Why Foster Care Adoption?

As we are in the process of going through foster care adoption, some of you have asked how we have come to this decision. I thought it was best to tell you all a little bit about what has led us to foster care adoption.

When we got married in October of 2003, we always knew we wanted children. Our plan was to have our first child by the time Russell turned 35. He's 40 now. (We even had a pregnancy plan, my how life doesn't always seem to go the way you plan it, lol) In fact, we started trying to get pregnant in 2005 when we moved to Orlando. When we moved back to Tallahassee in December of 2006, we thought it just wasn't the right time. So we waited another year before we would try again. We began trying again in early 2008. When we were not getting pregnant, we decided to see our doctor, who then referred us to a fertility specialist in Jacksonville. We spent approximately 1.5 years with fertility treatments and surgeries. When our fertility specialist told us there was a 96% chance we would never be able to get pregnant, it seemed as if our hopes of having our own little family came crashing down.

We had always thought about adoption over the years, especially when our beautiful niece was adopted from China. Although we respect and admire my brother's decision and love this little girl more than words can express, we knew that international adoption was not for us. We knew that, if we were going to adopt, it would be from within the United States. Just over a year ago, we were online and found information on foster children that needed to be adopted. Russell and I had a LOT of discussions about this, and we had conducted TONS of research; we decided we would pursue adopting an older child from the foster care system.  We are so happy with our decision and could not imagine building our family any other way now. We know that this is God's plan for us, and it is awesome to finally realize His plan. We just can't wait until we get our child. We know it will be tough, but it will be worth it in the end because we'll finally have a child of our own!

Update!

Yesterday, we received a call from our social worker/resource coordinator regarding the timetable for our adoption. The next step is parenting classes in June; however, they have moved them to July due to budget cuts. I certainly hope this does not put a major delay in the date we will be able to get the child. I can't wait for this fall-it's going to be so exciting!

Also, we have our drug screening scheduled for May 31st in the afternoon. That is the last major test we have to do. We still have to get some other paperwork finished, but it should be pretty easy.

Oh yeah I finally announced our adoption on Facebook! It was great to see so many positive comments and likes from family and friends.

Until next time...

Happy Mother's Day!?!?

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there! Happy Mother's Day to everyone who can get pregnant at the drop of a hat, or just by saying the word "pregnant"! OK I said it, now I got it out of my system. Mother's Day brings so many mixed emotions for me.

The first emotion is happiness and love for my own mother and mother-in-law. That one comes easy, I am so grateful for all they have done for us in life. Russ and I are so grateful for their support during this journey to bring a child into our home.

Next is sadness-for the last several years, it's hurt me that Sunny is my only baby. I always wondered "Why can't it be me? Why can't I join that illustrious Mom club? It's just not fair! I know I've done some things that I'm not proud of in life (but everyone does that sometime in their lives), but why does God choose to punish me this way?"

Then is hope-This is the first Mother's Day that I have considered myself a "mom-to-be". This is the first Mother's Day that I have actually not cried and been upset, so I think I'm heading in the right direction.

Happy Mother's Day everyone!

-Taryn