The heart of adoption...

I've wanted a big family ever since I was a little girl. I didn't have a heart for adoption back then. God gave that to me just a few years ago. I hear so many people say that they could never adopt a child that wasn't their blood. Having 2 biological children and 3 adopted children, I can tell you that I love all of them. The fact that 3 of them don't share my DNA, means nothing to me. That bond between me and my children can't be broken. They grew in my heart and they continue to do so. :-)

 How did God grow my heart for adoption? My oldest daughter is my biological daughter. We had some help to conceive with her. When she was about 3, she began to ask questions about why her friends had sisters and brothers and she didn't. We had been unable to have another baby. We began to look into adoption. Domestic or international? Well, I didn't think at the time that I could handle giving the child back to their birthparents at that point so we began to look into international adoption.

 We chose to look into Guatemala first, God closed that door. After a little while, I started looking into China. We started putting that plan into place with how much money we were going to have by when and then changes started happening to the China program that was going to make us have to wait for a very long time. With our only daughter already in kindergarten at that point, we didn't want to wait much longer to add to our family. We felt like God was closing the door there too.

 One night, I couldn't sleep thinking about it all and I felt God calling me to look into adopting here. I looked into adoption agencies here in our state and found out about a foster care agency that was literally 5 minutes down the road. I contacted them and we went to an informational meeting about a week or so later. We decided to start the process and we went through our 6 weeks of training, all the paperwork, the background checks, and the references. We had to work a little harder than the rest of the couples we went through as we had also lived in 2 other states within the past few years and we needed background checks from them too. It was a little nervewracking with all that was needed, but we got through it. We made the decision though that any child that we were offered, we would take as a placement regardless of their race and as long as they were our daughter's age or younger as we wanted her to remain the oldest. We also determined that if any of them came up for adoption, that we would be their forever family.

 Shortly after we became licensed, we got our first placement. A 13 month old little boy, that we were just supposed to have short-term while his birthmom got some help that she needed. Well, we wound up adopting him right after his 3rd birthday. He's our very strong-willed, but very cute little boy. Parenting him is very intense to say the least. He's always kept me on my toes. He's teaching me a lot and all I know to do some days is to cover him in prayer. I often wonder if he's going to be a lawyer one day with how argumentative he can be and with his endless chatter. Being cute is his saving grace. ;-) He struggles with ADHD, sensory integration, oppositional defiance disorder, reactive attachment disorder (RAD), and post-traumatic stress disorder. A couple of years after we adopted him, our 2 girls came to live with us...they kept me on my toes a lot too until we found out that they both had ADHD. Once we started meds and their adoption happened, a lot of the behaviors settled down. I think they just needed to know that what we were telling them was the truth. The older sister has ADHD and some ODD, but the ODD mostly goes away when she is on the right dose of meds. The younger sister has ADHD, sensory integration, and some problems processing information.

 Right after we found out that we were given the chance of adopting the girls, I thought I had just been sick. God gave us an additional blessing. After 9 years of trying to have another baby, we were pregnant again with another baby girl. My son wasn't happy that it wasn't a little brother for him to play with, but we were all excited that she was coming. Due to some problems with high blood pressure and diabetes, she came 5 weeks early. She's now 2 years old and she brings all of us so much joy. She's really taught me a lot about attachment too and we are striving to cover our adopted kids with the dance of attachment to make sure that we meet their needs from the things that they missed out on in the years that we didn't have them.

 We fostered 8 children and adopted 3. I will never forget the 5 that we fostered and pray for them all of the time. Those good-byes were hard and I think they all took a little part of my heart with them when they left. I will share here about our struggles, our accomplishments, and different things that come up with our family in the hopes of being an encouragement to others.

 Lord, I pray for anyone that is reading here that is pondering adoption. I pray that they give You their hearts and let You work through them. You give the graces that we all need to handle whatever comes our way. Help them to see that you can parent a child even if they are not technically their blood. Help them to see that by caring for Your precious children, that the bond grows in their hearts for that child with time. Amen 

Verses on adoption...
 Ephesians 1:3-8 I have been chosen by God and adopted as His child. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. I am a child of God; God is spiritually my Father. 

Romans 8:14,15 because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."