Adoption

Have I mentioned that we are adopting?

Ya... that's happening.

Husband has been wanting to adopt for forever. Well, not forever: since Royal Family Kids Camp. He fell in love with my two 10-year-old campers (I did too) and has been wanting to adopt a child around that age ever since.

The sad fact is, once a child reaches about 8-years-old in foster care, their chances of being adopted by a family drop dramatically. A lot of times, that 8-year-old will spend the next 10 years of their life in foster care and be kicked out the minute they turn 18.

We decided to" just go for it" about 6 weeks after Ariel left our home. He absence created such a hole in our lives, and the fact that we live our lives not knowing from one week to the next if our babies will be taken from us became to "real". The fact is, if I am going to survive foster care, I need an anchor. Something permanent in my life. I need a daughter that I know will be with me forever. That I will fight over clothes with, teach how to drive, will hold when her first love breaks her heart. I need all of that, and I need to KNOW that I will get it.

So we are adopting. Last week we had our home study done, and we expect to be licensed to adopt in about 3 weeks. Once the license is complete, we will start getting packets of information on children that meet our criteria (and whose criteria we meet). Once we get a packet that we like, we will meet her and (hopefully) start her transition into our home.

It's exciting. It's crazy. It's just another normal in the middle of our insane world.

I can't wait to meet her.

 I wonder what her "blog" name will be?

addendum: Just read our homestudy, along with our references and Snow White's interview.  It is so humbling to read what people wrote about us and their faith in our parenting. I don't know that we live up to the hype, but I know that I will try my hardest to be the woman described on that document for our new little girl.