Adoption Update

I am writing this post for two reasons.
1. I keep getting questions asking how far along we are.
2. I keep getting asking myself questions about how far along we are.


So how far along are we?
When I was pregnant I could tell you how many days I had left. How weeks along I was. I could tell whether our baby was the size of a walnut or a grapefruit.

Adoptions is very different in this respect. We could have an expecting mom tell us she would like us to care for her child tomorrow.
We could been on this journey for years to come.

For anyone who has adopted you know the home study can be very, very time consuming. We have completed our home study by about 50%. The paperwork side of it is mostly done. We are now just working on the to-do list. One thing on the to do list is to get a physicals. This one makes me a little nervous, since one of the questions a physician must answer is if we are both expected to live a full, healthy life. I have type 1 diabetes. This in no way should make a doctor answer "no" to this question, but given my recent medical history it might cause pause. We would appreciate prayers that it doesn't.

Once we finish the study and raise some more funds (I am taking on more work) than we should be good to LIST!! We plan on listing with a few local adoption agencies that we feel strongly connected to, but we would love a private situation to arise as well...SO PASS ON THE WORD: THE ELLIOTTS ARE TRYING TO ADOPT! After that it is just a waiting game.

Now, to answer some questions many people have asked, so I figure even more are wondering.

Domestic or foreign?
I swear sometimes I feel like I am ordering a beer. The truth is either! We are open to any situation really. We just find that domestic makes the most sense right now. If a foreign situation arose, we would be open to it.

Why not just foster to adopt?
It's a good question and one I get asked a lot. I mean it's free (in fact you often get money back from the government) and it helps the child arguably in the biggest need. Not to be rude, but please STOP asking it.

First off, nothing is JUST when it comes to adoption. It is an HUGE process which takes much talking, mediation and prayer. For those of you who don't realize it, Dustin and I pursued foster parenting a couple of times. After we lost the twins we enrolled for foster classes. I got pregnant before we got a chance to go. We still felt really drawn to fostering after we lost Claudette, but were very cautious of the emotional cost it would take on all of us. We decided to go the foster to adopt meeting anyhow. It became clear after going it probably isn't the right choice for us right now.

Why not you ask? Well, first off we have to honest with where we are in our grief. You could get a baby at birth and not know if you can actually adopt the child for sometimes over two years later, since the goal is reunification with the birth family. This often means the child comes and goes back with its birth family for two years. That for me would make it very difficult to bond with a baby that would be taken away again at any time.

It's not about just about me you say. Well, you are right. It's NOT. We have to consider our other children who have lost 3 siblings now. The next child that comes in our home we would like to make every effort to ensue they stay.

And frankly, the biggest factor we considered is it's not fair to the foster child. I get it both sides could be argued, but my husband has helped me see that having a child (especially a foster child) needs a strong home in which is well prepared for reunification with the birth family. We simply put, are not at this point.

I say all this to by NO means deter people for fostering to adopt. In fact, we still plan on doing just that once the kids are a bit older. We often talk about how neat it will be to foster (and potentially adopt) other children through the years.

I also know that God likes to giggle at our plans and we could have a foster child by next week. We are just trying to be realistic with our plans.

So that in nutshell is where we are at.

I just can NOT do this post with giving a shout out to everyone who has been incredibly generous to us in this journey thus far. We have had perfect strangers to dear friends make sure that adoption is in our family's future and for that we are EXTREMELY GRATEFUL!

Don't have dollars to give? WE UNDERSTAND! But you can still help. Please either like or share our Facebook page, by clicking below:
https://www.facebook.com/BabyElliottAdoption?ref=hl
In some ways this helps more than money ever could by getting the word out.

If anyone still would like to give you can  click here.  Even $1 helps!

THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF OUR HEARTS forPRAYERS, PENNIES AND POSTING OUR PAGE!!  We simply put couldn't do this without you.