for an expectant mom to choose us, when she had lots of great choices. We know our family is not done yet (we are in our early 30's and have an 8 yr. old bio daughter). So, we prayed really hard and switched agencies. We are now working with our county and are very glad this is where we are. We are grateful to have a social worker making the placements and finding the right fit for our family. We have been approved with them for 5 weeks and have already been offered 2 sibling sets (which is what we have asked for), but we had to say No for different reasons. But with our new agency waiting for 6 months is waiting a LONG time. If you really feel like LDSFS is for you, be patient and I do think parent profiles helped me. It helped me to feel more proactive and like I was doing something. It was a lot harder emotionally to be emailing directly with expectant moms, but I needed that to feel like I was doing all I could and to know someone was looking at me. Good luck and hang in there!!

Aspenhall, How were you shown these profiles? We are going thru DHS but we sent our homestudy to the nearest LDSFS offices in case they heard of children in foster care. V, I understand how you feel. We have been actively on the path towards adoption for over a year and I feel like we have barely gotten anywhere. We have our homestudy completed but have yet to be approved for our fostercare license. It's been more than 2 years since I first felt prompted to adopt again and I'm starting to lose faith (in myself). I'm starting to second guess everything. Was it the Spirit or just my own insanity? Last week, I thought I might have found our kids but now, they are gone from the photolisting. That would mean they have already been placed according to that photolisting's policies. I feel so foolish. So much for thinking the Spirit was telling me they were ours. I used to be so sure we were on the right path even if it seemed a bit crazy. Now, I wonder if I'm just wasting everyone's time and energy for nothing but my own stupid thoughts. I guess I'm pretty discouraged right now. It seems like there are so many kids that need families but any I express interest in are already placed or have issues we can't handle or I just never hear anything. Oh well, time will tell. I still have faith we'll find our "needle in a haystack."

Our LDSFS office had been licensed with a foster care license that year, and being in utah, quite a few profiles were either requested by them, or sent to them by CPS (DCFS) case workers.We were just listed with LDSFS, and they were the ones to show us the foster care profiles.

Dear V and others,Here it is midnight and I've been up since 5:30 this morning...but I don't think it was an accident that I happened upon this post. First of all, it has been very reassuring to read some of these experiences to know that I'm not the only one who went through doubting my own Spiritual feelings. I really like what aspen said that "discouragement is part of the deal." Anytime I felt discouraged I felt like I was a failure for not having faith. My husband would remind me of Job and Sarah and then I would feel even worse for not being as faithful as them through times of trial. Ugh! In reality, discouragement is part of the process and hopefully it forces us to our knees for even more guidance and inspiration. My story is too long to share here, but one relevant part is that after being "on the list" at LDS FS for a little over three months I started having these small spiritual inclinations about a child coming to our family. Over the next 10 months, I had feelings that our first child would be a daughter, of African-American descent, what her name would be, etc. I was inspired to pray that our child would come before my mother passed away (she was battling cancer). Slowly I started, almost unconsciously, getting out our baby supplies like the carseat, etc. Right before I went home to be with my mother, I told my husband to get out the crib and bassinette from the basement. The next day we were contacted by a potential birthmom, due any time with a daughter whose birthfather was African-American. A few days later she told us she wanted us to be the parents of her daughter. Unfortunately, this was a few days after my mother had passed away. I waited there with my dad (my home state was close to the state where the potential birthmother lived) for three weeks until she actually gave birth. Her daughter was born and she decided she couldn't place. A devastating event overall, especially only three weeks after my mother died. But the most difficult part for me was wondering about all those spiritual feelings I had. Wondering if I was just making it all up with wishful thinking, but deep down knowing that those things were not coincidences. Honestly, I was angry with God for a long time. I felt He had taunted me when, even though the pbm had free agency, He knows all and knew she wouldn't place so why would He plant all those Spiritual insights when He knew it wouldn't work out? Those were dark months for me. Over time I healed and the way I resolved it myself was to know that I might not ever know or understand why that situation happened the way it did. All I do know is that those were true spiritual feelings that I had. I can't play the game of "what if...?" I simply trust Heavenly Father that I needed to go through that experience, although with my limited perspective I may not ever fully understand why in this life. I hope that makes sense. Another spiritual feeling I had was that after the adoption fell through, I knew that it would be more than a year before another child came to us. It wasn't depression speaking, this was something I just KNEW. So, I used that year to go to counseling, etc. We moved to a new city. After arriving here we decided to go for broke (literally and metaphorically). We did parent profiles for 6 months (worth a try, but didn't work for us). We signed up with a second agency in addition to LDS FS (one they recommended). And we even got approval from our insurance agency to start some infertility treatments again. Also in this process the Spirit inspired me to retool our letter and collage. I had a clear image of the kind of birthmother we hoped for and I let our letter reflect that. A little over 2 1/2 years after we first started "officially" waiting with LDS FS, we were contacted by that "dream" birthmother. Five months after that, she delivered her healthy boy and placed him in our arms two days later. We have a wonderful open adoption and our joy is full. I know when I was discouraged I hated reading stories like this because I would get jealous and afraid that it would never happen for us. But I have to testify that your fondest dreams can come true, even though you may have to wait longer than you ever thought possible! I hope this has been helpful and feel free to PM me if you would like more details, encouragement, have questions, etc. Best Wishes,L.

I cannot tell you how I feel knowing that I am not alone. Knowing that I share the same exact feelings as other LDS waiting parents. Knowing that I am not the only one who has lost or is losing the faith. Knowing that questioning the Spirit is okay, but not questioning the intent. We are in Northern California. Parent profiles will not let us post our profile because they stopped posting California couples. I have asked our caseworker from time to time whereelse we can advertise but she has never really gotten back to me. She has advised that I re-do the picture collage, which I am working on presently. I just wanted to pesonally thank each of you that has responded and to let you know how much better I feel about myself and this adoption thing. V

I so know what you guys are talking about. It has been almost a year since we felt prompted to adopt. We prayed, went to the temple, prayed, talked, and prayed some more. My dh even gave me blessings that have talked about our new baby coming to our family. But after the failed match that we had in October, my dh's business failing, us having to use our adoption savings to pay bills while he found another job, and now us moving to a different city to be near his new job, it is all so overwhelming!! I really want our new son, and I know we have been told he is coming, but we have had to put our adoption plan completely on hold now to save back up the $$$. It felt so urgent last summer, and now it is stalled. It's disheartening. I have questioned more than once, but I really want our baby, and I am trying to find out what we are supposed to be doing next.

We adopted our son 3 1/2 years ago from Russia. I had not had any kind of spiritual feelings about him, We just knew we wanted to have a child and this was the only was we could. I have always taken comfort from my Patriarcal blessing where is says 'children will be sent to my home' this has been particularly comforting as we've recently been going through a very lenghty second assessment. (it's taken 2 1/2 years so far). As our second assessment is not finally finished and we're nearly ready to send paperwork to Russia again I have had a few little feelings about our future daughter. Nothing big, I just feel that she was born recently. Good luck. Hopefully you'll get a referal soon.

BTW I found that infertility and treatment knocked my faith so much. I became afraid to pray for anything to do with the adoption because I had prayed so much that our IVF would work and it didn't. our son restored my faith thought because I can see the purpose of the trial of our faith now that it has ended.

Dear Waiting, If it's any comfort, rest assured that even biological children can come much later than expected. Specifically, a family in our ward had a beautiful daughter 6 months after getting married, and then struggled for years with infertility and failed adoptions. 16 years after the birth of their daughter, the sister found out she was pregant (at 40+ years old). She was bedridden most of the pregnancy and of course the fear was she'd lose the baby. She had a beautiful, perfect son. You're not too old and you didn't wait too long. Trust the spirit. :) Best wishes, Jennifer

Have you considered adopting a waiting child? There are so many millions of children waiting desperately for a mom and dad just like you are waiting desperately for a child. I have 6 children (5 of which are adopted). My kids are 8,8,4,3,3 and such blessings! All of them were waiting children. Their life without adoption would have been miserable (3 of them would have died and 1 would have been blind). But they are doing awsome! My life without children would have been miserable (I was born to be a mother). But my cup runneth over! We are so happy we are adding another baby and are currently in process to bring him home. God loves all children and wants all children in loving families. Sometimes it takes thinking outside the box and looking at these children as the Lord sees them. I wouldn't trade my kids for the world even though they were considered "hard to place". They are healthy (well one is having medical problems right now), happy, adorable, and can melt your heart (and like all kids push your buttons). I run a yahoo group for LDS families who have adopted internationally (a lot of us have also adopted domestically hard to place babies and children). If you are still waiting, I would encourage you to come check us out. I have never "waited" to be matched with a child. On the contrary, I turned down kids and babies on a weekly basis. I am not saying in anyway that it is the path for everyone, but it is definitely worth considering. Kelly

We have been waiting for over 2 years also, and I too have felt through the spirit that we have another child that is suppose to come to us. We FINALLY got a birth mother contact and she actually picked us. We were suppose to fly across the country and the night before we did, the birth mom changed her mind. Later, she had the baby and decided to place with us again. Then she changed her mind again. Now, they say they are coming across the country to meet with us. We will see. We adopted our last child through the foster care system and it took 3 years to be able to adopt him. I swore I would never foster again because the emotional roller coaster was too much for us. Now, I am right back on one again. Please don't think you are whinning when you talk about your impatience. We all need some way to vent about the situations we are placed in. I am sorry that it is taking you so long to adopt. I haven't lost faith in God with the situation, but I have had times where I am doubting myself and my feelings too. As far as, feeling that we are suppose to get another baby, and it still hasn't happened. I will pray for you and hope everything turns out okay. Patience and faith is such a hard thing to have sometimes but don't give up yet. Heavenly Father will make things happen the way they are suppose to. Good luck!