Full of Thanks

This week has been a whirlwind! Thanksgiving has been fantastic. My husband and I hosted, for our second year in a row, and I absolutely love being the host. The best part of this weekend is that I have not had any anxiety! I am so thankful that I am able to go so long without anxiety! Whoohoooo!

Also, this week, my husband and I completed our foster care paperwork, and are now waiting to schedule our first training session. We are continuing to pray about the process as we are waiting to begin. I must say, that the waiting is terrible, and we haven’t even been waiting on a child yet! MY GOODNESS!

 

Debating

After going through the Foster Care orientation training last night, my husband and I are both in agreeance that God is leading us to foster/adopt (which is incredibly exciting). Now, the next question we need to discuss is what we are going to do about having our own child. We agree that we want to have our own baby and adopt, however, we need to decide which comes first. Biological or adoption? 

Originally, we were going to begin trying to get pregnant in March, but if we foster/adopt first then we need to push that back. But if we do biological first, then maybe we should start trying earlier? 

These are the questions my husband and I are debating. They are huge, life-changing questions and we do not want to make a decision lightly. Thank you for all your prayers and words of wisdom. If you have any comments, please let me know! 

Always on my mind

I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but truly, all I can think about right now is getting licenses as a foster family and getting our child placement. I was thinking about how natural it all feels, and I realized that foster/adopting is something that I have always wanted to do. When I was a freshman and sophomore in high school I went down to Mexico and worked in an orphanage for a week. That experience truly changed my view on children, because I saw such a lack loving parents first hand. Ever since then I always knew in my heart I wanted to help kids who were without parents. 

Like I mentioned in a previous post, it almost feels surreal now that I am actually beginning the licensing process, because it always felt like a distant dream. However, my husband is 100% on board and he supports my dream. 

I am feeling incredibly blessed. 

Step 1 of the Foster Process

Today, my husband and I had our first chat with the foster care agency we are working with and had our screening. We were asked information about our background, and preferences with the children we would be willing to take into our home. We go to our orientation on Thursday evening and we will have many of our questions answered. After the orientation we will be working on getting all of our paper work submitted, and then go through 30 hours of training.

It was all very exciting to actually begin the process, especially since fostering/adopting a child is something that I have wanted to do for years. It feel surreal that my husband is on board and 100% invested as well. I know that it is not going to be an easy process by any stretch of the imagination. I understand (to the best of my limited experience) that there will be difficult times and heartbreak. However, on the flip side, I know that this is something that God has placed on our hearts and all the pain will be worth it.

I will continue to keep you all updated as we get further into the process and any other thoughts or questions that I need help with!

Thanks for all your love and support!

Moving Forward

Thank you to all of your kind words about my husband and I deciding to become foster parents. To be honest, it is all we can think and talk about! Not only are we excited to begin the process, but we are also nervous. We are still waiting to hear from an agency and while we have been waiting, we have been doing a lot of research and making a list of questions that we want to ask. We have also been talking to our families about our decision and they are all very supportive and on board. Now, we just wait!

Also, today has been amazing! My husband and I spent most of the afternoon cuddled on the couch and chatting about anything and everything! It was wonderful because we haven’t been able to slow down in several weeks. It was amazing!

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend so far and you are enjoying your time as well!

A big step in our lives!

Over the last year my husband and I have been thinking about foster care/adoption and how it would fit into our family dynamic. We have prayed a lot about it and have finally come to the discussion that we want to go forward with becoming Foster Parents! It is very exciting and terrifying at the same time.

Many times when we have discussed adoption, we have done so in hypotheticals, so it was never real. However, today we sat down and honestly discussed our feelings towards fostering, and we were both on the same page. We both are invested 100%.

We are in the beginning stages of planing, but I am looking forward to learning more about the process and finding out what God has in store for our future.

Do any of you have experiences with foster care? Please share your comments with me!