Thursday, April 01, 2010

Adoption decision

The social worker called this morning. I wasn't expecting that call so soon.

He was calling to set up an appointment to get our homestudy started. But first he asked what age we wanted to adopt. When I said under 5 years, he told me that in NM for adoption 0-4 years you have to do foster care.

I wasn't totally surprised and I completely understand why. They want kids to be moved as little as possible. It is much better for a child to be adopted by the foster parents she's already with than to be moved again. I get that.

I've been thinking about it all day. I even called the social worker again to ask some questions about fostering. But I just don't think I want to do foster care. The goal for any child put into foster care is reunification with the biological family. There is so much uncertainty with a foster care placement. We wouldn't know a lot about a child placed in our home, we wouldn't know how long we would have her or if it would ever move to adoption. We would have to deal with parental visits. It could be years before we would actually adopt. While I know there is a great need for foster families, I'm just not sure fostering would be right for our family.

So now we are thinking about adopting someone a little older, up to 6 yrs old. There might be more challenges with an older child, but at least we would know she is ours no matter what.

I know God has called us to adopt. I know he has a plan. We're praying for His wisdom.

We didn't make the appointment yet. Please pray for us as we deal with these big decisions.



3 comments:

Maellen said...

I will pray, Robin! God has the perfect child picked out for you - you just need to figure out which one it is. He WILL guide you! God bless~ Maellen

The Wades said...

I'll pray too. You have a lot of big decisions to make with this. At least you know your ultimate goal--a daughter to love!

The Wades said...

Robin, I'm a little confused. I know several people who have adopted brand new babies. Are you going through a different service?

 
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