Chad and I had been together for 14 years, married 10 and didn’t know our family journey would include foster care and adoption.
When Chad and I were dating and things were becoming more serious, we, of course, had the conversation about kids. I knew I would always have to have this conversation with my future husband, but it was hard.
I didn’t want to feel rejected, but I understood if biological kids were important to Chad, I didn’t want him to feel stuck. I kind of gave Chad an out, like, ‘If you want bio kids, I don’t know if I can give that to you.’ See, I was born with a congenital heart defect. It is something that is part of my life. It doesn’t define me but makes me think about many things I do in life.
Chad didn’t walk away, and he didn’t say that biological kids were more important to him. He simply said, ‘We both want kids. That is what matters. It doesn’t matter how the kids get here. We’ll figure it out the details!’ With that, I was totally in love and knew he was meant for me.
So, I think our journey that led us to foster care is a little different than most because infertility didn’t lead us here and we didn’t see foster care or adoption as a religious calling. I now believe we were meant for this journey in our lives but didn’t realize all the conversations and signs we had would lead us to this point and keep showing us and telling us we are right where we are supposed to be.
After having our son, we learned having another child was risky, so we decided to try foster care and adoption.
We filled out the paperwork and started the process. Our focus wasn’t on adoption. We just wanted our son to be around other kids his age and not grow up alone. We had NO idea what we were doing or what we were getting ourselves into. We filled out the piles and piles of paperwork, were fingerprinted, took all the pre-service training classes, and completed our home study. I always say we are just boring enough to be foster parents and this process proves it! The licensing process took about 8 months.
we got out foster acre license, welcomed our first kid and experience the joys and challenges of foster parenting.
When he came back, he was upset but we showed him love and support through a long walk conversation.
When they came back from the walk, he gave Chad the biggest hug and we knew he was right where he was supposed to be. We settled back in with three little ones. During a Saturday morning breakfast, Carter turned to B and said, ‘B, I am just so glad you are back, I missed you so much!’ This is what foster care is about.
We adopted B in April of 2020. 2020 might have been a hard year but adopting our son will always be one of the best things in our lives and for sure the best thing to come out of 2020.
We added another foster love to the crew last year and continue to love and support her and her family through this journey. we have been blessed with support through our foster care and adoption journey. This support comes from our family, friends, and amazing caseworkers we couldn’t live without. It takes a village to commit yourself to this but wow, it is WORTH IT!
Foster care is hard but rewarding and sharing our story helps other understand, support and love these kids.
