Have you every thought about Foster/Adoption?
I did.. before I was even married I was introduced to Foster/Adoption.. and it broke my heart. I just could not imagine having that happen to you as a child.. to be removed from your home and having to wait until you could be adopted to have a stable environment.
Those thoughts were in the back of my mind for a long time, I never really acted on them or even talked about it to my husband or anyone.. but they were there.
My husband and I married young, I was barely 20 on our wedding day. I had all these ideas about what my life was going to be like.. I would graduated college, teach for a couple years (I have a music education degree), then start having kids at around 25. So I did graduate college, but by the time I graduated I had no intention of teaching, it just was not for me anymore. Soon after that I was introduced to photography (and that started my photography career for 15 years). A few year passed and I hit 25.. time for kids.. well, maybe not.. we were not ready. And it continued that way and I came to realize that I did not want to have babies, but my husband realized he did. So we spend a few more years discussing it and we were not coming to a conclusion. I know marriage is about compromise, but wow.. this was a big issue, and I felt very strongly by this time that I was not meant to have children.
This is when the thoughts of Foster/Adoption came back to me, keep in mind that I had never mentioned this to my husband. One day we were having another conversation about children and I just blurted out, “I have always thought about adopting an older child from foster care!!” He looked at me like I had 2 heads and said, “you have?” And this began our journey, at first he was not sure it was right for him but he continued to consider it and find out more information. A couple years passed, as we were in the middle of a home remodel (that subsequently made us go broke after the losses of our two photography businesses) but eventually we got there and took the Adoption classes required by San Diego County. It ended up taking us a year to get through the classes and paperwork (it does not take everyone this long). We were finally ready.. and we waited.. a year.
Then the call came. “We have an emergency placement we would like for you to consider. There are two girls, 3 and 4, that will be coming on an airplane (they were located out of town due to their situation) next week. You will not get to see them prior to picking them up and taking them home, and no we don’t have any photos.. you have 24 hours to decide..”
Me: Uh, um, ok…
So I called my husband, his response was pretty much like mine. So we spent the next 24 hours praying and thinking and decided to go for it. The rest is mostly history, it has been two years (we just celebrated our anniversary recently) and we are mostly a normal family (but is any family normal?). I will not tell you it was a piece of cake.. it was not. I will not tell you that we fell in love immediately.. we did not. But through it all we were 100% committed to our girls (and they are our girls!!). The love came and it is beautiful. In the end I truly believe that God took away any interest I might have in having babies.. because my girls were not suppose to come out of my tummy.
It does not take a special person to adopt.. it just takes 100% commitment and the willingness to love.
Do you have a heart for adoptions? There are so many ways to support children in foster care even if you are not in a position to adopt. Frugal, Freebies and Deals has made a commitment to donate a portion of our proceeds to the Dave Thomas Foundation, according to their site:
115,000 U.S. children are in foster care, waiting to be adopted. They have been removed from their homes as victims of child abuse, neglect or abandonment and are left without a family. The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption works on behalf of these children, because we believe every child deserves a permanent home and loving family.
At FFD we believe that, too and that is why we want to support them.
Here are some ways you can get involved with Foster/Adoption:
::Adopt a child from your local (county) foster care organization
::Become a Foster Parent
::Volunteer to work with foster children in your area
::Donate to the Dave Thomas Foundation
::Have your Church support a National Adoption Day Event
I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas about Foster/Adoption. It’s definitely close to my heart.
You can read more about how affordable Foster/Adoption really is here
photo by Beki Dawn Photography
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