Showing posts with label black baby adoption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label black baby adoption. Show all posts
Monday, March 9, 2015
Friday, February 27, 2015
Parents-in-Training and Project Cuddle
Did you hear about the 22-year-old woman who burnt her newborn baby to death in New Jersey? This was a recent example of women in crisis who abandon or kill their babies, a situation that is not unique to the US. Recently, a cat in Russia helped to keep an abandoned baby alive by cuddling with him, keeping him warm while also meowing until help arrived. In the US, there are safe haven laws in all 50 states plus DC that allow women in crisis to leave their babies in hospitals, police stations, or fire stations. However, babies still get abandoned, two-thirds of such abandoned babies die. The state of Indiana is considering 'baby boxes' as a way to decrease such deaths, an additional measure to their safe haven process.
I recently found out about an organization that is dedicated to saving babies from abandonment and death - Project Cuddle - a non-profit charity that helps frightened girls and women in making safe and legal decisions instead of abandoning their newborn babies. Since finding out about them, I have been following them on Facebook, I am so appreciative of the work that they do that I chose to highlight them on the blog. I also realized my naivete - see, I didn't expect child abandonment to be such a huge problem in this First World USA...but it is. That's why there are safe haven laws. And since those laws are not enough, that's why there are organizations like Project Cuddle, providing women and girls with the chance to do the right thing - whether that is the support to parent or to make an adoption plan. Project Cuddle is not an adoption agency or facilitator, thus rescue families willing to adopt babies through their program work directly with lawyers and the birth mother. Rescue families apply to Project Cuddle, and only get a call if a birth mother is interested in selecting the family to rescue her baby.
Beyond discovering the wonderful lifesaving work of Project Cuddle, the past few weeks also involved about 30 additional hours of training in order to qualify to adopt from foster care. Who knew you can do a 3.5 hour training on car seats? We sat for two days learning about (mostly) the challenges of adopting from foster care - the physical, mental and emotional problems that children from foster care are likely to be struggling with. My reaction after the training - anyone who adopts from foster care after that kind of training has to be both brave and compassionate! Our trainers said they were giving us information so no one would walk into fost-adopt with their eyes closed. Well, our eyes are definitely open. Mostly, with compassion.
So that's whats going on in our neck of the woods. Our training for fost-adopt is complete, now we wait to complete the mountains of paperwork to update our homestudy for foster care (generally, it takes about 6 months from placement to finalization in fost-adopt, thus we have to be licensed as foster parents). We have also applied to be rescue parents with Project Cuddle. That makes three programs - domestic infant adoption, rescue parents, and soon, fost-adopt. Whichever path the Lord chooses to bring a child or children into our home, we are open, available, waiting and hopeful. Your continued prayers are very much appreciated...
Hope-filled Faith
I recently found out about an organization that is dedicated to saving babies from abandonment and death - Project Cuddle - a non-profit charity that helps frightened girls and women in making safe and legal decisions instead of abandoning their newborn babies. Since finding out about them, I have been following them on Facebook, I am so appreciative of the work that they do that I chose to highlight them on the blog. I also realized my naivete - see, I didn't expect child abandonment to be such a huge problem in this First World USA...but it is. That's why there are safe haven laws. And since those laws are not enough, that's why there are organizations like Project Cuddle, providing women and girls with the chance to do the right thing - whether that is the support to parent or to make an adoption plan. Project Cuddle is not an adoption agency or facilitator, thus rescue families willing to adopt babies through their program work directly with lawyers and the birth mother. Rescue families apply to Project Cuddle, and only get a call if a birth mother is interested in selecting the family to rescue her baby.
Beyond discovering the wonderful lifesaving work of Project Cuddle, the past few weeks also involved about 30 additional hours of training in order to qualify to adopt from foster care. Who knew you can do a 3.5 hour training on car seats? We sat for two days learning about (mostly) the challenges of adopting from foster care - the physical, mental and emotional problems that children from foster care are likely to be struggling with. My reaction after the training - anyone who adopts from foster care after that kind of training has to be both brave and compassionate! Our trainers said they were giving us information so no one would walk into fost-adopt with their eyes closed. Well, our eyes are definitely open. Mostly, with compassion.
So that's whats going on in our neck of the woods. Our training for fost-adopt is complete, now we wait to complete the mountains of paperwork to update our homestudy for foster care (generally, it takes about 6 months from placement to finalization in fost-adopt, thus we have to be licensed as foster parents). We have also applied to be rescue parents with Project Cuddle. That makes three programs - domestic infant adoption, rescue parents, and soon, fost-adopt. Whichever path the Lord chooses to bring a child or children into our home, we are open, available, waiting and hopeful. Your continued prayers are very much appreciated...
Hope-filled Faith
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Waiting [to Adopt] as a Platform for God's Grace
What happens to dreams, hopes, faith, when God's answer to a heartfelt prayer is a resounding NO?
The past few weeks have been interesting spiritually and emotionally, as the summer break wrapped up and the new academic year began, realizing that our adoption dream had still not come true. Granted, as our social worker reminded me the other day, waiting six months in the world of adoption is not long at all. However, when that waiting is preceded by a failed prior attempt at adoption, it feels like eternity!
So I found myself stressing out, even getting somewhat depressed as the new academic year started with not a rumor, not a single word about any potential matches. The closest we've come to any positive news is an 'adoption facilitation' agency that has been encouraging us to sign up with them, since they work with birth parents from around the country, they promise that we'd likely be matched fairly quickly. But the $19,500 sticker price for their service, that does not include lawyer fees, legal fees, transportation, or birth parent support just makes us feel discouraged. It means the adoption would cost close to $40K...one would think that domestic infant adoption would be less expensive than international adoption - but as we have realized, it isn't.
One weekend I was feeling so discouraged, so overwhelmed, so down in the dumps, so hope-depleted that it felt like darkness was threatening to descend on my otherwise sunny disposition :-( I pulled through, but it was also an opportunity to think about how I'd respond if God's answer to all this is no. What if this adoption never happens? What if I am never a mother? What then?
In the midst of the darkness, I was talking with one of my friends about not wanting to blog, because I did not want to spread the sense of despondency to anyone reading my blog. But, she reminded me I needed to stay faithful and authentic, to talk about the ups and the downs. I will quote from my journal from September 4 that reflects what I was experiencing:
While I continue to walk in this space of not-yet-answered prayers, the space after the no-for-an-answer to my prior prayer for biological motherhood, the space of hoping that this time, God's answer is a resounding Yes...I have come to the conclusion that, whatever happens, I will be faithful. Whatever happens, whether I become a mother or remain childless, I will find my joy in spite of the circumstances, I will sing along with Habakkuk 3:17-19: though nothing goes right, yet I will rejoice in the God who gives me strength. And thanks to Mavuno Church series this month, I am reminded that unanswered prayer is the reality for many, the test is in remaining faithful. Pastor M reminds me that my weakness is my opportunity to experience God's strength. So here is to rejoicing in the waiting - the waiting to adopt, the waiting to find out what God's answer is, the waiting in hope.
Won't you wait with me?
The past few weeks have been interesting spiritually and emotionally, as the summer break wrapped up and the new academic year began, realizing that our adoption dream had still not come true. Granted, as our social worker reminded me the other day, waiting six months in the world of adoption is not long at all. However, when that waiting is preceded by a failed prior attempt at adoption, it feels like eternity!
So I found myself stressing out, even getting somewhat depressed as the new academic year started with not a rumor, not a single word about any potential matches. The closest we've come to any positive news is an 'adoption facilitation' agency that has been encouraging us to sign up with them, since they work with birth parents from around the country, they promise that we'd likely be matched fairly quickly. But the $19,500 sticker price for their service, that does not include lawyer fees, legal fees, transportation, or birth parent support just makes us feel discouraged. It means the adoption would cost close to $40K...one would think that domestic infant adoption would be less expensive than international adoption - but as we have realized, it isn't.
One weekend I was feeling so discouraged, so overwhelmed, so down in the dumps, so hope-depleted that it felt like darkness was threatening to descend on my otherwise sunny disposition :-( I pulled through, but it was also an opportunity to think about how I'd respond if God's answer to all this is no. What if this adoption never happens? What if I am never a mother? What then?
In the midst of the darkness, I was talking with one of my friends about not wanting to blog, because I did not want to spread the sense of despondency to anyone reading my blog. But, she reminded me I needed to stay faithful and authentic, to talk about the ups and the downs. I will quote from my journal from September 4 that reflects what I was experiencing:
Its weird
Being woken up by the crazy heavy storm
That shook the house down to its foundations
Attempting to break the windows
And pull the storm door right off its hinges
An apt reminder of the weekend that was
The storm that was raging in my soul
As I felt myself descend deeper and deeper into the darkness
As I felt myself get pulled down further and further from
hope
As I felt myself dragged away from joy and into despair
But you Lord
Just as with the storm that has now passed this area
Leaving the house intact
You allowed that storm to pass through my life
And calm is returning
The calm that reminds me that I am alive
That I am on this side of heaven
Where I will be buffeted by life's heavy burdens
Shaken by the thunder of despair and discouragement
Yet in the midst of it all
You remain the rock I hang onto and stand
The firm foundation that secures my house and hope
While I continue to walk in this space of not-yet-answered prayers, the space after the no-for-an-answer to my prior prayer for biological motherhood, the space of hoping that this time, God's answer is a resounding Yes...I have come to the conclusion that, whatever happens, I will be faithful. Whatever happens, whether I become a mother or remain childless, I will find my joy in spite of the circumstances, I will sing along with Habakkuk 3:17-19: though nothing goes right, yet I will rejoice in the God who gives me strength. And thanks to Mavuno Church series this month, I am reminded that unanswered prayer is the reality for many, the test is in remaining faithful. Pastor M reminds me that my weakness is my opportunity to experience God's strength. So here is to rejoicing in the waiting - the waiting to adopt, the waiting to find out what God's answer is, the waiting in hope.
Won't you wait with me?
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