This month is one year mark of when we adopted our son! It has seriously flown by and Josh remarked the other day that it feels like he has always been with us and part of our family. I have only positive things to say about our foster care and adoption experience. We attended several amazing classes before we even found our agency and that really prepared us and answered a ton of our questions. I highly recommend Arizona 1.27 if you are local. Arizona 1.27 is a non-profit that partners with local churches to recruit and care for the members of their congregation engaged in the ministry of foster care and adoption. Childcare was provided for our kiddos and we were able to go and learn more about the process and ask questions. I would also recommend the book Orphan Justice even if you aren't considering fostering or adopting. It really challenged my thinking and started to break down some of the presuppositions I had about the foster care system and those who are part of … [Read more...]
10 Helpful Tips for Foster Parents of Infants
Foster parenting has been a huge learning experience for our family. If you and your family are thinking about fostering infants or about to take your first placement I am sharing 10 tips that I hope will be useful and helpful. Hospital Pickup versus Home Drop Off If you have the option to pick up your placement from the hospital do it. The nurses will be able to provide you with lots of helpful information. Ask questions because they will be able to give you more background information on your child as well as feeding tips, routine, and medical concerns. For little ones coming from the hospital be sure to note what type of nipple was used on the bottle for feeds. This was something that we struggled with and finally ended up buying a package of disposable nipples that fit on the Dr. Brown bottles we had already purchased. WIC Make an appointment with WIC as soon as you know you are getting a placement. I had no idea just what a valuable resource this would be for our family. … [Read more...]
The Phone Call
Bathtime can get a little hectic in our house with 3 kids under the age of 5. On this typical evening in our household the kids were splashing away in the tub singing, laughing, and getting louder and louder by the minute when Josh's phone began to ring. My curiosity was instantly piqued. We had been waiting for a phone call for our first foster placement and I couldn't follow him around the house while he walked and talked like I normally would because I needed to stay with the kids in the tub. Minutes later he came back into the bathroom and told me that we had received a phone call from our agency worker about a baby in need of a foster home. After that first call Josh and I tagged team bathing the kids and as we made several more phone calls back and forth between myself, Josh, our agency worker, and the Department of Child Safety. In less than 10 minutes we had a plan in place to pick up the baby in the morning. The limited details we had were heartbreaking. I clung to Josh … [Read more...]
How & Why Our Family Became Licensed to Provide Foster Care
Earlier this year our family became licensed to provide foster care and we took our first placement soon after our license became active. The last 6 months have flown by and our foster care experience has been so different from what we were expecting. And I mean that in the best way possible :). Foster care is temporary and an amazing opportunity to love and care for a child and be part of the ministry of family reconciliation. When you provide a temporary home for a child it allows for the possibility of a permanent reconciliation to happen within a family. I enjoyed reading and learning from other foster families when we were starting this process. Below are the steps we took to become licensed in Arizona and also the reasoning behind why Josh and I ultimately said yes to becoming foster parents. THE PROCESS Our journey into becoming licensed as a foster family started all the way back in November of 2015. Our kids at the time were 4 and 2 years old. Josh and I knew we … [Read more...]
Our Adoption Story
Josh and I had the privilege this January to become licensed foster parents. This year has grown me in more ways then I can say. I have learned so much and I am so thankful for the amazing opportunity to be part of another child's life. This week our family adopted the sweet little person we have been loving and caring for over the last six months. Adopting our foster son has been an amazing and yet bittersweet experience. I have never felt such a deep loss for another person before. I think about and pray for our son's biological parents, I pray for the future conversations we will have with our son regarding his adoption, and I pray for our family to be a safe and secure place for him to learn and know what love is, how much we love him, but more importantly how much God loves him. We had the most amazing people from the Arizona Department of Child Safety advocating for our child. Words cannot fully express how honored our family has been to walk along side these individuals … [Read more...]
