I remember exactly where I was when I got the phone call, it was Friday, July 29th.
Babysitting, I was standing in the hallway of the Beerys’ house trying to make sure their oldest son was taking a nap. I couldn’t scream or cheer for joy because two little ones were napping or trying to. So I paced. Paced as Jessica gave me the details and promised to email me more. Then I, of course, called Luke. We were excited, scared, shocked, happy, so happy, and pretty much any and all emotions you could imagine. Did I mention happy? We were parents! Luke and I wanted kids for so long, but were waiting for just the right time, God’s timing. And here it was, the perfect time. Our hearts were overflowing.
Of course all of that excitement and thrill led up to more waiting, but we didn’t have much time to sit around and worry about it. We had to get our house ready for three children. Up to this point, we had only prepared for two, so we needed another bed, three car seats, to switch our guest room into a kid’s room, and a TON more. Not to mention tell our families and friends!
In foster adoption, when you are matched with a child/children, you then have a disclosure meeting. During the meeting, everything that is known about the children, the situation that brought them to foster care, and the current state of the case are divulged to you. You are then given 24-48 hours to decide if you would like to move forward with placement.
Our disclosure meeting was scheduled for a week later, Monday, August 8th Our social worker, the girls’ social worker, and the adoption specialist attended this meeting. It was rough, to say the least. Our girls had been through a lot, more than most of us go through in a lifetime. We sat there as the social workers read every terrible thing that was known to happen to our soon-to-be children. I cried. Wanting to hide it, because I didn’t know these social workers. I did not want them to think I couldn’t handle it. Ultimately, they might change their minds. It was so awful. There were things in this meeting that made me question whether we could handle the suffering they had endured. God, were we really the right parents for these sweet, heartbroken children? I didn’t know, but I knew He held them in His hand.
When they finished sharing all the information, and we asked all the questions we could think of, (I definitely had a list of questions I had prepared beforehand) we got to call the foster mom that was caring for the girls and ask her a ton of questions.
Luke and I then decided to go in the other room and discuss our decision. I voiced my small concerns, we decided right then and there, and then we returned to the waiting social workers.
We said YES.
Not a moment later, we asked when we could meet them. I was not about to let these three women leave my house before I had a firm date as to when we could meet our children, being ever the persistent one. With much pushing, prodding, and some very serious insisting Luke and I convinced them that we could not possibly waiting any longer than the upcoming weekend. (I should note here that our girls were from a city over 3 hours away. This largely affected meeting the girls, visiting them, and transitioning them to our home.) Then and there, it was decided that we would meet our future daughters on Saturday, August 13th.