So… remember that little teaser from a few weeks back, when I alluded to being busier soon? Yeah. Time for a little more about that.

A bit of background:

We were approved back in late 2011 for another foster-adoption, which meant we were due to update our paperwork in late 2012. Because of some difficult things going on, including my dad’s scary emergency hospital visit and my grandmother’s death, we didn’t have time (and I didn’t have the mental capacity) to update everything right then. I explained all this to our case worker (who is delightfully sweet and somehow doesn’t even think I’m insane, even after all the bajillions of calls and conversations we’ve had over this past year!), and she put our case on hold until we decided what we were going to do.

Decisions, decisions.

Numerous things kept coming up to make us consider fostering young children, with the intent of adopting if the opportunity arose. Although we are obviously not opposed to adopting an older child (since we did it three years ago), our family dynamics are different now, and we all feel like a younger child (or children) would fit best in our family. In December, we started looking into what would be required as far as different paperwork, etc., to be approved as foster parents, and deciding whether we would go through the state or through an agency.

Oh boy. (And girl!)

In the midst of this planning and researching, our case worker called. Although she was not pursuing children for us since we were still on hold, she’d received a call from another caseworker who had our information from months back and was very interested in us for a 5 -year-old girl and her 3-year-old brother.

But that was the week before Christmas, and because of holiday schedules, we were unable to get any more information on the kids until after the new year. Over the holiday break, I started filling out that paperwork and updating things for our file.

Once everyone was back to work, we got more information on the children. I kept waiting for an obvious red flag, or a clear STOP. With all the other kids we’ve considered in the past year, there was always something that just wouldn’t work with our family, or an issue that could prove unsafe with other kids in the house, or just a general feel of unease. But with these kids, we haven’t gotten that feeling — which, for us, means we’re to keep moving forward.

Then we got a photo. Y’all. These kids look like they could be biologically ours. Which is funny because Ken and I had been discussing all sorts of things about them before either of us even thought to wonder what ethnicity they are.

This is scary.

Ever thought you might be pregnant but weren’t sure yet? This stage of things feels a lot like that. Except that if I am “expecting” I won’t have much time to prepare.

This ain’t our first rodeo, as the saying goes. We are heading into this with eyes wide open, much more so than when we adopted Lindsey – but this would be so different in so many ways. We know enough now to know that there really is no way to fully prepare. No way to know every challenge ahead. But that’s the case with parenting any child.

I’ll confess: I’m freaking out a bit. My life isn’t perfect, but it sure is comfortable. And now I’m looking at adding two young children to the mix. For the remainder of this school year, the girl would be in public kindergarten, but next year I’d likely homeschool. There are so many things about our lives now that would change if we adopt these kids. I wonder if I can handle it. I wonder how their little personalities would fit into our family. I wonder what bedtimes and mealtimes and all sorts of things would look like. I wonder how they are with dogs. I wonder how much they’ll remember from their past, and I wonder how long it would take before they’d think of me as their “real” mama.

But I know this to be true:

“What the world doesn’t need is Christians who tolerate the complacency of their own lives.” ~ Francis Chan

This afternoon, we have a “staffing,” which means sitting down with the case workers to go over the children’s files and get all the nitty gritty details. The current foster parent will be there, too, which is something I hadn’t even thought to hope for, but is very good in regards to getting more thorough information. If all goes well, we’ll start visits soon — and I’ll have some serious nesting to do! But if we get a STOP of some sort along the way, then we’ll regroup and figure out where to go from here.

We’d greatly appreciate prayers!

Specifically, we could use prayers for:

1. Clarity and discernment for all parties involved.
2. The Lord’s will to be done, regardless of what we want or think is best.
3. Acceptance from our families (who mostly already think we’re a little crazy) as we prepare them for the possibilities.

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 »