Choices

Private, International or Foster to adopt. Those were our choices. We didnt have any children; Ireally wanted to experience being a mom to a newborn. So International was out, not to mention there would be no way to get my husband on an airplane that went anywhere near the ocean. There was something about private adoptions I wasnt really comfortable with. Too long of a wait, too much money, too much controversey, and the BIG reason: I was petrified the biological mom would change her mind last minute. Dont get me wrong thats the mothers right. I just would not have been able to handle it. I had been through so much. And after going threw numerous IVF procedures we just didnt have 20-30k laying around to do a private adoption. So we were left with foster to adopt. It sounded great to us. We didnt have to pay for anything. Sure there was no guarentee. I could live with that. We were told our chances of getting placed with a somewhat healthy caucasian newborn would take years, and there was no guarentee the baby would ever be placed for adoption. But we went for it. 8 weeks of MAPP classes, 2 homestudies, background checks, FBI checks, fingerprinting, and a partridge in a pear tree....We decided to take placements of kidswho we knew would not be adoptable just to give them a good home while we waited for our "forever" placement. We started the process in December of 2003, we where licensed in 3/2004. Our 1st placement arrived 4/1/04. A 3 year old and her 4 month old brother. Physically abused & neglected. Sad. they went back to their bio mom in 21 days. We missed them, but there was nothing we could do about it. Our motto was "At least we gave them a healthy & safe home for as long as we possible can" Thats all we can do. So from April 2004-August 2004 we were placed with 6 foster kids. All of whom we knew where not going to be adoptable. But that was ok. It was a growth experience. Then we got THE call on August 9, 2005.