Adoption update
It's been a while since I wrote an update on the adoption process. Currently, there isn't much to tell. We had a badly failed adoption staffing (interview with casework team) one month ago. What we were told prior to the staffing and what we were surprised to learn during the staffing were wildly different. The whole picture went from simple to chaos in the span of one hour. I had never felt a "peace" about this particular sibling group, but chalked it up to fear. My prayer going into the staffing was "God, make the right decision unmistakable." Well, it was unmistakable...and then some. We walked away feeling 100% certain in our decision to say "no".
Since that staffing there has been almost no movement in our adoption process. We had been warned that caseworkers for school-age kids tend to make plans to move them at natural breaks in school -- summers or Christmas break. Our caseworker had told us that there tend to be many more profiles of waiting kids around those "seasons". I have felt okay with waiting during the off-peak months of September and October, but I'm starting to get antsy now that we're getting closer to Christmas break.
Our adoption caseworker is currently on vacation, but apparently is checking her email while she is away because she sent us a profile for a sibling group while she was gone. Sisters....one with "bright red hair". Yikes! Adopting a redhead would definitely fit the mental picture of which I had always dreamed! Needless to say, we submitted our home study for consideration. Now we wait to see if their caseworker wants to schedule us for a staffing.
The challenge with adoption is to manage your expectations and not get too excited too early. I try to think of it like those early weeks of a pregnancy -- the ones where you suspect you could be pregnant but you don't want to tell anyone, just in case it doesn't work out. That's what these initial phases of the adoption process feel like. There's excitement and hope and you start thinking about how that child would fit in your life....but you don't start talking about it to anyone until things are further along. Until then, we wait. We're getting pretty good at that these days. One thing that the adoption process teaches you? Patience.
Since that staffing there has been almost no movement in our adoption process. We had been warned that caseworkers for school-age kids tend to make plans to move them at natural breaks in school -- summers or Christmas break. Our caseworker had told us that there tend to be many more profiles of waiting kids around those "seasons". I have felt okay with waiting during the off-peak months of September and October, but I'm starting to get antsy now that we're getting closer to Christmas break.
Our adoption caseworker is currently on vacation, but apparently is checking her email while she is away because she sent us a profile for a sibling group while she was gone. Sisters....one with "bright red hair". Yikes! Adopting a redhead would definitely fit the mental picture of which I had always dreamed! Needless to say, we submitted our home study for consideration. Now we wait to see if their caseworker wants to schedule us for a staffing.
The challenge with adoption is to manage your expectations and not get too excited too early. I try to think of it like those early weeks of a pregnancy -- the ones where you suspect you could be pregnant but you don't want to tell anyone, just in case it doesn't work out. That's what these initial phases of the adoption process feel like. There's excitement and hope and you start thinking about how that child would fit in your life....but you don't start talking about it to anyone until things are further along. Until then, we wait. We're getting pretty good at that these days. One thing that the adoption process teaches you? Patience.
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