The Story of Us

Once upon a time, there was Just Lovely. And then I met The Agent, and fell in love. As The Agent and I talked about marriage, he warned me that he didn’t think he could have children. He had been married before, and they had never gotten pregnant.

Well, I’m not going to let a little thing like that get in my way. I just chalk that up as God’s plan at work. I wasn’t worried. “Well, we’ll just try, and if nothing happens, we’ll adopt.”

This was the answer The Agent  was hoping for. He had spent much of his childhood in the foster care system, and he wanted us to look into adopting a local child through the county.

Sure, we could do that. Let’s do that, anyway. Those kids need homes, too.

The Agent and I got married in September of 2004, and I was pregnant 2 months later. In December of 2004 we made the first step in the adoption process, by mailing in a post card asking for more information.

In January 2005, I had a miscarriage. I was devastated. I don’t know how many of my readers have had ever had to go through that, but I felt like such a failure. Not something that I would ever want to repeat.

We continued with the adoption process, going to our orientation meeting in April 2005, getting our foster license in May, and completing our home study in June.

At the end of June, I found out I was pregnant again, and this time she stuck. During my pregnancy, we took our parenting classes that are required to adopt (they’re called PRIDE classes-- most of the classes had to do with making sure your adopted child kept his previous identity. I didn’t agree with that philosophy, I think a separation like that only alienates the child further. But whatever).

Bug was born in March 2006. We were told that Bug had to be a year old before we could continue with the adoption process. We enjoyed our first year as new parents. And our second year.

Right after Bug's second birthday, we started up the adoption process again. Our previous social worker was no longer working in the same department, and a lot of our home study paperwork was not in our file. No big wup-- I had made copies of everything so it was easy to provide our new social worker with the info. We were back in business.

In June of 2008, after several false alarms, we got a call about Adam. He was 3 months old, and had been living with his foster family since he was born. There was no father, and although his mother was trying to get him back, she was not expected to be successful.

We hemmed and hawed about Adam for a long time. I did not want to be a foster parent. I did not want to take a baby that I might have to give back. I believed that his mother was motivated. She would get her child back.

We visited with Adam for several months before taking him home in October 2008. We had him for four months before his mother convinced her aunt to take him. I am sure that she thought if Adam was with a family member, she would still get to see him.

I am able to occasionally get updates on Adam through my social worker. He doesn’t have any contact with his birth mother. I am thankful for that.

I was really jaded against the whole CPS process after we lost Adam. I knew that there was a risk going in, but that didn’t make it any easier. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to try to adopt again. I told my social worker not to call us again unless there was a sure thing. She said that probably wouldn’t happen. Understood.

I went off the pill in January and tried to get pregnant again.

February
March
April
May
June

On the 29th of June, 2009, our social worker called. A baby had been born two weeks earlier, and had been safely surrendered. He was ours if we wanted him.

We brought BK home 3 days later.

BK's adoption process was a breeze.  No relatives have ever come forward looking for him. There have been no medical problems. There’s been no signs of drug exposure. And, as much as I loved Adam, and how sad I was when we lost him, I see now that BK is such a better match for us. He is family.

And now, finally, he is ours.

And they lived happily ever after.