Thursday, April 26, 2007

have you ever thought about...

adopting a child from foster care? i have actually been thinking about this since alex was in preschool. he had a boy "andre" in his class. i was not exactly fond of this kid at first, he had a lot of social issues, like biting other kids, hitting etc. he never talked. adorable little boy, mixed race, gorgeous brown eyes, killer smile. and then one day he came up to me while i was holding haley (she was about a year), took her foot in his hand and said "shoe". he smiled so brilliantly, i couldn't help smiling back and telling him "yeah that's right". when i discussed this boy with the teachers, they explained to me he was in foster care, and didn't talk, like not just shy, but literally didn't know words. like he had never been talked to or something. after the day of the shoe, he always found me when i was up there and talked to me and haley. i could have easily taken him home then and there. but it wasn't to be. i actually went to a foster parent class, well the first one anyway. the man doing the instructing told me i needed to wait until our youngest child was older than the children i would be bringing in. his reasoning is that you want your child/children to be a role model of positive behavior, not this child being a role model of negative behavior. jeff was not keen on the adoption idea. not that he discouraged the idea, he just didn't want to have hypothetical discussions about something that would be so far off. when he started the job he has now, one of the guys was in the process of adopting a teen girl from russia. his immediate boss had just adopted 2 boys through the same church program. this totally changed his views. watching his friend go through all the work, traveling over there when they were having terrorist attacks, and then meeting this beautiful and bright girl, completely changed him. of course he was thinking about foreign adoption at the time, but there are so many kids here that need families. next time you are just wasting some time on the internet, go to www.adoptuskids.com . you can use them to look up kids from your own state, any particular state, or all the states. it breaks my heart. so many older kids wanting a family. i couldn't imagine not having a family, but to be a teenager with no one? please say some prayers for these kids, they need all the support we can give them.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Funny you bring this up. For the last 8 or so years, I've been told by a number of doctors that I wouldn't ever be able to conceive. When I met JD, I found out that 90% of his cousins are adopted because his aunts are unable to have children. There are I think 6 or 7 adopted...some from the US and some from Russia. So, I thought that was part of the reason God brought us together; because adoption would be an easier road with such a support network. Even though JD and I have one child, we definitely want more. It took us three years to conceive with Lorelai, so who knows if we'll be able to do it again. All that to say...Yes, we HAVE thought about adoption. We are soooo pro-adoption and even if we can have more of our own, we'll eventually adopt. We want to be the Huse Zoo!!

bauer zoo said...

it's too bad there aren't more people who would want to adopt here in the us. my kids have grandparents coming out of their ears practically. between my parents, jeff's parents, my 3 living grandparents, my stepmom's parents. you can't throw a stick without hitting a grandparent here! fyi, jeff's aunt mary was told they would not be able to have kids. she adopted 2, and was pregnant when they finalized the second adoption. she now has 10 kids. 2 adopted and 8 biological. now i don't know if you guys want that many kids, but it's food for thought. if you just want to catch up to me, that's ok too. (only four more to go.)