Being Foster Parents

Early in our TTC journey we considered fostering. We quickly decided the time wasn't right. but the thought remained as a plan for the future.

Fast forward to 2007. It was time to grow our family again. To make a long story short... we started on the Russia journey again, but God kept throwing obstacles in our way. We decided to go domestic.
After researching and making the decision to do domestic we had to find a homestudy agency. I put out feelier with some friends and one recommended the agency they were using for foster care. I explained that we weren't interested in fostering, Avery was too young, but she assured me they did homestudies for private adoption too. We called and signed up for their mandatory orientation. Can I just say, God has a crazy sense of humor. After the orientation Ryan looked at me and said, "You know we're supposed to foster, dont you?" Ugh, yes, I knew it, I was trying to ignore it, because it just didn't seem logical, but I knew it.
We called the agency the next day and siad while we wanted to continue with them, we wanted to move to the foster/adoption program, and not do domestic adoption.

We were licensed about 4 months later in September 2008. In October we got a call that they needed to place 3 kids that were 3 and under. For some reason I didn't even hesitate. In fact I didn't even call Ryan until after I said yes. What was I thinking Avery was only 4 at the time, so we had some serious stair steps going on. The kids arrived that evening and they stayed with us for nearly 2 years.
In February 2010, Ryan was offered a promotion that required us to move out of state. The kids were at this time free for adoption and we were praying about them becoming a part of our family. This brought some .heated discussions, lots of tears, and the heartbreak of 6 people when we made the deicison to let them go. In April 2010 they left are home and 2 weeks later we moved. They are now with their (amazing) adoptive family and we know God had it all worked out, but that was a hard loss for all of us. In fact I wasn't sure I wanted to foster again. Ryan said give it time.

By June, I was bored. One child doesn't create near the work or chaos of 4, go figure. Still I wanted to enjoy my time and reconnect with Avery. She had a lot of upheaval and I needed to know she was ok before we did anything else.
Over the summer I called a few times to get information to proceed with fostering, but I didn't get anywhere. Finally we got a packet and went to orientation. We had to start from scratch. In October we took classes. In November we finished our homestudy. In December our homestudy was submitted for approval.

So now it's 2013 and over 30 more kids later. We are on the brink of adopting 3 of the children who have joined our lives and stolen our hearts. We've had kids come and go. Some we've kept contact with and enjoy our chance to see them thrive with their families. Our lives have been enriched by each one. And no matter the length of time we plan to treasure each moment we have and pray that we bring a little light to their lives as well.