Our Third Adoption Journey Part 1

 It's been a minute...is blogging still even a thing? I don't really care because I have a story to tell. It's one I've been meaning to tell for a while but I haven't been ready until now.  It's a story about our failed adoption.

In January 2018 (almost FIVE years ago??!), we announced on Facebook that we were beginning the adoption process for a third time. I posted a picture of the girls with Avi wearing a "Big Sister" shirt. That picture still makes me sad to look back on. I was definitely being presumptuous but I truly did feel certain that we would be expanding our family again. Leading up to this announcement we had met with a social worker about the possibility of fostering and were given the option to begin a home study towards an adoption. We began praying about it and I had one of those moments where God spoke so clearly to me that adoption was the path we should take. John was on the same page and we felt so in alignment as a trio. So I announced it on Facebook and we started the process.

Everything was going so smoothly at first. We took the courses we needed to take, both online and in person. We began meetings at our house with our social worker to start the home study process. We were meeting about once a month. In June everything came to a halt. Our social worker had some concerns about some methods of discipline we had used in the past and were not against, that the ministry felt we needed to be against, and our file came dangerously close to being closed. Our social worker, who really believed in us, fought for our file to remain open and it did, but we had to do a bunch of extra courses and basically change our opinion on this matter, and our file was put on a hold for 6 months. That was really hard. We felt so discouraged and a little bit discriminated against. We decided to take a break. We put aside all adoption related things for about half a year. Then we picked it back up and did the extra work that was asked of us and around mid 2019, we got the process going again.

This time, things did not move as quickly. Due to under staffing, our social worker had a very full plate and was not able to meet with us as often as before. The home study process became so dragged out. We felt like she kept going over and over the same things and that we were making no progress. It was extremely frustrating and discouraging. We almost quit so many times. The interesting thing was, we never both felt like quitting at the same time. When one of us was feeling low, the other one was feeling more certain then ever that God still wanted us to do this and would encourage the other person, and we would keep going. During this time, God really brought us closer as a couple. We felt so many spiritual attacks, which just gave us more determination that we were doing what God wanted us to do. We really had to rely on prayer and each other and while it was so difficult to walk through, now looking back I can see how pivotal it was in shaping our relationship, both with God and each other.

In February of 2020, we had our final visit! Our home study was done and all we needed to do was meet in person at the office in Saskatoon, review everything, and we would officially on the waiting list! We were so excited! Finally, we made it. We truly felt like we wouldn't be on the list for long and our baby would be home with us. I don't think I need to tell you what happened next...

The world shut down and once everything, the process stopped. No one knew where to go from there. We couldn't go meet in person to review our file so we just had to wait...again. I couldn't believe it, honestly. Why was this so hard? We still felt so strongly that this was God's will for us, so why were we hitting a wall again and again? In July, things had settled down a bit and we were able to go in and meet and we were on the wait list by the end of the month. Our social worker told us we were one of the best families she'd ever worked with and we were confident that we wouldn't be waiting long. John and I made a loose agreement with each other that we would give it a year, but there was no way it would take that long, right?

Covid definitely impacted the movement of kids from foster homes to permanent families. Things were moving slower then usual. As soon as we were on the wait list, we didn't hear a peep. I emailed our social worker about 6 months later, desperate for an update. I just wanted to know in general how things were moving. She didn't really give me a straight answer, she just said she knew the waiting was hard and to just keep waiting. Not helpful. In July of 2021, John brought up our agreement and I pushed back hard. I wasn't ready to close our file. I couldn't believe that our baby wasn't home yet and I couldn't imagine going through all that with nothing to show for it. John was ready to be done, but he didn't push me again. He could tell I wasn't there yet. We did both feel like it didn't hurt to keep our file open. Our life wasn't being daily impacted by this waiting so we kept on keeping on.

We did eventually start to have more conversations about the future. Our girls were getting older and the older they got, the less realistic it seemed to welcome a third child under the age of 3. I knew what we needed to do but still, I pushed back. We needed to close our file and this chapter of our lives. We needed to move forward as a forever family of four. People would often say things like "you are so blessed to have your two girls", and I know those comments came from a place of love, but they were so hurtful to me. Every single day I am very keenly aware of how lucky I am to have them. There's not a moment that I forget the journey to them. I didn't need to be reminded of that, but that didn't mean that what I was going through now, having to say goodbye to the death of a dream of a larger family, didn't matter and wasn't hard. I could be thankful for what I had while grieving what I didn't have. Those two feelings did, and still do, coexist in my heart. Finally though, I also arrived at the same place John had been for a while now. We did need closure. It was time.

To be continued...