This Roller Coaster

God has called our family to grow,
By 2? By 4? By more?
We don't know!

We are excited to share....
We are going to be parents (again)
But this time through foster care!

This is somewhat of a long story so I am going to try to keep it short and sweet! Before Andrew and I got married, we talked about what we wanted out of life. We both said that someday we would like to adopt. Well, in September of 2011, we went to a kickoff for The Forgotten Initiative. There were life changing testimonies that day and we both left speechless. As we drove away we said, we will do foster care.....some day. I know I have mentioned this before and I always thought that we would wait until our kids were older, but in December I felt a lot of emptiness in my life. I prayed and prayed for God to reveal what I was lacking and what He wanted for my life. Immediately I got an answer, "be a mom". (If you have ever had God speak directly to you, it is powerful! You know it's Him!) So my thought was God really come on, I am a mom. Then I read Isaiah 1:17 " Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause." And immediately I broke down....I don't want to do this, I know the hurt that this could bring into my life, to Andrew's life and to our children's lives, I am comfortable being a mom to our 2 amazing kids and I don't want to put a wrench in it. (I know what you are thinking, Carlee you are the most selfish person! You're right I am completely selfish and so ashamed!) So I continued to pray. AND EVERY NIGHT I was up until 3 or 4 researching foster care. How to prepare yourself and your family, and how to deal with a loss. I was completely obsessed so finally on January 20th, I asked Andrew to pray about it too. At this point I still wasn't sure where it was headed, but I needed him to to be behind me 100%. I know it's going to be extremely hard and I need his backing. I know I am going to be selfish at times I know there are going to be days that I don't want to do it, I know there are going to be days that I call him needing him home because I can't handle it. I know those days are coming and I need him to know that I will be a basket case at times :) If I could only count the number of times I have cried over this already. I have great fear. Much greater than becoming a mom for the first time. This time I have little hearts to protect!!

So I started calling agencies in early February and none of them were calling me back. I thought okay, maybe God was just saying "Carlee you have to learn to trust me, when I ask you to step out, will you?" So it started fading from my mind. I thought the time just wasn't right (which I totally agreed with)! But then what do you know, I started obsessing once again and this time getting excited about it. Every night I was up until 3 or 4 researching the same things all over again, but this time in my search, I kept coming back to a specific agency that some friends of ours from church adopted through multiple times, so that day (a Friday) I called them and to my surprise, she was in her office and talked to me right then. She sent a package immediately and told me that most applicants end there and don't continue....so to read through everything and if we were still interested to call her back. We got the papers on Monday and I had them filled out....... Monday. But my dear, sweet, loves to procrastinate hubby did not have his filled out....I waited all week, mentioning it a few times, but still nothing. So I called the agency back and told them we wanted to move forward...that would give him a deadline, he works better with a deadline. ;) So I scheduled our home study for Friday, March 8th! Yes, the papers did get completed before the visit, but just in the nick of time ;) So we had our home study on Friday, it went great and it's a go. We could technically take up to 4 kids! Which is overwhelming to say the least. But we will cross that bridge when it comes, just a lot of prayers until then! :) So we are signed up for PRIDE classes starting April 1! Which means we won't even be licensed until June at the earliest. This gives us some time! There are a lot of things we need to do in preparation. We will be looking for a new car....which totally makes me sad, we just got an Edge last year and we both love it so much, again that's my selfishness talking! But through all of this I am beyond excited now! We get to share our home, our love for God, our awesome marriage and our wonderful kids with only a very small portion of the 16,000 children in Illinois foster care! Don't get me wrong, I am utterly terrified but God overwhelms me with peace and assurance.

We know that not everyone supports what we are doing, and honestly that's why we didn't let many people know until we were signed up for classes. On our application we had to write our spouse's biggest flaw...Andrew said that mine was that I let people's thoughtless comments hurt me, and although it is not my biggest, he nailed it, I have a very tender heart and it hurts to not have support from all the people we love, but God gave His son for me, He gave the ultimate, most perfect sacrifice, and I will live my life with gratitude TO HIM. Some of my favorite song lyrics by Chris Tomlin...."Where You go, I'll go, Where You stay, I'll stay, When You move, I'll move, I will follow..." This has been a great test for me, I am so thankful for my nights spent with God, just me and Him figuring this whole thing out.

Some questions we have already gotten:
- Boys or girls? EITHER!
- Ages? 0-6
- How often are the PRIDE classes? Every Monday night in Champaign 6-9pm for 9 weeks, we are blessed to have an amazing sister that has committed to watching our kids! We love you are are so thankful for you Jess!
- How many children will we take at a time? Uhh, we don't know! Right we would say 1 unless it is a sibling group, but God has it already worked out, so we are going to sit back and 'enjoy' the ride.
- Do we plan to adopt? Ultimately, someday, yes! BUT I strongly believe that in MOST cases the bio families are best. So we hope that we are the stepping stone they need to get help and truly change their lives (depending on the situation) to make a wonderful, loving home for their children. If the option of adoption arises, we have open arms, and are so excited to see if any of the children we care for will be in our forever family!

On a side note: I specifically have a heart for medically complex children. Although I am a little more hesitate right now, with our kids' ages we do plan on having that as an option. We will take the extra certifications to be prepared if that were to come to us. This can be anything from drug baby, to shaken baby, cerebral palsy, Down's Syndrome. (This is a specific prayer request right now as I prepare to fill out that paperwork, to what extent are we open to taking at this point.) We still have a lot of paperwork to get copied and turn in along with physicals, but now I can relax, just a little, that we are signed up for the classes. I was very anxious to get them completed before Andrew gets swamped at work this summer!

We do have a lot of needs so if you know of or hear of any of these things for sale, please let me know!
Twin Bunk beds
Twin mattresses
Crib/Toddler bed and mattress
a vehicle with a third bench....or do I say it....a van?

These are the biggest items for the time being that we are looking at and I am researching :) For those of you who don't know me I research EVERYTHING from phone cases to cars. I do not buy until I have researched! haha In fact I started researching convertible car seats when Brynlee was only 4 months old and she didn't even ride in one until she was 15 months. But I am 150% satisfied with our purchase! :)

Prayers please! :)