Fostering Love and Hoping to Adopt

Joshua and I are so excited to become Foster Parents. We want to thank everyone for the love and support you have shown us. This is not an easy process, and while we are half way through it, we still have a long way to go.

Many of you have asked us how we came to this decision. It was not an easy thing. Those of you who have been following our story know that we have been trying to start our family for nearly four years. Many tests, one miscarriage and I can't tell you how many tears later, we had one last visit with my Doctor. As far as having biological children, IVF is the last option. Every treatment or medication we have tried we have prayed about and counseled to make sure it was the best option for us. This time was different though. Before our consult with the Doctor we prayed and fasted and prayed...but we weren't feeling good about IVF. The idea made me terribly anxious. It is an invasive and long procedure, and to make matters worse there still is the part where it might not even work.

I was feeling very forgotten by the Lord. I couldn't understand why he wasn't letting me know what to do. We met with my Doctor and she told us that we had a very good chance of conceiving with IVF. Now, weeks before this we had started looking into adopting. Those of you who know anything about it know that it is an extremely expensive endeavor. We couldn't fathom how we would be able to do that. While searching this out, I came across the option to adopt through Foster Care. We looked into it and studied anything we could find. This frightened us too, because as Foster Parents, we are ultimately helping the children to return with their families. But we did feel strongly that this was a good thing, and that we should consider it.

I was able to go to the temple one day after work, so I took that opportunity to find out what we needed to do. I had all the options and information that I needed, but I was done playing the waiting and guessing game. I wanted our efforts to go toward what would be most fruitful and grow our family. As I sat in the temple, I gave God an ultimatum. "Lord, tell me what to do, or I'm not doing anything. Joshua and I can't make this decision. I need you to make it for us." This probably wasn't the best idea to speak to God this way, but it worked. I suddenly felt a calm come over my heart and a voice say to me, "If you don't pursue this, you will miss someone. Do you want to answer for that when you meet Me? What excuse will you give me? "I was scared"isn''t going to work."That was it. I went home and when Joshua got home I sat him down and told him what happened. He agreed that we needed to do it. The next day I called to speak with one of the recruiters for Utah Foster Care. She was able to meet with us that week and answer all the other questions we had. We got all of the information we needed to get started.

A few weeks later we began our classes. This was the longest month of our lives. We learned about how trauma affects a child's brain, the different things that bring children into custody, what our role is, how to do our paperwork (which there is a lot of) and so many other things. Our trainer was amazing and we left the class feeling so empowered and ready to parent these kids with love and kindness.

Now, the timeline is unsure. We are still waiting on some things to get finalized, a background check and our home study, but we are hoping that we can have placements by August or September. We know that there will be a lot of questions that you all have and we welcome any of them. We have truly come to appreciate how needed Foster Families are and the good that can come from them as we allow other families to heal. We are so excited to have little ones in our home. Thank you all again for your kindness and support as we begin this journey. I will update the blog when we have news or anything happens.