The Burundi Adoption Update

This is a hard post to write, so I have put it off for a while.  We got news a few weeks ago that Burundi had approved us for adopting one of their children.  This is a big and exciting step in the process, and the first real progress we made in close to a year since mailing our dossier.  We were told that the next step would be their government going through the same process to approve an orphaned child, which could take WEEKS.

What?

Weeks?

We heard nothing for so long and then we were told that we could be just weeks away from being matched with a child.  This was a dream come true!

Unfortunately this dream came true at the exact wrong time.  We had days before been placed with two additional foster children, bringing our total foster placements to 4.  Our heads were dizzy with the choice we would have to make.  In order to accept a referral from Burundi, we could no longer be fostering any children. In order to move forward at all in Burundi, we would need to send the four little ones in our home right now, who need us right now, who know us as their caretakers and protectors right now, back to the system, to yet another home, to another adjustment, to another major jolt in their already tough little lives.

Of course, there was no real choice.  You can't love children and really want to do that to them, to four of them, to four of them you have grown to love, who need you right here and right now.  We didn't even need to discuss it.

We talked with our international adoption agency and asked about being put on hold.  We were told it was a long shot.  If Burundi even agreed, we could only be on hold for 6 months, and 6 months is not long enough to change our foster care situation.  Every one of these children could still be with us in 6 months, or not.  There's just no way to know.  It turns out that Burundi didn't agree to put us on hold anyway.

Our agency asked us to close our file with them.  To walk away.

It feels like a dream coming to an end, but there is no doubt in our minds that we have made the right choice.   It seems so strange that we needed the option of an international adoption to even open our hearts to adoption again.  Adopting is tough.  It is.  We had one failed adoption and one (very) successful one, but the whole process left us a little wary to ever open ourselves up to that again.  Once our hearts were open wide enough to pursue international adoption, we could see ourselves opening them a little wider, to an adoptive placement from the foster care system.  Once we opened our hearts to the waiting children, we were able to open them just a wee bit wider to allow in some children who are in need of a family during a particularly rough time in their lives, to foster children.

This may not seem like a normal progression for you, so I'll try to explain.  We want more children.  International adoption takes time and patience and flexibility and money, but we were very likely going to end up with a child.  We would not have to beg to be chosen for a specific child.  We would turn in our paperwork and wait for others to match us.  We may lose a match or see a country close to adoptions, but, in the end, something would work out, somewhere.

Adopting waiting children through foster care means we have to market ourselves, which makes it a little scarier for us.  We have to get rejected over and over until we are finally selected as a good match for someone.  You would think that there would be a need for families willing to adopt some of those waiting sibling groups out there, but you turn in your profile and hear nothing.  That's tough for us to face after going through it with our private adoption.

Fostering children while hoping to someday adopt is even less certain.  We take children into our homes and love them like they deserve to be loved, but we are, all the while, helping them get back to their families of origin.  That is the goal, and we are a part of making that happen and really do root for their parents to do the right thing.  Sure, there may be a child come into our home who cannot return to their family for some reason, but will it be our 1st placement or our 21st?

We would NEVER have opened ourselves up to that when we first began discussing adoption again.  I still cannot believe the turns our lives have taken over the last year, and especially over the last six months.  While we were waiting for something to happen worlds away in Burundi, we got to love some children with very real needs right here in our own town.  We didn't have time to go crazy, counting the months since our dossier was sent because we were changing diapers and helping with homework and aiding in some major healing of kids in the flesh.

I, who suffered infertility for years, have been given EIGHT young children to mother over the last six months, in addition to the two who I get to mother forever.  Foster parenting cannot have been the wrong choice.  Every one of those children has been better off in some way since being in our home, and every one of us in this family is a better person because of those eight children, even if we don't know it yet.

So we are sad to close our file on Burundi.  We will always have a place in our hearts for that country and those orphans, but we will have to find other ways to help them.  Meanwhile, we will continue to love the children in our home, for however long they are here.  We cannot help but think that our newest adoption journey took some interesting twists and turns for a good reason.  It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.