Nearly two years ago my husband, Aaron, and I began our journey of trying to adopt a child. The process has been long and filled with many emotions. That journey has now come to an end…without us adopting a child.
Aaron and I began exploring the adoption process in 2022, shortly after we were married. Aaron has always wanted to have a child of his own and, even though I have three wonderful biological children, I still have lots of love to give to a child. We learned that there were classes to take, a home study to complete, and a lot of waiting.
We completed our training early this year and became licensed as both a foster home and for adoption. Then we began waiting for a child who met our preferences—one boy, under age 8. That’s when our licensing worker called with a crazy proposition…there were two boys, slightly older than our preference, who needed a permanent home. Aaron and I discussed it and decided to go for it. The boys’ profiles sounded too good to be true, but we had a good feeling about the situation so we agreed to go through the staffing process. And we were selected.
We began seeing the boys’ photos, learning more about them over FaceTime calls, and took a trip to meet them in person. Things seemed great so we set a date for the boys to move into our home. However, after they moved in, behaviors began appearing that we were not told about and the boys did not seem to be bonding with us. We had conversations with the social workers and tried different things to help with the transition. But, after several weeks, we came to realize that the boys needed more than we could offer them. We made the difficult decision to not move forward with the placement and the boys moved out. We were heartbroken—for them and for us—but we learned a lot.
We discussed options with our licensing worker and decided to give things another try. That’s when we were told about the possibility of a four year old boy being placed with us. We were cautiously optimistic. Our licensing worker had difficulty getting information about him from his overworked social worker. Eventually, we were connected with the social worker and our questions were answered. It sounded like a great fit, but the process had already started for an outside agency to begin recruiting other families to adopt him. We waited for additional information about the process and how things were progressing. Weeks went by. A month. Two months. All with very vague updates.
Finally, on August 22, we got the answer we had dreaded. The placement of this four year old boy would be decided by the outside agency in collaboration with Children’s Division, and the best we could hope for was for them to consider our home study. But there would be no guarantees that we would be selected. We also learned that a change was happening within the Children’s Division office and their process for placing children with pre-adoptive families like us. It had been decided that families would now be required to foster children, in hopes of adopting them, rather than receiving pre-adoptive placements where parental rights were being terminated. No longer would potential pre-adoptive placements be given to our licensing worker.
More than 30 other families would be put in the same position as us: having to decide whether to continue waiting for a unlikely opportunity to receive a pre-adoptive placement, begin fostering with the hopes of adopting, or giving up and closing their license. Aaron and I discussed the options. During this whole process we’ve known that we didn’t want to foster because we would get attached to a child who may have to leave our home one day. Adoption would not be guaranteed in these foster placements. We also decided not to continue waiting for something that was unlikely to happen. So we made the hard choice to close our license.
Our sadness over ending this journey cannot be overstated. Adopting a child is something we both desperately wanted as a way to complete our family, and adopting through the state was the only way we could afford to adopt. Private adoption was out of the question because of its expense. It feels like the rules have changed in the middle of the game. Like the system was working against us the whole time. I am grateful for our licensing worker who stood by our side through it all and advocated for us all the way until the end. She helped us keep hope when things seemed the darkest.
Ultimately, we had to do what is best for our family and our mental health. We both struggle with depression, and I suffer from suicidal ideation. The pain and loss we’ve experienced has greatly affected us both. We’re sad. We’ve cried. We’ve shared our fears with each other about our grieving process. I know it will take time for us to recover. I pray we will get through this.