Getting Approved Again - Adoption Part 1

(Finally I'm ready to share parts of Lexi's story!!!)

If there is anything we learned during our search to find our little ZJ is that personal agency plays a huge part in how quickly we find our children.

Our choice of Adoption Agency, our adoption budget, our child preferences, etc...

are all our personal choices.

At the same time, we know Heavenly Father is the director of our family.

He knows how it will all work out.

He knows the beginning, middle and ending.

He helps us find our children.

He helps our children find us.

For our second adoption we again contacted LDSFS to complete our homestudy. The rule is to wait until your child is one year, so we had done that and knew we needed to get started on the long process.

All thru ZJ's first year I prayed to Heavenly Father to please help us adopt again.

I'm the bossy sort, and I told Him He would need to make it happen.

Two years of searching for our first baby and I still felt spent.

I had prayed until I was weary. I didn't feel the strength to go thru that again.

Infertility and our adoption journey had left it's mark on my heart forever.

In December, ZJ turned one. We didn't actually feel ready to adopt so we weren't in a hurry to start the paperwork, but we had started.

Also in December, one of my aunts met someone at her work who was pregnant and due in March with a boy. She told her about us and got her cell phone number for us to call her. I was nervous, but did call and got her voicemail. I left a message, but I knew she wouldn't ever call us back. I felt it in my heart.

I'm glad anyway, that my aunt (as many others have) decided to open her mouth on our behalf. It nudged us to get started on our new profile and begin thinking about what pictures to use and what to write.

We launched the blog, Somebody Is Missing with the hope that we could find a baby soon. We shared the link with our friends and family so we could start spreading the word of our hope to adopt again.

March came and we thought about the little boy who wasn't ours. We hoped he was doing well. Every baby we hear about has a special place in our hearts and our prayers. Even the babies we immediately felt weren't ours. These are the ups and downs of adoption. Every baby gives hope. Then the hope comes crashing down. No matter how much we guard our hearts, the hope turns into plans for a baby and we mourn what is lost.

It's hard to explain really, unless you've been thru it.

Soon April came and ZJ was 14 months old. Life was good.

We felt ready to adopt and we started working harder on our adoption paperwork.

One of the reasons we went thru LDSFS for our homestudy again was we knew we'd have the same caseworker. Plus, we already knew the process having been thru it once. What we didn't realize is all the same feelings of infertiliy would rear up again. Jealousy of those who build their families easily. Anger at those who are bad mothers and fathers and abuse their children. Etc. etc. etc.

Unfair, unfair, unfair!!!
Why do these feelings have to surface again and again?
Scars that will never completely heal. Very frustrating when just a year earlier the pain felt erased.
But children are no cure for infertility. Infertility is just that kind of beast.
People began asking if adoption was easier now that we'd adopted once.
No. I wish it was easier, but the reality is it's hard. The process is the same both times. It's the same paperwork again. The same interviews again. The same inspection of our house again. It's the same, but it's not easier because the emotions, too, are the same. We, like most people, just want a family. We want children, but the way to them is unsure.
How long will it take this time?
Will we have to suffer a failed placement?
A contested adoption?
What if we match and the birthmother loses the baby?
The naivety of our first adoption is gone. The reality is a lot scarier.
But we trust in God and we try to follow His will for our family.

Truthfully, we would walk thru fire to complete our family if that's what it would take.
This was a new journey and we had more lessons to learn.

Adoption Part 2 soon...