Our journey begin back in 2003 when we were just dating. My parents were foster parents, and I was living at home finishing up nursing school. My mom got a call from CPS about a 6 day old baby being discharged home from the NICU, I heard her tell CPS she'd talk with her husband (my father) and call them back. As soon as she hung up the phone I recall saying "forget about dad, let's go get him"! So without telling my dad, we were off to pick up who is now my 11 year old brother! We walked into the NICU and the nurse handed me, Ryan, while my mom signed some paperwork. We put him the car without one thing at the house for an infant, we had to go to Target to get things for him. I held him high and shielded him from onlookers inside the store while answering questions from strangers about the baby. We took him by JC's work to show JC and we went home. Dad came home from work to find me sitting in their room holding this baby, he looked at me confused and walked out of the room without a word. It was a day I'll never forget and it changed the life of my family in ways I cannot put into words. 18 months later Ryan was legally made a member of our family!!!
Ryan is the reason our story begins! JC and I knew from the start we wanted to adopt because of the miracle we had seen with Ryan. After some bumps and turns in our lives, January 2014 was the start for us together in this adventure of foster care. We determined that 2014 was the year we were going to get licensed to do foster care/adoption. It was just a random year nothing significant other than we knew it was time to do it! We went to orientation in January, PRIDE class in February and were licensed May 21st 2014.
May 22nd we received the first call for a placement. I immediately wanted to say YES!!!! After harassing my husband, he agreed. The sweetest cutest little year and a half old fellow was placed with us, and then two weeks later shockingly removed to be placed with family. It was heartbreaking...they came to get him and he wiped tears from my face as I told him that I would always love him. He will always have a piece of our hearts and we are forever thankful for our time with him.
So this was how it all started...we are blessed that God placed it on our hearts to be parents to the children in the foster care system. I'm not a very social person but ask me about foster care and adoption and all of the sudden I have plenty to say!!! We have been divinely lead to do this and the only reason we can do this is our Faith that God lead us here and He and He alone is in control of His children. Without Him, this journey would be impossible...hence my blog title Foster by Faith.
Ryan and I in Galveston, the day we got our first placement!
Happy, Happy, Happy
Lovely post. I look forward to reading more about your experience.
ReplyDeleteThis is so great and I can't wait to hear more about what God has in store for y'all!
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