As many of you already know, we are expecting! Except that it may be an infant, a one year old, or a toddler. We also have no idea where they will be born, what their name is, how long they will be with us, or who their father is.
That's right, we are becoming foster parents.
This journey has been a long time coming. I have wanted to adopt for as long as I can remember. As I became more aware of the foster care system, through my schooling and work as a CPS investigator, Brad and I decided that we would become foster parents at some point in the future. This was early in on our marriage, well before we knew we would have fertility problems. At that time, we planned on having a few biological children first, and then to become foster parents and adopt our last child.
God sure had other plans.
We had difficulty conceiving Elijah. It required medications, injections, treatment, and monitoring for many cycles for us to conceive our miracle. We are so blessed that God gave us the honor of being parents to this incredible little boy.
Brad and I enjoy being parents so much. As Elijah grew from an infant into a toddler, we started discussing when and how we should grow our family next. The odds of us conceiving naturally are extremely low. So our conversations turned to whether we should start treatments again, or if we should look into becoming a foster family.
These were some tough discussions. The hardest part was that they were both options that we were comfortable with and wanted to do. Fostering was never an "if we should do it" thing, but a "when should we do it" thing. And we had already gone through fertility treatments. While they were painful, expensive, and emotionally draining, they were so worth it to have Elijah as our son.
When we in the stage of having our discussions and gathering information, I contacted a friend of mine. She lives local to us and has fostered and adopted children. I had asked which agency she used, and she highly recommended a local agency that I was not familiar with.
The next day, I was driving up the highway. I was praying to God, asking him to lead us to which decision he had planned for us. I asked him whether he was calling us to foster, or to pursue fertility treatments. As I was praying that, an electronic billboard flashed an advertisement. It was for the foster care agency that my friend had just told me about the day prior, and it said "We need foster parents"! If that isn't God giving us an answer, then I don't know what is!
After discussing this with Brad, he agreed that it was a sign from God that He wants us to become foster parents, and that He wants us to start the process now. We want to be the safe and caring home for a child, no matter how long they are with us. We want to love on them and show them God's unconditional love. We want to pray for and support their biological family in their goal of reunifying. And if that in unable to happen, we would love to adopt them.
We know this won't be easy. We are putting our family out there financially, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Our plan is to love on any kid with us as hard as we can, even if it's only for a season.
James 1:27 says that "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." This call looks different to different people. For our family, we feel so convicted that God is calling us to look after "orphans in their distress" through becoming foster parents.
It's a scary ride we are about to embark on, but also one of the most exciting journeys of our lives.
Please feel free to ask ANY questions about foster care, becoming foster parents, supporting foster families, etc! We are so excited to share this journey in hopes to show others what foster care really looks like in the day to day, and want to be as transparent as possible.
Thanks for all of the love, prayers, and support that we have already received. We couldn't have done this without the encouragement and help of our friends and family.
Love and Blessings,
Annmarie
No comments:
Post a Comment