While talking with Ben last night about the CRAZY information that I got yesterday I realized the best way to describe this journey so far is driving with a blindfold on. That's what I feel like we have been doing for the past year. Driving blindly, wildly through an unknown route just hoping against all odds that we will get where we need to be. Jokingly Ben noted that we must be driving a vehicle with steel bumpers because we somehow keep hitting walls and obstacles and yet we bounce off and keep going, even if it is in a slightly different direction. There is certainly some truth in that!
Yesterday was a busy day. One of those days where I literally ran from one thing to the next and tried to make sure that everything and everyone stayed happy in the process. Most of it was fun stuff, but it was just a super busy kind of day. By the time 4:00 rolled around we had accomplished a LOT and I was ready to just take a few minutes off, get ready for my evening event and relax for a second. And then the phone rang. Forty five minutes later I finished that conversation, got dressed for my holiday extravaganza, bolted out the door and at 10:00 last night I finally had the chance to talk to Ben and process the information I was given.
The phone call in the afternoon happened to be a wonderful man who works for WARE (Washington Adoption Resource Exchange). He answered a LOT of questions and showed me that we have been way off track this whole time. The very abbreviated version of the conversation helped me realize that our home study is essentially useless. Yes, you read that right. Wasted time and money and we are back where we began. Little did we know that in order to adopt from the state we would need a home study written by a state licensed placing agency. Our home study would allow us to adopt through an attorney, from a birth mother, essentially a private adoption. The problem is that we aren't seeking a private adoption and since we have never done this before we naturally had no idea what questions we needed to ask before we had the home study done. We did have a licensed social worker write the study, but it turns out that the agency that he operates under is not state licensed. Who knew? The man I spoke with yesterday was wonderfully kind about it and he told us that we were certainly not alone in making this mistake. The frustrating part is that we were open with our home study writer about what we were trying to accomplish, and I and really wish that he had been honest with us about the fact that his home study would not be able to help us. I also feel deceived because we specifically asked if we could be registered in WARE after the home study was completed and he assured us that it would be no problem. What a sad, sad world we live in.
So, now what? The positive thing that came out of my phone conversation yesterday is that we now have a lot more direction then we have had since we began this process. Basically, we have two choices: we can become foster licensed and attempt to find children through that route or we can work with an agency who will help us find children. We had already begun to find that we were most likely going to need to do this, but it is nice to know for a fact that these are our only options. Now we have to do a lot of research and try to figure out which one we want to pursue. It is going to have to be mostly based on which is going to be the quickest route, although we are still praying that God will be able to keep us here long enough to get everything figured out. Today while Hunter is at school I am going to call the foster licensing agency that we have already been speaking with and make sure that the paperwork that we need is on its way. I'm also going to contact two agencies that may be able to help us and see if that seems like a better option.
As frustrating as all of this is, I know that it is for a reason. Honestly, I can't even begin to imagine where we will end up, but I know that it will be worth the wait in the end. As Ben and I talked through all of this information last night, we pondered why we hadn't just become foster licensed back in the spring when we did our PRIDE training through Tacoma Youth for Christ. We quickly realized that at that time we were only open to one child who was younger than Hunter and we were essentially asking for the impossible so there was no real point in becoming foster licensed. Wow, how things have changed. I feel like we have continually been challenged through each step of the way. First, we were looking for one healthy newborn, then a healthy toddler. After a while we began to think that perhaps a set of two young children wouldn't be so bad. God really challenged us by presenting us with a 4 year old boy who had some very real special needs, and we realized that we may be open to a child with some challenges. After a while we found that we didn't really care about birth order and that Hunter would probably love older siblings, so we could take children that are a bit older. Now we have been praying about maybe looking at a set of three children! Oh, we have been challenged. And through the challenge we have quickly come to see that it is not about us. This is not at all about what we want. It is not about what is most comfortable and what is easy. This is about who needs rescued and who needs loved. We have experienced all these delays for a reason and I am excited to see what will happen!
Thank you for all of your prayers for us. Please continue to pray. Pray for wisdom and clarity as we determine what the next step will be. Pray for our children, we know that they are out there somewhere just waiting to come home to us. Pray for peace for us as we try to sort through this all and see where we are being led. It sure feels good to take off the blindfold and begin to see the road, but after all of this time driving with a blindfold on we have no idea where we are and how to get where we are going!
Love you all, thank you for loving us too!!!
B, E & H
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