So, Phil and I began dating
and were married about 7 months after that.
When going through our pre-marital counseling, we agreed that we would
wait 5-7 years before having kids to just enjoy being newlyweds. In year 5, we started contemplating kids and
decided that it might be best to adopt first.
The thought behind this was
that if we adopted first, it might let the child feel as if they were an
integral part of the family, rather than an add-on to an already formed
family. No one way is better, this was
just our thoughts on the matter. Also,
perhaps my experience as a labor and delivery nurse made me less than eager to
have kids the old-fashioned way.
Along the way, we found the
website adoptuskids.org. It is pretty
strange “shopping” for kids, but I think what it did do was spark our
interest. We found a precious little boy
about 9 years old on there named Ben.
Ben is a favorite name of ours, and he had dimples and glasses, so we
were sold.
The first step when adopting
through CPS is attending a local informational meeting, which lasts about 2
hours. The meeting gave a brief overview
of the process, and they pretty much shattered our dreams about little
Ben. The well-meaning facilitators
explained that adopting out-of-state was complicated and the process takes a
while, so in all likelihood he would be adopted by then. I’m not going to lie, I did tear up a bit
over the loss of this child that I had seen online and read 1 paragraph
about. He was so cute and he already had
the perfect name, so it was a foregone conclusion that he was for us. I took comfort that he was going to find the
perfect family, and that God knew what was best for us.
At the meeting, they handed
us a thick packet of information, which was to be completed and submitted. This packet asked questions like the age,
gender, and race of children we were open to.
We turned in the paperwork, but things with Phil’s job were becoming
more uncertain, so we put adoption on hold for about a year.
To be continued…
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