A quick update and some clarification for everyone. We have noticed this week with everyone checking in and asking how the home study went we realized we might need to clarify what we mean when we say we are adopting. I’ll get to that in a minute.
First, the home study went well. There wasn’t much to it. We weren’t really nervous. We didn’t practice questions or try and think what she was going to ask leading up to it. I was just ready to get it over with. It was pretty much what we expected. She looked at the house just to make sure the room where the child would be staying was big enough. That the weapons and medications were locked away or in a safe place. She then asked us a ton of questions about our childhood, relationships with our families, our story and things we loved about each other, strengths and weakness when it comes to parenting, etc. She was just trying to get a feel for how we would raise a child and the relationship we have with each other and what our future family would look like. It was fun getting to share our story and say things about each other that we definitely don’t tell each other enough.
So now we wait some more. She has two weeks to type up our home study. She will then turn it in to our agency. After that they review it and let her know if there is more she needs or errors she needs to fix. They then gather with their panel to discuss us and then decide if we are approved to adopt. So we are hopeful within the next month or two we will be approved!!!
Now on to the adoption part. Like i said above, Nick and I will be getting approved. Notice how I didn’t say licensed. There are basically three main ways you can foster and/or adopt.
You can just foster. That means a child is removed from their home and could be placed in your home. You would foster them until it is time for them to go back home with their family if that ends up happening. With fostering, the ultimate goal is the child will eventually be reunited with their family.
You can also foster to adopt. This is where they would try and place a child in your home that will eventually be put up for adoption. If and when they were ready to be adopted you would get that option first since you are fostering to adopt. However, there is no time frame for that or guarantee they would become available to adopt. There is still the chance they would go back to their family.
So Nick and I are not doing foster care or foster to adopt.
We are doing straight adoption. There are many kids in the state of Texas right now that are available for adoption. These kids parental rights have been terminated, they have no other family or family members who want to adopt them. They are in foster care waiting for someone to adopt them into their family. So once we are approved, it is our understanding that we will start getting emails of kids that are ready to be adopted. Our agency will try and match us with kids they think would be a good fit. Once we see the kiddo that we think we want to adopt, we will get to meet them and have a couple of visits with them outside our home to see if we think it will be a good fit. So it is not like fostering. We are not going to get approved and then get a phone call the next day about a kid who just got removed from their family and needs a place to stay. (I say we won’t but who really knows). Once our kid comes to stay with us they have to live with us at least 6 months before we can officially adopt them.
With that being said as much as we would love a newborn that is a little unrealistic with the route we are going. But we are open to newborn to ages five or six years old. We will see what the good Lord has planned.
There is also something called legal risk. This is where you foster to adopt but the chances the child will be put up for adoption are very high. Higher than just doing regular foster to adopt. Still no guarantee though. They could still be placed with a family member or a family who has adopted other siblings. Typically it isn’t the parents first child and they don’t have parental rights to any of the other children. Lots of drug abuse cases. That is something, depending on how things go, we might consider in the future.
We are trying to grow our family and we feel the best way to do that is to adopt. I don’t think we are ready to try and foster to adopt with the possibility of that child being taken away from us.
With all that being said I love God’s sense of humor. We will see what he has in store for us. Our prayer is that we continue to be faithful not fearful and do whatever it is he calls us to do. Especially now. It all got real very fast. It is a little overwhelming at times to think at some point this year we could be parents! We are more excited than anything though. I hope that gives everyone a clearer picture of our plan at the moment. Maybe it will peak someone’s interest a little more about possibly fostering or adopting 🙂 If it does we are always here and willing to talk and answer any questions you may have.
Prayer request
- That we would be patient over the next few weeks/months as we wait to get approved
- When the time comes we would be obedient in what God is calling us to do and hear him ever so clearly when he says that one is your child
- The devil wouldn’t get in our heads with fears and doubts about adopting and what kind of parents we will be
Stay tuned. I have a feeling things are about to get good!
Brittany and Nick
FaithfulNOTfearful.com 