Hi everyone! I'm back from being away and in that time, I got married! It was gorgeous and amazing and perfect, and I wouldn't have wanted it to go any differently. Married life is the best and I wouldn't want to go through it with anyone else, so I'm really happy that I was able to meet Josh when I did, even though I hated the idea of dating anyone at all when I was going through what I was.
I think I touched it on a previous blog post, but I've always been wanting to adopt, and now that dream is finally starting to become a reality! Josh loves the idea of adopting and I'm thankful that someone else shares my love of adoption. I knew going into this whole entire adoption process that I should leave it all in God's hands and to keep praying to figure out when the time would be right... as antsy as I was (and still am).
We've FINALLY been blessed with some answers lately, and while I've been documenting them, I thought it would also be nice to document our journey in blog posts, so I polled my Instagram followers and the overwhelming vote was to blog about it, so here I am! Read on to find out all that's going on! xo
Josh and I want(ed) to enjoy some time alone by ourselves before we started having kids/started the process of adopting, which has been amazing! We were married on June 15, and it's early September now, and I've loved the last couple of months of life! We've done so much together and we plan to do so much more together before any kids come into our life, and I'm really excited for the next few months with the projects that we're doing. We're both making goals for ourselves and for our marriage and even though I basically just said it... married life is BOMB! He just got a job doing what he's already doing but at a better place and getting paid more and I'm smack in the middle of such a life changing career shift, and we both couldn't be more happy with how those things are going for us.
I knew that I (just myself personally) wanted to adopt several kids of varying ages, and I really want at some point to adopt a baby girl. Like a brand new, fresh out of the oven baby girl, and I know that that's possible. I want to be able to name her, dress her, and take her home, and I told Josh this ultimate goal of mine, and he was 100% okay with it! Which I'm super blessed for, because I don't know how I would change that dream or make tweaks to it haha!
Something I wasn't sure of was her name, I had had a few names that I really liked and had been considering for awhile, and then I found one that I was completely sold on. I was sold on it for about a year, but that changed very recently. I was going through some things and I saw this name in a list somewhere (it wasn't a baby name list), and I really zeroed in on it and couldn't shake it. It's such a sweet name, one that I don't know anyone with, one that I don't hear at all whatsoever (or if anyone has this name at all), basically one that isn't very common (to me, it sounds very old fashioned) but one that people would know how to spell if it was said (I knew someone from BYU whose name is commonly spelled Austin, but she spelled it 'Austynne' like... no thank you). And hopefully no one named Austynne is reading this... ha. It's a good name! But I could never give my child a unique spelling as unique as that.
It got to the point where I was thinking of this name and paired it with other old fashioned sounding names, but also common names, and I think I really did find the perfect name for her. I'm keeping this secret and to myself for now, but I might tell my friends at some point haha. I've told Josh (duh), his family, and my family, and they all love it. They also think I'm a genius and need to be a professional baby namer, so if you need your baby names, I've got a 100% discount going from now until... ever!
So in the meantime, I'd been praying more and more about when the right time would be to start the adoption process, and I did get some answers! I was really happy with my answers that I was given, so I started to hold off on the constant prayers (and I think God also really appreciated that - He's probably popped so many migraine painkillers from me!), but I would still tell God how appreciative I was of the whole thing, because if you're unaware... God answers prayers!
One day some weeks ago, Josh came home from running errands or whatever he was doing and immediately told me how he felt compelled to tell me that we should start looking at adoption agencies to get our foot in the door, and I could have cried right then and there because that right there was God telling us that it was time to start! So we've been starting with that and working with such awesome people and they've been so nice and sweet and kind. The adoption process is different in every state, and in Washington State, we have to complete a kind of orientation and a training course. I'm VERY happy that it's the same for people who want to adopt or foster, because my mom is a foster parent and I remember the process she went through to become certified.
We're not going to have kids in our house in the near future, so don't look out for any "we adopted!" announcement on Instagram at any point in 2018, but definitely in 2019! Remember that major career change I said I was doing for myself? Hopefully that doesn't put a wrench in our Christmas plans (fingers crossed it doesn't) because we ALREADY booked tickets to spend Christmas in France, and I could not be looking more forward to that.
ALL of this being said, I asked my Instagram and Tumblr followers to give me some questions that I can answer on here, and I just wanted to give a small backstory on that before I posted questions to answer. Hopefully that answered anything that went unanswered!
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1. Do you have to be married to adopt?
Absolutely not! You can be single, you can be in a relationship, you can be engaged, or you can be married. You're not given a "no" answer or overlooked just on your relationship status!
2. Do you have to own a house?
Also no! You can own your house or you can be renting!
3. Does it cost money?
YES. However, if you foster, there are no fees. If you choose to adopt through the state, they might ask you to become licensed to foster (which is also free). And if you choose to adopt through a private agency, you'll have to pay for fees which includes the home study which can be anywhere between $1000 and $3000, depending on many factors. It's not cheap, but the outcome is so worth it!
4. How do you start the process?
That was the biggest question I had! I had no idea where to start, so I honestly pushed it to the back of my mind, but it kept on pushing back to the front of my mind. What we did was Google well respected agencies (we don't know any families who have adopted or else we would have gone to them for advice) and went from there! Which was going to and completing an in person and pre-service class (which was also free). We looked up the location of the class nearest to us and had to complete the class. The orientation was 3 hours long (you can even do it online) and the pre-service class took 27 hours. At the end of it, we got a certificate that basically said that we finished it, but it's recognized by any private adoption agencies AND the state, which is huge!
5. What is a home study?
It's basically a series of visits by an adoption worker to make sure you're qualified to adopt a child! You contact the agency you're adopting through (again, if you adopt through the state, it's free. If you adopt through a private agency, it'll cost) and they run background tests, visit your house several times, interview you several times, look at your health records, look at your financial statements, etc. It's super tedious, but again, it's worth it at the end of the day!
6. What gender do you want to adopt first?
It's not set in stone yet because we flip flop all the time, but we're thinking about adopting a boy first!
7. What ages do you want to adopt?
This part IS set in stone! We're definitely wanting to adopt an "older" child, anywhere between 9 to 12 and go from there. Those are such important ages in children's lives, full of change and milestones, and I hate the idea of kids having to deal with those things alone or in a house where no one cares about them. I want to celebrate their achievements and help them through their feelings or take them to soccer practice or whatever it is that they're interested in. I'm not sure after that though!
8. Why are you choosing adoption?
The biggest reason is that I... really can't have kids! Or at least I can't have kids that grow inside me for 9 months. I have a lot of health problems (nothing that's been a serious issue with our home stay process, please pray that nothing comes up or persists) and when I was pregnant with my daughter, I had a ton of false alarms and she ended up being born a couple months early. I don't want to risk my baby's life or my own life in order to be pregnant and have kids.
Another reason is that I've always been really passionate about adoption! I don't have anyone in my family who was adopted so I don't have any personal connection, but I just don't see any point in having my own kids when there are so many kids out there of all ages who need homes, especially kids who are older. Not all couples do this, but many couples I've seen generally go to adopting babies and raising them throughout their whole life, and that's amazing! Of course that's something I want to do, but not immediately. I also think I would connect better with an older child than a baby, especially if they're at an age where they can look after themselves, cook, etc.
9. Are you going to raise them in the church?
Yes! Or at least, that's what I'm hoping to do. We fully know that any future kids we have might not be open to God or religion, but we're going to try to connect with them about it. The amazing thing about Josh having a lot of Jewish family members is that we're more than okay with them learning about the LDS church and Judaism. I'm more than okay with whatever our kids decide, whether they want to be Mormon, Jewish, both, or none of them. There are tons Christian adoption agencies out there, but we aren't working with one. I'm not sure if there are any Christian ones that are focused on on a denomination or non denominational, so it's best to do your research first on what you're looking for specifically!
10. Do you have anything for kids in your house yet?
Nope! At this point in our process, we don't need any beds, cribs, toys, books, etc right now. We just have to make sure everything is safe (outlet covers, smoke/carbon monoxide detectors, etc) at this point. That doesn't stop me from going to the toy and kid section of Target whenever I go just to scope it out and remember things for later, and that's the same when I stop by the book section. I always look at the children's books and write some titles down in my phone to save for later. I also remember what books I read as a child so I can buy them again to see if they like them as well!
Sidenote, AKA 10.5
YES we're going to get them into Harry Potter. Don't even worry about it!
11. How else are you documenting your adoption?
We have an adoption binder that's already full of paperwork and information, and we have that kept in a safe place in our house, if that's what you mean. But if you mean like... me talking about it, sort of like what I'm doing here, I'm always writing about it! I have an awesome adoption journal given to me from a friend and it knows all my words and all my thoughts! I'm super blessed to have it.
12. Are you going to adopt internationally at all or just stay domestic?
Before I met Josh, I really wanted to adopt internationally, not from anywhere specific. A LOT of people choose to adopt from China or various countries in Africa (Ethiopia and Kenya come to my mind first), and that would be so cool! I actually wanted to adopt all my future kids from other countries because I think it would be awesome to have a house full of other cultures and various holidays to celebrate with them. When I met Josh, he said he was completely on board with adopting, but domestically. And I thought about it and decided that that was a solid "meet you in the middle" kind of thing, especially since adopting internationally does cost more than adopting within the US.
13. Do you think you're too young to adopt right now?
No way! Some moms these days are younger than me and have more than one child! I wouldn't have minded waiting a little longer, but both Josh and I put it in God's hands and we got direct answers to our prayers!
14. Are you on Pinterest?
If you're asking if I have boards on Pinterest for adopting, yes! I have a secret board that's for tips and articles from people who've been down this road before, and then I've been putting ideas into my "kids" board on there. It's been a lot of fun getting ideas, but the waiting game for the next step is always the hardest! Follow me here if you'd like!
15. Did you have to talk Josh into adopting?
Yes and no? It took a little bit, but he didn't mind having all our kids be adopted. He agreed when I mentioned that I thought it was sad that older kids never got adopted (I'm not saying they NEVER get adopted, but in the sense that a lot of couples do adopt younger children) and that they didn't have a lot of stability because of that. He thought that was a good point, and was pretty much on board after that!
16. Would you adopt a child with special needs?
Yes, of course. We don't mind if we adopt a healthy child or who has a disability in any way. We aren't looking for anyone specific!
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And those are all the questions I've gotten from various social medias! Some of them were worded the same, so I grouped those together as one question. If you still have any questions, feel free to send me a message or email!
xx
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