To me, adoption is the logical and only choice. I want to give to a child, what my grandparents did for us, and, for my mother and my aunt. I want to give my love to a child who may not get any, if not for us. I shudder to think of where my life would be, had my grandparents not adopted my mother. Assume that my mother’s adult life would go exactly as it did, without being adopted by the most amazing people I have ever known. Let us assume that she would meet my father, get addicted to drugs and alcohol, and give birth to myself, my brother, and my sister.  What would have happened when she hit rock bottom, which she did, but did not have my grandparents, who adopted her, as an infant, to support her, to take her three children into their Ohio home, fly them in from California, so that my mother could go to rehab and fix her life. Would she have even gone to rehab? Would my life have gotten even WORSE than it already was, at 7 years old? Would she have stayed with my abusive father? I honestly doubt she would have the resources available to her, in order to make such a huge step, in her road to recovery.

Believe me, when I say I do not have any rose colored glasses on, beginning this journey into adoption. I know it is a long a difficult process to go through, and once it is over, and the child is ours, there is a lifetime of struggle ahead of us, in order to make this child feel like a part of our family. To feel as loved as my biological son feels. To help them feel like they belong and that we love them already, even now, not knowing who they are or how we will get to bring them into our lives, home and family.

In 24 days, I am going to marry the man of my dreams. The decision to adopt was a lot different for him. I brought the idea to him. I plead my case and I let him stew over it for a couple of months. This is how he works. He is not a ‘fly by the seat of his pants’ type of guy. He stews. He takes F.O.R.E.V.E.R sometimes. He researches a topic to death, but when he decides, he is in. He will have a 13 year old step son soon and adopting means he will not have any biological children. This was a hard pill to swallow for him.

 On the fourth of July, we were working in the yard, since my son was with his paternal grandfather for a few hours, and I overheard my neighbors who work for Children’s Services, discussing the terrible circumstances some of the children have to live with. I wanted to hop that fence and yell “we’ll take them! We’ll take them all!” But I held back. I asked my fiancé if he had thought anymore about the adoption idea. He said he had. He said “I think it sounds like something I would be in to”. That’s a yes! I was making calls the next day! Of course we discussed what type of adoptions we would like to do and all of that, also.

A couple of weeks later, on July 17^th, we participated in a webinar for an adoption agency that a friend had recommended. We learned about adoption from other countries, domestic adoption and state waiting adoption. I knew this was not the route for us. We are more the foster-to-adopt people. So I texted my neighbors who work for CS’s and asked for some information. They don’t work in that department, but were SUPER supportive and stated that if they could; they would adopt in a minute, and gave me the name of the person to call, whom I called the very next day. We are all signed up for the classes that start exactly ONE WEEK after our wedding! We are so excited to start the most exhilarating journey of our lives! The long winding road to adoption.

We are planning to tell our families about our intention to adopt before they leave town after the wedding. He wanted to wait until we are done with the classes and the home study, but then we wouldn’t be able to tell them in person. On a forum I frequent about adoption, I came across the most adorable shirt that says “Superman was adopted too”. I bought some white onsies and will print on to an iron on transfer our version of the design (the superman emblem with the saying in a comic book text). I plan to wrap them up and give them to various family members and hope they ‘get it’.  We will answer all of their questions and fend off their doubt and negativity. We will hopefully get them as enthusiastic as we are.

Now, we wait. We stay busy with wedding plans and will fill out our application in the week between the wedding and the first class. Since we are not married yet, we were told to wait to apply and bring it with us. I called today to confirm that we were both signed up for the class and that we are still to wait on filling out the application. Thank goodness I did! I was the only one signed up! My future husband is now on the class roster and I am so incredibly eager to get this going!