Our Adoption Story- A big thank you to Madison Thompson Photography for the incredible photos featured on this post.
Hello friends! My name is Chantea. You may know me from Instagram or Facebook. I am a proud mother of 4. When you see my family you may not know that adoption is part of our story. The day I became a mother through adoption was a highly anticipated day for my family and I would love to take you through the process that it took to be considered for adoption, the actual day we met our son, and a present look at how adoption has blessed our family.
Adoption Story- The Process
We decided to adopt our son through the foster care system. I talk a whole lot about that here. For us, private adoption was never really on the table for considering. I really had a heart tug for welcoming a child into our family that was in the foster system. So we did the majority of our research in pursuit of that option and never looked back.
Classes and home certification took about 5 months. The classes were super thorough but super depressing if I am honest. We had to go to courses and learn how just a tiny little shake can severely harm a baby. We actually had a robotic baby that we shook and it would tell you what sort of damage that baby incurred, it was horrific but powerful. We learned about all the worse case scenarios of possible psychological traumas, and long term risks our kids go through as they enter and stay in foster care. My husband and I had super heavy hearts during this whole process and yet we pressed on. You can read about our infertility journey here.
Adoption Story- The Day
As part of the process, the social worker would send out your family portfolio to different foster and adoption agencies around the state of California. Occasionally we would get images and profiles of children that the social workers thought we would be a strong match for. It was unsettling to look at a child’s picture, read their profiles, and make a decision about whether or not they were right for our family.
It felt a little unfair to know all of someone’s baggage up front. If I’m honest not even my husband knew all of my baggage before we got married and here we were deciding if this little tiny human was a good fit for our family based on all the baggage we could see. Yet still…. We pressed on!
Finally one day, we saw my son’s little face come through our email. During this time of our adoption story, my heart was a bit guarded so it wasn’t love at first sight for me. But we were super curious about this sweet little boy and drove 2.5 hours north of our home to meet the child who might be our son. The whole drive up, my husband and I prayed and… cried and laughed… and felt super overwhelmed!
Eventually we arrived at the home where he and his foster mom lived and we scooped him up, drove to a local park to have “alone time” (the social worker was right there) with this sweet little 11-month-old baby.
My first real words to him were… “are you my son?” As if he would respond! He didn’t… but he did give me the biggest smile! My husband teared up, and I said… welp! I guess you are mine.
Adoption Story- The Blessing
Our adoption story has turned out to be the biggest blessing to our family. And especially in the last 6 months. I am not embarrassed to say that raising my son is no easy challenge. But neither is raising my biological daughters. I use to think the challenges that we faced with my son were due to him being adopted. Now I KNOW his personality is due to who God made him. He is stubborn and emotional and frustrates easy. But he is also super funny, and incredibly smart. I claim all his positive characteristics to be from me! LOL
I will never forget the drive up to to get him once the process was final. Or the tears that flowed down our faces when the judge banged the final gavel. It was a marvelous day… the day I became a mother through adoption…. Our adoption story!
Xo- Chantea
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