True Vine Tuesday: His Plans are Always Good

Our adoption story is one of tears, frustration, and patience. It also is an amazing testament and reminder that our plans do not always align with God’s plans, but his plans are always good.

While we were dating, the topic of children naturally came up in conversations with my wife. She always had a desire to adopt but thought we would have biological children first and then adopt. I love kids, so even though I had never considered adoption previously, I was immediately on board. After we were married, we started trying to get pregnant right away. We didn’t have a problem “getting” pregnant.  We had a problem “staying” pregnant. Throughout the first seven years of our marriage, we had no fewer than three documented first-term miscarriages, and each time it wrecked us. Eventually, my wife started looking on adoptuskids.org for children in Indiana, and she almost immediately fell in love with one of girls she saw on the site in late 2015. After a brief conversation, we decided to go through the process of becoming foster parents, though we didn’t have the complete support of my mother-in-law. More on that later.

If you’ve ever been through the foster parent licensing process in Indiana, or if you’re going through it now, you know it is arduous. They say it usually takes four to six MONTHS to get through all of the licensing requirements, mostly because of the required courses and the timing needed for them. As it turns out, things aligned perfectly in January and February of 2016, because we finished all of the required courses, did all of the required training, filled out all of the required forms, and had almost all of the required inspections done in about six WEEKS. The only thing we were still waiting on was the final home visit. Unfortunately, we languished for seven more months before DCS came out to do our final home visit, even though we were in weekly contact with the office to schedule the home visit. During this time, the girl my wife fell in love with online disappeared from the website. (I can only hope and pray she was adopted by a loving and supportive family.) We felt, once again, defeated and beaten down.

Finally, in late August, the final home visit was finished and our license was approved. All that was missing was a placement, which we thought would be the easiest part. We were wrong. We got our first placement call for a newborn baby at Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie about a week after our license was finally approved. I don’t remember any details about the mother, but we were told none of her family members were willing to take the child into their homes. So early one Saturday morning in early-to-mid September, we bought a car seat and went to Muncie to wait for the DCS agent who would be introducing us to our new baby. That introduction never came. Around noon, after we had been at the hospital for about three hours, my wife got a call. Someone in mother’s family changed their mind and was going to take the child in. We were numb. We were told we’d be put back at the top of the list, but it was almost six weeks later before we finally got another call for a placement.

In mid-October, my wife got another message, asking us if we’d be willing to take in either two little girls or two little boys who were part of a sibling set. They told us this would almost certainly be a permanent placement because they were filing involuntary termination papers on the mother, so we would have the option to adopt them after the process was finished. We decided we would welcome the girls, so on Friday, October 28, 2016, two beautiful angels were brought to our house. After their caseworker left, we took them out to Pizza Hut, and since our church was doing its Trunk-or-Treat the next night, we went out and bought them Halloween costumes as well. They went as Disney Princesses: Elsa for the oldest and Belle for the youngest.

Now, remember earlier when I mentioned my mother-in-law wasn’t overly supportive? Over the few days between the initial call and when we finally met our daughters, my mother-in-law mentioned to my wife that she thought it was weird bringing someone else’s children into our home, especially because they may get sent back to their birth families. She was scared of falling in love with the girls, and she tried to project those fears onto us, though she was well-intentioned. However, she was as helpless as we were, because from the moment she first met the girls, they wrapped themselves around her heart, never to let go.
Now, it would be great if this was the end of our trials and tribulations. Unfortunately, if you think that, you haven’t picked up on the theme of this story. Recall when I mentioned they were starting the involuntary termination process for the girls before they moved in with us. In Indiana, that process is supposed to be completed and finalized within 180 days, or six months. Fast-forward to August 2017, when we got notice that visitation had FINALLY been completely suspended (that’s ten months later, by the way), so the process should have been nearing completion, right? Right?

On January 5, 2018, we got an email from the girls’ caseworker informing us that termination had FINALLY been granted for all four of the children, which meant the mother had 30 days to appeal and then the courts should have 90 days to make a ruling on that appeal. That meant by June, we should have been able to start getting on the court docket to finalize our adoption. We were in the clear! Except for some reason, which can only be attributed to God’s timing, we weren’t. In May of 2018, the caseworker who had been with us from the beginning told us she was stepping away from DCS, and we were introduced to her replacement. While he was good at his job, he had to catch up on everything, which did cause a delay. Then, in June of 2018, the two boys mentioned earlier were finally placed in their forever home, which is heartbreaking that it took so much longer for them. Finally, in August of 2018, the appeal was denied, and we were definitely in the clear to start the adoption process. Unfortunately, as with the rest of this story, that wasn’t an easy process either.  

In September 2018, our lawyer finally received communication from DCS about the adoption process starting, so she gave us the forms we needed to fill out to start negotiations. In October 2018, she was still waiting for paperwork and case reports from DCS. Finally, in December 2018, we discovered the process was being held up because our youngest daughter’s biological father was evidently not the same as our oldest daughter’s biological father. However, in the first instance of smooth sailing throughout this process, our youngest daughter’s alleged biological father immediately signed the adoption consent, and it went through without a hitch. Unfortunately, though, that took until February 2019 to be resolved. In April 2019, we finally were able to start negotiations for adoption. The only positive to come out of all of the delays was that the boys’ forever family was able to catch up to us in the timeline, allowing all four children to be adopted on the same day and time in May 2019. That can only be God’s hand throughout the process.

Oh, and for one more fun example of God’s hand throughout this process (if not his sense of humor) rewind to June 2017, when we discovered we were pregnant and due in February. The funny part is that we were taking preventive measures to forestall this exact thing from happening. (When people tell you antibiotics and birth control do not mix, believe them.) Anyway, we now have three absolutely amazing and beautiful children, and it’s exactly the way God had intended it. The only real difference in our story from anyone else’s is that we went from zero to three in 16 months.

Learn more about True Vine, Pathway's Adoption and Foster Care Ministry, HERE.