it did [not] happen: the end of our adoption adventure

“Can you be faithful in your community even when the only thing changing is you?”

- Pastor Jonathan Brooks [@PastahJ]

As many of you know, our family has been in a season of preparing for another adoption.  Shortly after my last post, processing the end of our foster care adventure, we were contacted by a dear friend in a difficult place.  Since that time, we have been preparing for life with a baby girl, due this February.

We have been blessed by a community that has been immensely supportive, through prayer, encouragement, and supplies.  You all are blessings we never want to take for granted.

Throughout this process, we have let our friend know that our primary goal is not to grow our family, but to provide care where needed, and that we support her if she changes her mind.  This past week, she let us know that she felt ready to give mothering a chance.  At this point, our new adoption adventure has finished its course.

Again, this whole process comes with a range of emotions: Joy for a mother's act of courage to reach out for help and another to boldly walk the beautiful challenge of parenting.  Happiness for a baby girl who will know the love of her mother.  Awkwardness for taking so many of you on this roller coaster adventure with us.  Gratitude for the support and encouragement of friends. Sadness for missed snuggles and Miki’s lost* dream of becoming a big sister. Relief for not facing those sleepless nights.  Guilt for feeling that relief.

A good friend said to me, “I’m really sorry it didn’t happen for you.”

I really appreciate the empathy.

But as I process, I realize that while first instinct might feel like this is a story about what did not happen, I believe it is a story about what did happen.

Our adventure started in an effort to be faithful with the generosity God has shown our family, to provide relief to a friend, and a loving environment for a sweet yet-to-be-born baby girl.  In the end, each of those were accomplished.

Our friend found peace to process her pregnancy without the fear of the parenting challenges ahead.  She found the space to get to a personally healthy place, which allowed the restoration of her own family support systems.  As a result, she now is ready to be the healthy momma this sweet baby girl will adore. 

The lesson our family will process is that the impact of our actions is not always what we expect, but it does not have to be.  The goal is to simply be faithful and let the chips fall where they may; live like Jesus, and let God worry about the results.

Maybe it changes our communities.  Maybe it just changes us.

May we continue to make ourselves available for either.

Blessings to the sweet baby girl and her incredibly brave and loving momma.  You will always be in our hearts.

*I’m clearly the last to know what our life will look like, and I’ve made the claim we are done having more children 4 previous times so far, so take any of my claims knowing the future (or present) with a grain of salt.  I'm obviously bad at it.

**if you have any curiosity about foster care or adoption, visit embracesouthbend.com to see what your next steps may be.

one pound, one ounce: a foster care post-mortem

As many of you know, our family has been marching forward on our renewed foster care adventure.  With our youngest adoptive daughter turning four this month, and the overwhelming need for foster care in our state, we began asking ourselves earlier this year whether we have the capacity to dive back in.

For us, the question was never really about growing the family, rather our core belief that as Christians we are called to use our capacity for the good of others.  With this in mind, we decided to call our local DCS office and begin the process of renewing our foster care license.

Cue a lengthy adventure that included nearly 30 hours of workshops and training, more paperwork than you can shake a ball point pen at, the purchase of a new van capable of holding all of these children, and a scramble to reorient our house to an appropriate environment for babies.  Within two short months, we were ready.

Thirty minutes after turning in our final paperwork, we received a call for a likely permanent (adoptive) placement for a 3 yr old boy.  Though his age was outside of our pre-established healthy range for our family (due to being only months younger than our youngest), we couldn’t help but see the need for an adorable little boy to find a loving home and say “yes!”

We walked that road toward a move-in date with the dear boy as he began to find his way deeper into our hearts with every hug.  However, after a month of progress, we discerned that he and our youngest were just too similar to ever live happily together and (when alerted to another family looking to adopt the young boy) we stepped aside.

Back to square one.

The next couple of weeks were an up-and-down adventure of taking our new understanding of our capacity and learning to say “no”.  Newborn twins.  An older 2 yr old.  A preemie still on oxygen support and with a feeding tube.  Finally, we got a call that seemed like a great fit: we invited a preemie baby boy into the family as a short-term foster son.

Baby Z came to us at 6 weeks old, but due to his premature 29-wk birth, was still 5 weeks away from his original due date, just over 4 lbs, and resisting weight gain.  We knew this would be a short term placement, and our task was to wake him every three hours, all day and night to make sure he ate to gain the weight needed for proper brain and body development.

We loved our time with Baby Z.  He was about as perfect as you could ever dream.  His eyes only opened for about an hour per day, but when they did, they stole your heart.  Our 3 daughters were captivated as was Robin who spoke with clarity:  “I need to remember this, because he will likely be the cutest thing my eyes will ever see.”

Baby Z and our 4 yr old

Five amazing, yet sleep deprived days later, we said goodbye to sweet Baby Z.  He was placed with his loving grandparents, which brought us great peace.

The exchange happened at the doctor’s office as Z got his weekly checkup.  When they put him on the scale, we saw a miracle.  He had gained a full pound and an ounce -- 25% of his body weight in just five days!  The doctor was amazed.  We were overwhelmed with joy.

The days after a placement come with some interesting feelings: The relief of renewed sleep.  The guilt of that relief.  The awkward empty feeling of a slightly less full house.  The sadness of a lost relationship.  The curiosity about the future.

For us, it also came with some processing.  Baby Z was about as perfect as it could get, and yet we realized it was still pretty overwhelming for our family.  Our (now) 4 year old really struggled, and we struggled as parents to both meet her needs and manage caring for a baby.  Further, our lack of sleep and its results alerted us that our mental health was not as stable as we supposed.

Ultimately, we realized that we just don’t have the capacity to be foster parents at this time.

This realization brought its own feelings: guilt--that we cannot help all the children that are in desperate need.  Shame--that our own weaknesses contribute to our lack of capacity to help.  Awkwardness--in the awareness that so many have supported us in this path that we are now stepping off.

But in the end, I return to the old poem: “‘Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.”

The reality is that we all have limitations.  Too often we allow our limitations or the fear of our limitations to hold us back from even attempting to sacrifice or make a difference in the world according to the way of Jesus.  As a family, our desire is to always be testing the waters of what we can sacrifice for others.  Sometimes that means that we step out and we have our lives & world changed forever, like with the fostering and adoption of our youngest daughter.  Sometimes it means we step out and hit a wall and need to readjust our understandings of our own capacity.  But without stepping out, we will never know which is which.

‘Tis better to sacrifice and reach your limitations, than out of fear for your limitations, never to sacrifice at all.

Finally, regardless of the premature end to this adventure, it was worth it.

The thirty hours of training.  The mountains of paperwork.  The house cleaning.  The van purchase.  The emotional roller coaster.  The sleepless week.

It was all worth it.

If for nothing more than one child’s life, for five days of healing and development.

For one pound, one ounce.

It was worth it.