As proven by my lack of blogging lately, I have thus far managed to keep the promise I made to myself of staying inordinately busy this summer. A zoo visit here, lunch with friends there, working out every hour in between…it has been easy so far. However, this IS summer (a.k.a. Baby Season), and I can remain oblivious no longer to the growing bellies protruding beneath every tank top and dress worn by every woman between the ages of 20-50. Unless I send up prayers for temporary blindness (and please don’t), I cannot escape the fact that virtually everyone I know is pregnant at this very moment. No amount of working out or staring at jaguar spots can give me the amnesia I have been hoping for. This leads me to the big reveal…the cure to my maternal longing…
Tomorrow we are starting the long journey towards becoming foster parents. We are meeting with a lady from DHS to fill out what promises to be a mountain of paperwork. This will be followed by background checks, financial statements, fingerprinting, physicals…the list goes on. Once we pass all of that, we will begin working towards completing 27 hours of parenting classes on free evenings and/or weekends. The last step is having a home study in which they check and make sure your home is kid friendly - or something to that effect. Then, BAM, you get a phone call and suddenly, for all intensive purposes, you’re a parent.
As you can tell from the above paragraph, we have no clue what to expect, we are in no way prepared, and we have nothing, and I mean NOTHING, for kids at our house. This is our leap of faith. Opening our home to a child that we will pour our hearts into, only to have her returned to her parents, is sure to happen. And sure to be agonizing. Our ultimate hope is that we can foster an infant and eventually adopt - as a few of our friends have been blessed enough to do. We were informed that Canadian County is not the mecca of infant adoptions, but we aren’t just doing this to fulfill our desires. We are doing it to minister to a child that may never go to church except with us, to show a toddler the wonders of unconditional love that they may have never experienced, to give a newborn a warm embrace and a comforting place to sleep. No, we have no clue what to expect, but we do know what we have to offer…and that’s everything we are.
Amber, I know this is such a huge step for you and Eric! You may recall...we've been there. We were foster parents to only one child so far - a little 3 year-old girl named, interestingly enough, Amber. It was a real blessing to us. And we hope - even feel called - to again open our home to "the orphan" as God's plan and timing allows. I guess you could say I'm even a little envious. I know God is going to use your availability for His purposes and for your own spiritual growth. I'm excited to see what He has in store for you in the days to come!!
ReplyDeleteIt really isn't a long process... couple months and BAM! Babies everywhere. :) You can probably fit 10 of them in your big ole house. Yay! I have an amazing friend who has a beautiful blog about her journey - start from the beginning. It will fuel a passion for these babies. She runs Anna's House, another agency here in the city... http://onemomsfosterjourney.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteI'm not having babies, but if I were I'd probably be WAY less prepared than it sounds like you're required to be. WOW!
ReplyDeleteYes G, if people were required to go through all of this before they had their OWN children, there would probably be no need for foster parents!
ReplyDeleteI am thrilled to hear about your decision Amber. I was telling someone yesterday whom I just met (and who has 6 adopted children....) about the resentment I felt toward having to go through the home study, background check, etc. for our son's adoption. Obviously I understand why it is a requirement, but it was a highly frustrating process for me. I still think I have anger, bitterness and frustration about that and probably will again should we choose to do the adoption or foster care route to grow our family. I definitely think that is an area that I need to pray against in my heart....and I will pray about it for you too. It's hard to feel like you have to justify why you will be good parents.
ReplyDeleteThis statement in your post touched my heart deeply:
"We are doing it to minister to a child that may never go to church except with us, to show a toddler the wonders of unconditional love that they may have never experienced, to give a newborn a warm embrace and a comforting place to sleep."
Praying for you as you start this journey that God's amazing plans would be better than you could have ever asked or imagined.