The Journey: part 1

I have said that I would tell our journey of starting foster care and getting into this crazy adoption thing with my sister! So here it goes. I really don't know how far I will get, or when I will get to the other parts, but here is the start. That is why I titled it the journey part 1...I'm not sure how many parts it will have.

My friend Angie and her husband decided to do foster care and I was so excited for her. I was telling my friend Charlotte about it, and how neat it was, and I guess I was talking about it so much that Charlotte said, "Well Miss Trinity, it sounds like YOU need to do foster care!"

Yeah. Right Miss Charlotte, single people can't do that...........can they?

So I asked Autumn about it, and sure enough they can do that. So later, Autumn and I decided that we would buy a house, Bethany was going to get married and we would do foster care together. Yep, that's how it would be. Autumn and I didn't let Bethany in on this plan...no need for her to worry! Now, we all three lived in a rent house together, and Bethany wasn't dating anyone, not even interested in anyone, but that's what would happen.

Well, we bought a house, and not even a month after we bought that house, we got a new youth minister at our church. And right away we (Autumn and I) knew that Jarrod was right for Bethany, and just under a year after they met, they were married. So while they were engaged, it was a no-brainer to start the process to foster.

We enjoyed our classes and couldn't wait to start the process of actually getting kids! Our mindset in the whole thing was to do foster care.....only foster care. We felt that we were equipped to take in kids in trauma and be a safe and secure place for them for as long as they were with us, whether that was for a day or a year. We thought that we could help them and teach them get them ready to move to their next place, home or an adoptive home. That was just how it was going to be. The man came to do our home study, which went just fine. At the end of our visit he asked, "So what happens if a child comes into your home and you decide you want to adopt them?" I didn't even let him really finish the question when I answered, "Oh..no, we WON'T adopt....we just won't. We are in it just for foster care........." and I went on and on about how we won't adopt.

"But what will happen IF you decide that you just can't live without this kid and you decide to adopt?"

"Um....no, that won't happen, we decided that we just aren't going to adopt, this isn't even a question."

Ok, apparently this nice man just doesn't understand this situation....

He says, "I understand that you don't have any intentions of adopting, but I have to ask this question and have an answer for it, because I just know that the people looking at this application are going to look at your situation and want an answer. I have to tell them what you would do if adoption came up.....who would adopt the child?"

Oh my goodness....whatever......I guess I better just give an answer, but that won't happen. So as I rolled my eyes in my head (at least I hope I really didn't roll my eyes at the nice man) I gave the answer (and Autumn said things too, but I will sum it up here), "Well IF that came up, we don't know exactly what will happen, but we trust the Lord that he will lead our steps. So IF he can change our minds on this, then we KNOW he WILL have an answer and we WILL just know what to do."

That answer worked, because we got approved. Then we waited. I got SO impatient! I would call Autumn and say......."I just want a kid!" Oh, and by the way, we only wanted kids that were kindergarten through 5th grade, and only one, MAYBE two kids at a time.......MAYBE two!

Autumn worked at a shelter at the time, so she would come home and tell me about different girls and their stories. We looked into getting a couple of them in our homes, but for various reasons, that never worked out.

Then Autumn calls and she had heard from our worker that we could have an 8 year old come to our home for two weeks. She was in a foster home at the time, but that mother needed a break. YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let's get her.......and I can go shopping, and pick out clothes.......um.....Autumn stopped that......she has things and we don't need to get her anything. Ok, I can deal with that.

So we got her. She was very sweet and really enjoyed our home. There were some issues to work through and we talked with her a lot. She was making a lot of progress in different areas and she held her head with more confidence. A week passed, and we knew we had one more week with these girl. We decided that it would be best for this little girl if we slowly helped her back into reality by having another little girl come into the home. That way she would get used to sharing attention and we could better prepare her to go back. We gave her a Bible when she left and she told us that she felt good about going back because she had learned lessons about life.

BUT, about a week into it, Autumn came home and told me about a little girl at the shelter. She said she thought we might should get her in our home. Autumn kept talking about this little girl and how whiny she is, but everyone only talks about how sweet she is. Autumn kept saying how weird it was that every time she saw this little girl in the shelter, she was complaining or crying, but nobody, even the workers that usually got frustrated with whiny kids, would say that she was whiny, they just said she was sweet. Autumn said how much work she would be, but that she thought we should get her and that this little girl in the shelter would be great for helping the little girl we had in our home adjust. So, we decided to get the little girl from the shelter, and so began our journey we didn't know would last forever...........our journey with Sister #1......the beautiful and feisty miss M!