I’m excited to be part of this “10 Days” series!

Today, I’m sharing the highlights of our story so you’ll know why this is my area of “expertise,” and I’ll let you know what to expect in the rest of the 10 Days of Adoption series.

Once upon a time (shouldn’t stories always start that way?), on a beautiful spring day, I married Ken. At that time, his son was 13, and my daughter was 4. We were a newly blended little family. Our kids got along well, we arranged their weekends so that we had both kids at the same time to do fun family activities, and we had alternating weekends to ourselves. We rarely ever even needed a babysitter because we coordinated grown-up or date activities when the kids were away. It was good, and we were happy.

After a few years, however, I began to have this niggling feeling that our family wasn’t complete. Biological kids were not an option without miraculous intervention, so I began to ponder adoption. A memory came back to mind, from at least a decade prior, when I watched a feature on the local news about a 16 year old girl in foster care who longed for a mother. That, combined with the fact that we knew other types of adoptions can be expensive, led me to look into adopting from foster care. After careful research (because I’m a planner, and that’s just what I do), I finally got up the nerve to tell my husband I’d be thinking about it. He didn’t freak out, as I’d half expected him to. We agreed to start the process of getting approved to adopt, but also agreed that either of us could say “Stop!” at any point along the way if we felt this was not for us.

Months later, our home study was approved. In May of 2009, I received an email with information on a 14 year old girl named Lindsey. We met with our adoption specialist to review her file, and we teleconferenced that day with her caseworker. Two days later, we met Lindsey for the first time, and a few weeks later, she moved in with us and became our daughter. That December, the courts made it official.

That’s my story.

I never planned to become an adoption advocate; I simply wanted to fill the hole I felt in our family — but since that time, we’ve seen what a difference a permanent family makes in the life of a child, and we welcome opportunities to encourage others to consider the possibility of adoption.

As a family, we’ve shared our story in front of thousands at our church; we’ve done a radio interview; I did a blog-radio interview; Lindsey and I spoke at a foster parent training event; our story has been published in a regional and then a national magazine for adoptive families; we’ve spoken as a family at a adoption celebration event; and most recently, we were interviewed for a local television show.

Not long ago, we started the adoption journey again; I’ll be sharing the adventure with my readers, and I hope you’ll follow along, too.

In the coming days, some of the specifics I’ll share will include:

• the hows and whys of adoption
• information on various types of adoption
• adopting children with special needs
• challenges and hurdles in the adoption process and beyond
• truths and misconceptions about adoption
• how to blend a newly adopted child into a family with other children
• when God closes the door on adoption

Please, come on back for each post in the series, and please share this post to help spread the word to the rest of the big wide interweb!

To visit all the 10 Days posts from these homeschool moms of the iHomeschool Network, just click the image below. You’ll be blessed with tips on how to handle bad days, cultivate curiosity, teach with Legos, and much much more!

Jamie

Wife, mom, J-ma. Introvert who enjoys good books, sunshine, and authentic conversation. Often seen with a steaming mug of tea in hand – unless it’s lost yet again in the microwave. Read more »