Finalization Eve

The day is almost here, and it is surreal and hard to believe.

We started this adoption journey in October of 2010.

Wow.

I see that date and cannot believe how long ago we decided to adopt, how long it took us to reach this special day.  The twists and turns that it took to get to our Finalization Eve are also hard to believe.  It has definitely been a journey of trusting God and going in directions that we never imagined going.

We wanted another child, quite simply.  I only opened my own heart again to adoption because I have had this dream of adopting internationally since I was a teenage girl watching a news special on Romanian orphanages.

Private adoption again?  No, way.  I couldn't deal with the idea of another failed adoption or the waiting and hoping and praying to be chosen by another mother.  I didn't want to face the rejection again.

Foster adoption?  Nope.  Foster parenting is hard.  We did that before, too, and were given child after child who went back home fairly quickly.  Foster parenting is a special calling that I definitely was not open to in October of 2010.  We were not in this adoption journey to help kids out there, as bad as that sounds.  We wanted to find our own new son or daughter.  I saw foster parenting as facing more rejection.

International adoption.  OK.  That I could do.  That was something I could face.  That is something that seemed more sure, somehow easier, somehow less chance of being rejected.  We weren't worried about passing a homestudy.  That was something we had already done twice before.  We weren't scared of the mountains of paperwork.  I like a good check list with concrete things to do in order to reach our child.  We weren't even afraid of joining a pilot program, of being one of the first families to enter a country to bring home our child.  We would get approved and get on a list.  Eventually a panel of Burundian government folks would look at our file and look at the files of mounds of children who had no family and match us with one of them.  That seemed somehow more clinical, less personal.  Rejection avoided.

As you can see, there was some selfishness and a lot of fear accompanying our openness to adopt in October 2010.

There was also a plan:

a plan that was not the plan God had in mind for us,

a plan that only led us to our son when we became willing to depart from it.

You would think that our decision to adopt from the foster care system was an agonizing one, since it was a major change in direction.  It was not.  We saw a specific need, a specific child, and we knew that we could be the family for that child.  It was now August of 2011, the day of our 15th wedding anniversary, and we knew that we could be open to adopt children in our own country who were already waiting for a home.

Waiting children in the US foster care system.  A sibling group.  Even a big sibling group.  Right.  That was the new plan, the new direction. Somehow this was a change in direction that we could embrace at that moment in August 2011, so we moved forward.  We worked on updating our homestudy which was basically starting at the beginning again.  The state of Texas was not impressed with our approval from the Secretary of State herself.  They needed their own fingerprints.  They needed us to take all new classes than all those we had already taken.  They needed a lot, actually.  We did it all because we knew that there were children who needed us, waiting for us, and we knew we could be the family to embrace them.  We needed them, too.  We were waiting for them, too.  It would be perfect.

Again, this was not God's plan for us.  We would not find our new son on a photo list somewhere.  Our son was not somewhere longing for a home, for a forever family in August 2011.  He was about to turn one, and he was with his mom.

Now, here we are in June 2013.  It's been 10 years since our failed adoption in June 2003, when we most learned to fear the pain adoption can bring.  10 years!

How did we get where we are?  I wonder sometimes.  Each adjustment to "The Plan" was incremental, just a little adjustment of expectation, dream, and willingness to trust here and there. We know there are orphans the world over who deserve to be loved and cared for.  We know there are bigger sibling groups in our own country who need someone to commit to them for all time.  We really did think that we were the family who could help those children and also have the family we dreamed of having.  Those orphans are still out there.  The photo listings are still long and heartbreaking.

I do not pretend to understand why we are not the ones to parent those children, but it has become obvious that we are here to fulfill a different need.  In our very own city, there are very little children who need a place to stay, sometimes for a few weeks or months and sometimes forever more.  That is the need that we are being asked to fill.  That is our calling in this whole adoption world.  Though it was not "The Plan," I have no doubt any longer that it is God's plan for us.

Even six weeks ago, I would have told you that we are done fostering once our current kids are adopted.  I was ready to give up the life of family visits, done with constantly worrying about whether the house looks good enough for a social worker visit, done with upheavals and uncertainty that comes with fostering.  Two short days after I told Jon that I really don't want to foster any more, we got the call and accepted the placement that makes us foster parents for possibly another year.

"Yes, we will take her," was the only answer either of us could imagine giving.  At that moment I knew that I am done planning the next step.  The needs will be made obvious to us, and we will know where God wants us to go.  In October 2010, I would never have made that sort of "hokey" statement.  In August 2011, I still was not the sort of person to fully place God's plan for my family over my own.  But now it is June 2013.

And, when we trusted, when we diverged from The Plan, when we risked our hearts and thought about the very real, innocent, hurting children instead of our long-imagined life, we were finally fortunate enough to meet our children.  Yes, some of those children leave us after too short a time.  Yes, our hearts have been broken and may break again.  Yes, life as we knew it is changed forever and fit in those places we once fit so well.

But, you know what?  Today is Finalization Eve.  Tomorrow we sign papers before a judge that will make one little boy who arrived on our doorstep as a "toddler who needed a place to stay for a while" our forever and ever son.  Our life is unfolding in ways we never could have planned or even imagined, but, man, oh, man, are we in a celebrating mood!

Happy Finalization Eve to all of us!