the fosters

Confession: I love ABC Family shows. Granted, they always seem to jump the shark earlier than shows on other channels (I'm looking at you, Secret Life of the American Teenager), but they're fantastic all the same. Until last week, my favorite was Switched at Birth. However, I noticed last week that The Fosters was available on Netflix. I've been wanting to watch this since I'd heard of it coming out, so I queued it up and churned through the 10 available episodes.

As I often do, I was messing around on my iPad while watching it (seriously, screen time is a problem for me), and I fell down the Wikipedia/Google rabbit hole. Somewhere, someone had recommended the book To the End of June as a really wonderful book about foster care in America. Well, I may be addicted to the iPad, but I'm also a sucker for good nonfiction books, so I picked it up from the library.

It truly is an amazing book outlining the flaws and heartbreak in the American foster care system. I'm not sure why, but it had never occurred to me that one could adopt out of the foster system. I just always assumed, for better or for worse, those kids were eventually returned to their bio parents. Apparently, that's not the case.

So I started doing some research on adopting here in Indiana, and I came across the profile of 2 kids who are in need of a forever family. I sent the profile to Chuck, expecting a response somewhat along the lines of "Oh Marcie, you have such a big heart. But no, we can't adopt these children." Instead, this is what I got:

Likely yes.  Would need to talk through logistics though.

I just blew your mind.

I know you were likely kidding, but I think adoption is a very noble thing.  Let's talk more tonight.
Love,
Chuck

I was shocked to say the least. So when he got home Thursday night, we talked about it. In fact, we haven't really stopped talking about it. He and I always talked about adopting eventually, but I was hesitant because of the cost. That's not really a factor in adopting out of foster care, though. I sent in an inquiry to the state on Thursday evening, and was forwarded the information of the adoption coordinator for our region. I called her on Friday, but she was out of the office. Hopefully, I hear back from her today.

It's silly, because the odds are that by the time we get everything in order (home study, parenting classes, background checks, etc.), these children will already have been adopted, but I've already started to think of them as mine. They're 5 and 7, and the cutest kids you've ever seen. I'm trying not to get my hopes up that they actually will be mine, but I can't help myself.

Not gonna lie, I was freaking out a bit on Friday about this. Adopting these kids (or any kids) would delay the baby timeline for a couple of years at least. Was I ready for that? Was I ready to abandon The Plan? After all, The Plan has pretty much consumed my thoughts for the past 2 years. The answer came to me this weekend: I want these kids more than I want a baby. That was an amazing revelation. In the words of my good friend Jayne, this has become The New Plan.

So look forward to how this unfolds. I'll keep you updated as I know things. If any of you have any words of advice or happy mojo, I welcome any and all!