My husband and I are praying about adoption right now. I am much more interested in adoption but he is promising to pray about it as we seek God's will. I just love hearing about adoption stories and I'd love to hear about your journey....even the negative stuff. I like know the good, bad, ugly, and beautiful moments in adoption.

Thanks!

I have never adopted a child but just wanted to tell you that I will pray for you and your dh.

Karen

We're in the process now. :-) We should be traveling to get our little girl around the first of December. We are going through Holt International's China Child of Promise Program. You can read more about that at Holt's website: http://www.holtinternational.org/
Also, I've written lots of blog posts about our adoption journey. Here's my blog address:
http://freeindeed-redkitchen.blogspot.com/
I'll be praying for you. Please feel free to ask more questions. I'll try to answer them. :-)

We have had one sucessful adoption and one that failed, both from the US foster care system.

Our first adoption was a 2 yo medically fragile boy, we waited about 5 months from being picked for him to his homecoming. It was a wonderful experience, the workers and the foster family were lovely and very happy to see our son placed in a famiuly. He has flourished in our home and by the grace of God is his fine now, he only has some minor fine motor problems, he is 4 and a great kid, felt like ours from the day we met him and since I have one bio son also I can say he has bonded and fit perfectly into our family.


Now the hard part is sharing about our recent failed adoption. It was a 6 yo child with physical challenges. This was also a child in US foster care, but in a different state then our first adoption. Our adoption failed due to mishandling by the child's workers, including outright lies and false information given to us. They hid some major things from us including birth family involvement with the child and a history of violence in the child. Looking back there were several red flags that they were hiding something but we wanted the child so we chose to keep pursuing it, it was actually the home the child was in that "spilled the beans" to us, not the workers. We will not pursue another adoption from foster care because after this experience we feel it is too risky. If we adopt again we would go US domestic infant adoption.

I am an adoptive mom. My son just turned 13. It's a LONG story, and I am short of time to type it all out. But it was the most wonderful experience. We had an open adoption, and it was scary opening ourselves and our lives to the birth mom, but it all worked out. She was (and is) truly wonderful to give us this son.

What I really wanted to write was that my husband also did not want to adopt, was very reluctant, and did finally agree to adoption for me. I have to admit that my 13-year-old and I are very close. I think it's because this child was sent to me specifically. However, he and Dad have really begun to get along better since he enjoys the kids now that they are older.

I had such a burning desire to adopt. We have 1 older child and had been told that I would not be able to carry a another baby. So, I just was consumed with the need to adopt a baby. We brought our baby home at 10 days old, and then 11 months later had a healthy baby boy. (My pregnancy though was definitely the last for me...it sucked the health out of me and took me a long time to recover.)

Adoption is wonderful experience. I would have loved to adopt again after child #3, but my dear hubby said NO! Three kids were enough for him, and after the love he showed to me by agreeing to adopt child #2, I had to accept his decision and be happy and proud of my three beautiful sons!

Well, I haven't adopted, but my step neice recently gave her newborn up for adoption.

She was 14 when she got pregnant, 15 when she delivered. Her mother is my sil and is widowed (my brother died 9 years ago from cancer, this girl would be his step dd). My sil would have liked to keep the baby, but my niece did not want to at all, and my sil is barely making it (emotionally and financially) raising her own kids (obviously...the 14 year old was pregnant..)

Anyway...she did not reveal her pregnancy until WAY into it (Like almost 6 months). My sil tried to deal with local agencies, but recieved alot of run around...plus my sil/niece really wanted to choose a couple within our church (although not local, of course). So 6 weeks prior to her due date, she was still without an adoptive couple.

My dd happens to attend a university that is affiliated with our church and attends the university church services, which happens to be a very large congregation. She emailed the elders there, asking for prayers for her cousin, and mentioned that she was looking for a couple within the church to adopt her child. The next morning my dd received a phone call ...an elder forwarded her email to another member of the church who happens to be an adoption attorney. This attorney knew of a couple that attends my dds congregation. She asked my dd if it would bother her if someone from that congregation adopted the baby...and my dd said absolutely not.

The adoption attorney contacted my sil and my niece, they met with the couple, and my sil said she just "knew" these were the right people. Now she understood why she was hitting roadblocks elsewhere...she felt God was steering her to this couple. My niece loved them and felt that they were really her baby's parents.

They were able to be there when my niece delivered. The dad got to cut the cord, and the mom got to be the first to hold the baby. The hospital set up a room for the adoptive mom, and she spent the night with the baby in her room...just as if she had delivered her.

My sil and niece say they feel confident they made the right decision in providing for this little baby....and that she seemed meant for this couple.

jules

Each story is unique and amazing.

Infojunkie I am so sorry that you had such a negative experience the second time around with US foster care. My husband has absolutely said NO way when it comes to foster care adoption. So we are looking overseas or domestic US adoption. He has heard too many bad stories from foster care.

Jules- Loved the story about your niece. What a beautiful way God wove that tapestry of love and grace in all their lives!

Forgive me, this is really long.

Dh and I have adopted 4 children, 1 adoption is in process and 2 more who will be coming to us in 2 months for adoption. Here’s our story.
Once upon a time a couple wanted a child. Dw was unable to have children (due to a tubal ligation 10 years prior). So the couple decided to adopt. As time went on, it became clear that God was leading them to adopt from the Philippines. A two year journey began. There was a lot of government red tape along the way which was very frustrating. But then one day the adoption agency faxed a picture of the most beautiful 1 year old boy we’ve ever seen. We fell in love immediately. (Oh no, I’m starting to cry just remembering!) Due to more red tape it was another 7 months before we were given the ok to go get him. The day we met him, we were standing in the courtyard of the orphanage. The social worker who was giving us a tour pointed and said, “There he is.” We turned around and saw him toddling toward us. I walked to him and he put his arms up to me. I picked him up and he never looked back. His adjustment was immediate. It was as if he was always our child.
All was well with the new family for about a year. One day Dw said to Dh “I want a little girl”. Since international adoptions are so expensive and time consuming, we decided to go through the US foster system. It took us about 4 months to become licensed. We had not even received formal word that we were licensed when our telephone rang. They said “We have siblings - a 2 year old girl and a 16 month boy who need a home immediately”. We said “There’s our girl and Yippee! A bonus boy!” The next day we picked them up and brought them home. They had some adjustment problems but we loved them through it.Three months later we were informed that they would be going back to the birth parents. Heartbroken we began to pack their things. One week before they would be going we were told that the birth parents “messed up” again and they would not be given another chance. Meanwhile, birth mom gave birth to a baby girl. I got to meet and feed baby girl in the hospital when I took Dd and Ds to meet their sister. I was in love. Baby girl was brought into custody when she was 3 days old. I asked Dh if we could take her. He said “No!” I said “Please!” This went on for a week or so. One evening Dh came home from a prayer meeting and said “Call the social worker” So that brings us to adoption #4. We picked Dd up when she was 11 days old.

We thought we were done. About a year later our telephone rings and the voice on the other end says “I have a 3 month old girl who needs a home.” I said “I’ll call you back.” I looked at Dh and said “Do you want another daughter?” He said “Are you crazy?” I said “I think so.” He said “Ok” So I called the man and went down to the county home to pick her up that day. Reunification with the birthparents was attempted for 8 or 9 months, but it failed. We are now just working through red tape to finalize her adoption.
Youngest Dd has siblings who were living with their grandma. Recently grandma has realized that she cannot raise the children anymore. Dh and I already have a good relationship with them so it was a pretty easy decision to bring them in to our family. They have not yet moved in with us. That date has been set for late next month. They are currently spending weekends with us.

So, there’s our adoption story. Adoption has been the most amazing emotional roller coaster ride I’ve ever been on. Dealing with the government and all their (sometimes silly) rules and regulations is frustrating. Sometimes those rules and regulations clash with the way I want to raise my children but we deal with it. Looking at my wonderful family, I wouldn’t change a minute of it!