Catching up....

Wow - I can't believe it has been over a month since I last posted! Lots of good stuff has happened around here - my baby boy turned ELEVEN (insert big sigh), we finally finished our homestudy (insert loud HOORAY) and we are diving into waiting child profiles!!!! I have been so excited for this moment, however now that it is here......I am sort of fearful and reluctant to push on. Fearful for a number of reasons.....how in the world do we not take the child of every profile we review......how do we pass over one child and go on to another? Will I/we instantly fall in love - does that really happen? AND am I a horrible person if it doesn't? Will God give me a sign that these are the right kids for us.....and are we right for them? HOW WILL I KNOW??? How much stock do I put into what our kids say about these profiles? Do we have to have consensus....or do Todd and I know what's best?

Of course I say this after only reviewing TWO profiles of single boys...........our agency does not have any sibling sets right now that match our preferences. Never having even looked at a profile before.......I had no idea what I would see, what would or would not be included, so I was sort of relieved that they did not present me with kids that meet our criteria....it made it a bit easier to open Pandora's box! What I found was really just two pictures of cute little boys and not much else.....I was just amazed that there is so little known about these kids and their history. What was most surprising is that they had ABSOLUTELY NO PAST - nothing, nada, nill. They had only been in the orphanage for about a year or two each - and prior, were living on the streets - brought into the agency by police. One of the boys did not even know his parents names...... broke my heart in pieces!!! The reality of how hard the process of selecting older children has really sunk in.........

There is a bright highlight in all of this though.....we casually looked into a sibling set a number of months ago after a post from a family on our agencies forum. They posted a heart wrenching plea after meeting the kids while picking up their own adopted daughter. They wrote how precious and deserving these kids were and the impression they left on their hearts. So....I inquired! Couldn't really do much more than that because our homestudy was not done. Well, they are still available......not at all what I thought was right for our family - different ages, different sexes, different birth order!!!! But I have gotten more "signs" about these kiddos over the last week than I ever expected!!! We are pursuing them - hopefully the signs continue. STAY TUNED....