Questioning Along the Journey

Hmmm... How to put down what's been on my heart since we finished PRIDE training? I have gone back and forth with myself a million times about this post because I'm not sure I can convey what I'm really feeling, but it won't get out of my head. I do think that others in similar situations, whether adopting from foster care or perhaps even a poverty stricken nation, have felt the same. I believe we need to share with each other so we don't feel alone, I know it wouldn't hurt for me to know I'm not the only one.

This is my ordeal lately. I want to parent more children. Desperately. I have always wanted to be a mom and wanted to be a mom to many. No big deal, right? We're adopting, it will happen eventually.

The thing is the route we have chosen to lead us to our children means that our children will possibly be coming out of horrible circumstances, which will lead to them being taken from their families. Not relinquished by a mother who wants a better life for them or is unable to parent, but taken by the foster care system for the children's own welfare. We're going into this knowing that we may only be meant to be a family for some kids for a time and someday maybe our promised child will come to us through a foster/adopt situation.

It's this maybe that's got me thinking so much lately, and feeling guilty at times too. I have been praying for a long time for this promised baby girl and now that we are finished with PRIDE and actually have a home study I find myself praying even more. Especially on days like today when it seems I am surrounded by others with beautiful little blessings in their arms and I'm reminded of what I want so much but am still waiting for. I pray, and ask God why. "Why did you promise me a baby, Lord, and here I am still waiting?", "Please, Lord, please let them call soon." And usually as soon as this one flies from my lips I am hit with the guilt. I start thinking, "Wait, in order for them to call that will have to mean that they've had to remove a child." That possibly this child has been abused. Does this mean that I am praying for something like this to happen? That's not what I want. I don't want some parents to harm their child so that I can gain. But, yet, I know that it does occur, everyday. Even right here in our small little corner of Virginia. People hurt their kids, they allow them to be put in dangerous situations, and they abandon and neglect them. I have even seen it first-hand when I taught preschool.

So, I'm not trying to say that I want to benefit from this happening but I do know that things like this go on. I am saying that I am glad my family is ready, willing, and able to step to the plate for kids who have been hurt, in one way or another. I think after all the roadblocks that we've hit and how smoothly the training for PRIDE went, and we have such a peace now about working with this team, I think this is the path we were supposed to take all along. We just thought that we could do it our own way for a while and God would just follow along. When He was just waiting for us to take off the blinders and follow him.

So, where does my guilt fall in with all this? If this is the road God wants us on and He has promised us this child we have been praying for then this is how she will be joining our family. I have a lot of questions and not so many answers right now. But, hey, that's the way it often goes! AM I the only one who has ever felt this way?

Families Needed

As you may be able to tell this is supposed to be a blog about our adoption of a baby girl from Vietnam, however, here lately it's been about whatever the crazy woman who lives in my head feels like at the moment. That's because we are making NO progress on an adoption, from anywhere. After all the stank that went down with the agency we were going to use we decided to just sit back and see what happened and whether or not adoption from Vietnam would even continue. As we gave it some time we started thinking more about a special needs adoption. We had thought before that we would be willing to adopt a child that may be passed over otherwise. Since we have been trained as Therapeutic foster parents and I have experience working in the school system and our church with Special Education students we're pretty sure we could handle a variety of issues.

With all that said my problem is that I have been checking out all the Waiting Child lists that I know of and so many of these children are in China and Korea and we are not approved to adopt from either. I hate it because every list I see the majority of their children are from one of these two places and I just keep thinking if they didn't have such strict requirements perhaps a lot of these kids would have families by now. I understand the desire for the children to have the best life possible but what I can't figure out is how can being a couple years over 45 make you an unfit parent or how can being over a certain body mass disqualify you to be a good parent? These children are living in orphanages and the care they receive may be better than in days past but it's not anything like having a family that you know is yours forever. A little extra weight, a past bout with depression, being older or any of those other minor issues isn't going to make it less a family.

We still have plans to adopt, we are just not saying we are adopting from "XYZ" and I'm trying not to put a timeline on it. I know..."Good Luck with that!"