Being A Mama

This is a very quiet, much more personal post that I'm not going to link to Facebook, but would rather share with those who follow my blog.

I'm not expecting - I hope the title didn't get your hopes up. My sweet Alex has made it very clear that he is mortally terrified of having babies the natural way. But I have also been making it very clear that my biological clock is past hitting the snooze button. I want to be a mom. I want someone to care for. (My cats have been great, but they aren't kittens anymore. They're pretty self-contained. Lol.)

I think my desire got worse when I walked down to our elementary school last Tuesday. My dear friend Dana's 2 older daughters started school there this year even though they live in a different city and we happen to live a block and half away. It was a different kind of excitement and joy to see them off on their first day of school.

Alex and I have always talked about fostering and adoption. It seemed that the one thing we definitely agreed upon when it came to having a family was that we wanted to adopt. My husband's views are that if we're going to have kids, we're going to give existing children the kind of opportunities that we had as kids instead of bringing new ones into the world. And I've always felt that there are far too many children that need loving homes and the care of someone like me.

Two weeks ago I got to meet with some folks in our church that are starting up an adoption and foster care ministry. I went to that meeting because I knew it was going to be the first step in getting my family started. Alex encouraged it but didn't attend because he had a rehearsal to get to. In the meeting I got to meet several folks who feel the same way I do, some who can't have children biologically, and a few who just want to help in any way they can.

Our pastor, Edgar, gave a statistic quoted from our governor, Mitch Daniels, about Indiana's foster care system. He said, statistically, that if ONE family from EVERY church in the state of Indiana adopted ONE child, our entire Child Welfare system would be empty.

Wow. That really put it into perspective. It says two things to me - the biggest being that we are not following through as Christians with a mandate to care for the orphaned. The other is that our governor recognizes that Christians can and should be relied upon to change this situation.

So Alex and I have continued to have slow discussions since then. We agreed that we want to foster and eventually adopt. We agreed that we would like children somewhere between ages 4 and 10. We agreed that for now, we can only take one child at a time until we finally buy that big house in the country that I've been praying for. :) We agreed to begin the application process as soon as possible so that when the time comes we won't have to sit around a wait through interviews and home visits.

I think I am finally ready to care for someone like a mother should. I'm still not ready to have and care for a baby, but I would like to have a child to love on and pray for and care for. God has always brought beautiful children into my life through teaching and neighbors and friends.

So pray for me and for Alex and I as a couple as we slowly (SLOWLY) embark on this next step. I have another meeting with our adoption ministry coming up soon in September and October is National Adoption Month, so we may actually apply as soon as October. (But I'm thinking it will more likely be in January.)