Latest on the adoption thing

This week we had an emotionally draining experience. We got a call on Wednesday to consider adopting a 10-year old girl. We had a lot of reservations about this because our target age is 3-6, and ideally, we would like some time with the kid or kids before they start school. But we were picked as a really compatible match for this girl, and we decided to find out more information.

On Thursday we attended a "telling." This was a 2+ hr exhausting meeting where we went over case history, psychological profiles, family history, medical information, and just about everything that CPS has about this girl. It was very sad to hear all the awful things that has happened to her in her young life. We went into the meeting looking for red flags - things that would tell us that she would not be a good match for us. To our surprise, we didn't find much. We thought that maybe this would be a good possibility for us. It was definitely outside of what we were thinking we wanted, but we were open to at least find out more.

Thursday night was about the most restless night we have ever had. I doubt I got more than 2 hours of sleep. This wasn't because I was concerned about this girl - it was just that my mind was racing about the possibilities, the challenges, the changes, the doubts about myself. (I'm sure those of you who are parents can relate to these kinds of nights). Jenetta was sick to her stomach most of the night, and she really didn't eat anything that should have bothered her, so we are convinced that was due to stress.

Friday was spent calling friends and family, thinking about the future, inquiring about logistical things like enrollment in school, and a host of other things that were on our minds. We were told to call the foster parents where this girl is currently living. So Jenetta did that on Friday afternoon, and after a lengthy conversation with the foster mom, Jenetta hangs up and tells me "I don't think she is a match for us."

I am really not comfortable going into the reasons for this on the internet. But suffice it to say, there were several concerns, and they were very serious concerns for us. And we feel very strongly that if she were to meet us, she would not think we were a good match for her.

So, we are going to pass on this opportunity. We were supposed to meet her tomorrow, but we are not going to pursue that. It has been sad, and we are definitely sad for this girl. She has been through a lot, and I hope she finds a good home.

We feel very strongly that since there are so many kids available for adoption, we can't just pick them all. We need to pick the one (or ones) who will really be a good fit for our family, and the ones that we feel we are drawn toward.

So, this was a very tiring experience. But we are learning to ask better questions, and we are learning to ask these questions to several people who interact with the children. The more perspectives we get, the clearer the picture becomes. We are also convinced that our social worker has our best interests in mind and is doing a really good job for us. She told us about this opportunity but was extremely careful to state to us that we should not feel bad if it didn't feel like a good match to us. We were picked by the social worker for this girl, and our case worker went along with it. I think our social worker had her reservations from the beginning.

So that was our crazy weekend. After church today, I went surfing and hung out at the beach and had a bbq with friends from our home group. Taking a nap under the beach umbrella helps a lot! :)