So, at the end of my last entry, I promised that I would let everyone know about our "big news". Well, here it is!!!!! We are in the middle of the process of becoming a foster family! GASP!!! Scary, exciting and everything in between.
This is something that we have talked about doing off and on for several years now. I would always end up dismissing the idea because I could never see myself being able to "give a child back". If I'm being honest, I still don't know how well I will do with that. However, we are being well trained in our classes on how to mentally and emotionally prepare ourselves for that situation. Since the ultimate goal of foster care is to reunite the child with his/her birth family, we are looking at it as an opportunity to love on a child and hopefully make a difference in that young life. However, if the opportunity presents itself, and the situation is right, we are definitely hoping to adopt!
Our girls are very excited about this new adventure. In fact, our youngest has been "practicing" with her baby doll. Since it has been recommended to us that we foster children who are younger than our youngest child, we more than likely will have kids in our home who are age 6 and under. In fact, since I am a stay-at-home mom who works out of the home, they said it would be likely that we may have the opportunity to foster the "itty bitties" because they can't be put into daycare before they are 6 weeks old. So, we are preparing for whatever the Lord sends our way. That includes preparing a room that can accomodate both a child and a baby, and this is where we are asking for help. If anyone in our area has a baby bed(with slats no greater than 2 3/8in apart) that you could donate, let us borrow, or sell to us for a very reasonable price, we would greatly appreciate it.
Please keep us in your prayers, because I know that we will definitely need them. We have one more month of classes to complete along with home studies, cpr and first aid certifications, and I'm sure there's something else that I cant remember right now. I don't know how long it will be before we recieve our first placement, but I will be sure to keep you up to date.
On a side note, for those of you who have ever considered fostering and dismissed the idea, I want to leave you with a few thoughts. In Shelby County, their are hundreds of children who need homes, and there are only about 40 foster families. Shocking, isnt it? We have also learned about how babies who are under 2 years of age who are moved around and never bond with one person as their caregiver, have a very high probability of dying. DYING!! They just fail to thrive, get sick and die. That just saddens me to my core :(
So, we are going to give this a try, and I pray that we are successful and able to handle it. Who knows, it could be an epic FAIL on our part, but I am going into this with the attitude that we are going to be wildly successful! Even if we have a positive impact on one life, and show our own children how blessed we are and how important it is to be giving to others, then we will have fulfilled our goal. So, after all of this, I know some of you probably think that we have lost our minds, and maybe we have! We just don't have any other choice than to follow our hearts <3
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