Enlarging Our Family...Naturally!

My husband and I have talked for years about adopting children and we've decided that this the year to do it. I have felt called to adopt for a long time, particularly a domestic adoption from foster care. I feel that adoption, an ancient, honorable tradition, is as intrinsicly natural a way to enlarge our family as bringing forth babies from my womb.

The main reason we want to adopt is that we want more children! Besides that, there are many reasons we are motivated to adopt. For my husband, adopting from foster care is one way to answer the call to serve our community and our larger society by providing a family for children who have lost theirs. For me, it is a spiritual endeavor, answering the call to serve the cause of justice and peace.

Another important reason: our biological daughter has been begging/yearning for siblings since she was three and a half, but after two miscarriages, it became clear to me that adoption is the road we are destined to travel.

We hope to adopt siblings, between the ages of 2 and 6. Sadly, there are several sibling groups in this age range currently available for adoption in our state, so our desire seems reasonable. Our daughter, now age 7, is very excited, eager to welcome a younger brother and sister into our family. Her deep compassion for foster and orphaned children is a moving testimony to the "wealth of sympathy, kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child." (Emma Goldman)

We are not wealthy and adoption comes with expenses: fees (agency application, home study, and placement), furniture, clothes, toys, car seats, and so on. Our state does reimburse for some expenses, but not until the adoption is finalized and that will be a long time from now. When we are finally reimbursed, we want those funds to be set aside for our children's future needs: education and so forth.

To that end, we have decided that from this point and into the forseeable future, 100% of the proceeds from familynaturally.com will go towards offsetting our up-front costs for adoption.

We will also be selling aprons and totebags as a fundraiser...I'm creating some iron-on transfers for the aprons tonight and will try to get some finished to take to church with me tomorrow to get that started. I'll post images when they're ready!

We are joyfully preparing our hearts and home for our new son and daughter, whomever they will be! I am deeply thankful to their current foster parents for the love and care they are giving our children while waiting for the slow wheels of adoption to bring them to us. I am learning the true meaning of trust and getting lots of practice in the discipline of submitting my hopes, dreams, cares, and sorrows to a greater power during this process. I will be blogging here about our journey and also at The New Homemaker. Thank you for visiting and I hope you can join us from time to time as I share our experience of becoming adoptive parents.