Back when my wife and I were dating we discussed the topic of kids. I felt very firmly that this world is too screwed up to bring anymore kids into it when there were so many already here that needed a home. She agreed, and we decided that if we ever got to the point that we wanted kids, that adoption was the route we would take. After a few years of marriage that bell started ringing for my wife. At first I went along with it feeling that I owed it to her if she really wanted kids. But after starting the process and making that decision, I quickly got excited about it myself. Initially I did a lot of research about private adoption. The main issue for us there was the cost. It is at the very least a $20,000 method to do a domestic adoption, (unless you happen to know someone wanting to give up their child, and can avoid the agencies) and ranges from slightly less to substantially more for international adoptions. We didn't have that kind of money sitting around. We knew we could afford the kids once they were here, but that fee kept slapping us in the face. Then one day one of my wife's coworkers told her about her friend who adopted through the state. It was basically free. So we immediately started looking into it. We went to an introductory meeting put on by CPS (Child Protective Services). There we learned you had to go through an approval process that is done through an outside agency. We made a few calls and settled on the one that seemed most supportive. We are SO happy we landed where we did! (Later in the process we learned they were the favored agency by many in CPS) We started our classes and the approval process.
I would like to stop for a minute here and talk a bit about the classes. These classes should be taken by all adults, whether planning to have biological children, adopt, or are unsure. They were so informative! They go into the workings of the brain in children, and how to work with them to teach them and discipline them without resorting to corporal punishment. Now, I am not saying I am against spanking in all cases. However, we had our hands tied in that regard for the whole time we had the girls, until the adoption was final. I am glad we did, because it forced us to think more, and slow down when handling situations where discipline was needed. There were definitely times when it was very hard not to give them a spanking. When a child is throwing a tantrum on the floor and telling you "No!" it pushes your patience. However, using the methods we were taught worked, they just took more time. Now that spanking is available to us I have yet to use it. The other methods work quickly 99.9% of the time. That is not to say that they will never get a spanking. But if they do, they will know it is about something serious.
The other thing the classes teach you is to examine yourself and your reasons for wanting kids. They straight up tell you that if you are doing this because you need to hear "I love you daddy" from a child, to go have your own. The children that come through the system have gone through some heinous things or else they wouldn't be in the system. Because of that, many of them have some pretty serious emotional and developmental issues. We were very lucky to get the girls we did, but I will go into that later. All in all, the classes were a huge help through the whole process and I don't think we could have done it without them.
Initially we had planned to ask for one child as young as possible. (getting a baby through CPS is almost impossible.) But as we were going through the classes we both realized that we didn't want an only child. We also thought it made much more sense to get siblings than to go through the process twice. There are also some pretty significant financial benefits from the state for adopting siblings. So we decided to ask for an infant and their older sibling 4 years old or younger. As we went further through the process we noticed that we were both drawn toward things for girls. Since we had the ability to ask for anything we wanted we decided to make that request specific to girls. (They had to share a room so we wanted 2 of the same sex) We knew that putting more restrictions on what we would accept could make for a long wait, but we felt that what we were asking for was the best fit for us, so we were okay with that. We completed the classes, background checks, and the homestudy. The only thing left was to sign our contracts with the agency. We had told them we wanted to go on the waiting list on a specific date. We were paying off a couple debts and thought that would be a good time to go forward. We were expecting a long wait since we had requested such a specific situation. Two weeks before the date we had told them, we got a call at 4:30 in the afternoon. They had an emergency placement that was exactly what we were looking for. Would we be willing? Uh, YES! They were at our house at 6:00. So we went from 0 to 2 in an hour and a half! To be continued...
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