Mike and Kristin Vredevoogd
(on our honeymoon, August 2005, Lake Michigan in the background)
After being married five years, Mike
and I are looking to create a family through the process of adoption.
What an exciting and scary adventure. This blog is a sharing of our
experience and our journey to creating our family.
After fostering a baby boy,
Little D. for four months, we were devastated to lose him when he was
reunited with his father. We agreed that the foster system is
wonderful, with the best of intentions. It works well for people who
are looking to do a good thing by loving and caring for children on a
temporary basis. We feel blessed that we were able to do that for
Little D. You can't help but get attached and love that child, to be
badly hurt when they leave you. Mike and I agreed that despite the
positives of the foster care system, it is not the path for us, a couple
who want to create a family and have a child of our own, making us
his/her forever family.
In my adoption reading, really
the first step is looking into agencies. All the books tell you to
trust your gut instincts. Two weeks ago we met with three different
adoption agencies. I expected to go into these meetings with a
clear-cut, straight-forward, instant feeling of which way to go. I
immediately felt overwhelmed by all the different ways we can go:
domestic, international, newborn, waiting child, etc. I am someone who
feels very uncomfortable not knowing how a process works. When I
encounter that, I feel insecure and stupid.
After a busy couple of weeks and
some time to digest all of the different options and information we've
received, Mike and I today decided upon which agency we think we want to
go with. We're wanting to do domestic infant adoption, but opening
ourselves up to using two different agencies to do an adoption possibly
out of state. We will use one agency here in Colorado to do the home
study, post-placement visits, etc. We will then use another agency that
works in a number of other states to open ourselves up to the potential
of more birth-parents. We do have questions to ask and more
information to obtain this week before proceeding, but we feel good
about the journey we're beginning.
I feel grateful and blessed to
know the love and support of our family and friends. We've decided to
swallow our pride and accept financial help from my parents. It's
difficult to wrap my head and heart around the fact that there are
people having children in the wrong phase of life; they're too young or
do not have the means to care for a child. Yet, I've always known that I
want to be a mother and have had to grapple with the fact that I'm
unable to have a child of my own through natural means. Yet, here we
have to go through this incredible emotional roller coaster and very big
expense in order to become parents.
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