No Refunds, No Exchanges, No Returns

Usually when I tell someone we are adopting a child from foster care they give me this look of "Oh my, you don't know what you are getting into" but the words out of their mouths are "Oh, thats great"! Then the question WHY? We have 3 beautiful, healthy, happy, perfect children already. My question to them is always "why not?". I know not everyone wants a big family and a lot of people just know they are not cut out for it. But why would I not want to make a better life for another child that may not have a chance. A life like my kids have had? I know that it isn't going to be easy, but parenting birth children isn't always easy. I have been very blessed so far. Only minor issues, but I don't know what the future holds. Its in Gods hands. Its a commitment. Parenting birth children and adopting. I know we have to be commited and ready to deal with whatever comes our way. There have been times I have gotten lazy and thought "Aw I really like my quiet, alone time now. The kids are gone doing their own things. Maybe I really don't want to do this again". But all I have to do is see what kind of life those kids have now and what we can do to help. My kids have always done good in school and always been awesome kids. Maybe I give Mark and I too much credit. Maybe we won't be able to handle it. But we plan to do our best. We will make it through some how or another. Or maybe God paved our way and we are ready for a challenge now. Who knows. Time will tell. And hopefully down the road there will be a time to call "my own". Just not now.

There is always a bit of fear lurking in the background. For my own children that I have at home we did have to set certain criteria. Absolutely no sexually abused children. We are not at a point personally to deal with that sort of abuse or put our birth children at risk in any way. There are people trained to deal with that and personally I advise if you have children in your home that sexual abuse not be an option for you unless you have 24 hour supervision of your children. Or if you have grown kids, maybe you are one to take on that challenge. We aren't there.

Yes, although I am sure this is what I want to do, there is still fear of the unknown. We have made a commitment. There are no refunds, no exchanges, no returns!