Monday, April 15, 2013

Adoption: Where We're At & What's Next

This year, Josh and I got way behind in writing our "Generally Around Christmas" letter. We were just having trouble deciding what to write. No real new changes happened in 2012 that we hadn't already shared in our previous letter, and we didn't really have any funny anecdotes to share. I just kept putting it off, and next thing I know, it's April and no longer generally around Christmas. Oh well...

But, because we didn't send out a letter, people are kind of in the dark as to what our current plans for our future as parents are. 

Here is the quick run down:

-We are quitting the foster parenting program. For some reason, unknown to us or anyone else, we haven't received a single placement call since last August! For those of you who are unfamiliar with the system, this is pretty unheard of. Needless to say, we are pretty discouraged. We joined this program to begin helping children in our area, and that hasn't been the case for us at all. Also, we were told by our fostering agency that we couldn't adopt until we turn 25 because that's the law in Illinois. Come to find out, that is completely untrue and you only have to be 21. [[Thanks a lot, guys.]] 

-We have now switched agencies and are moving forward with a domestic adoption. We have mountains of paperwork to fill out, a video/profile/scrapbook to make, and a lot of waiting to do.

-We are in the beginning stages of fundraising. If you would like to help us out, you can either buy something from my online shop or you can simply click on the "Donate" button in my sidebar. We need to raise somewhere around $13,000 [[we don't actually have an exact figure right now, but that's our estimate based on the averages our worker gave us.]]


How you can be praying with us:

1. Fundraising - The money isn't all due at once, which is a blessing, but we will need help reaching our goal. We're really praying for God's provision here.

2. Patience - Adoption is definitely a waiting game. Once our profile is in the system, we wait until the birth family chooses us. Our worker said that we should be prepared to wait at least two years. [[say what??]]

3. Community - We're really looking at this process as an opportunity to draw us closer to other families who have adopted, are in the process, or want to adopt in the future. We also want to use our story to educate others about adoption. Although it has gained popularity in the last few years, there are still many who think that adoption is just for those who can't have children of their own, or for the super rich. This is, of course, a complete myth, and we just pray that our story can be one that encourages others to walk this path as well.

If you have any questions, leave a comment, or email me at fayaknits {at} gmail {dot} com

Much love!




No comments:

Post a Comment