Happy New Year! We celebrated by announcing to our family and friends that we are pursuing foster care adoption this year. Because we can’t afford to send 500 holiday cards to each and every one of our online friends (though we wish we could) we decided to share it here…
Dear Family and Friends,
This December, we find ourselves reuniting after several years of long-distance marriage, and it is a joyful season. But the plans, hopes, and dreams we have had for our marriage and our family were never put on hold while we were apart. Our sights are set on 2018 and all of the amazing things it will bring.
There are many ways to make a family. We have chosen to grow ours by adopting from foster care. Currently, there are more than 100,000 children in the United States foster care system who are waiting to be adopted by their forever family. We have known in our hearts for a long while that we are meant to serve and love these children with patience, care, and understanding.
Foster care is complicated; each child’s story is unique and private and there may be times along the way when we can’t share certain details or we make a parenting decision that is hard to understand but is best for our child’s unique needs. What we can tell you is that we may not know their faces or their stories yet, but we love our children already in ways that are hard to describe. We are not special because we have chosen to adopt from foster care; rather, we are infinitely blessed to have been given the opportunity to parent these children. No matter what, just like a biological child, our love for them comes from a deep, inexplicable place in our hearts. They are, and will be, our loved, chosen, beloved child, for whom we would do anything.
This next year and beyond will bring many ups and downs. We will be taking part in the home study process and becoming officially licensed foster parents until we are matched with our child or children. Then, it is a matter of time until the adoption is finalized, during which we will be focused on bonding as a family. There will be questions, uncertainty, joy, celebration, and lots of (impatient) waiting. And it will take a village. Thank you for being part of our village, and for joining us on our adoption journey.
Best wishes for a joyful holiday and a brilliant new year!
Love,
Nate & Laura
Gentle Wild 