The Outcome

No more waiting, but it’s a sad thing. We were not chosen. This time I cried. I’m really disappointed, but I rather expected not to be, also. I’ll get over it, but I’m bummed out. We weren’t even selected as the back up family.

Part of what counted against us was that we never contacted the foster mom to talk about the boys. We weren’t given her information by Barbara, which made it difficult to contact her. Barbara did claim responsibility for that, but it still didn’t look good for us. The other issues raised by two different workers were:

1) Davan might feel disappointed about not being the youngest and with two younger, that was a concern.

2) There might be too much stress on me, personally, and I might have a relapse with depression.

For those who don’t know, I had a brief bout of depression after being injured in a car accent about 5 years ago. I got some therapy and, between that, and regaining my health, was fine again in less than a year. And this was a pretty mild depression. I was functional the whole time. It makes me regret being upfront about it, though. I could have hidden it, as we have a new doctor (due to a change in insurance) and none of our references would have mentioned it, if they even knew about it.

Also, Davan would be the most excited about an older sister, but she is very open to younger kids and was very excited about the possibility of having two and one of them being just a toddler.

Apparently, the family who was chosen is some particular experience and education (What exactly? We don’t know.) which is particularly applicable to parenting these two boys.We did get a whole long list of positives and some are different from last time.-Anthony and I are both calm and even tempered.

-We’re patient.

-We have a sense of humor.

-There is good communication between us.-We have a strong marriage.

-We have good experience with parenting Davan.

-We’ve demonstrated our ability to research and meet any challenges that come up.

-We’re comfortable with adopting children who have had exposure to prenatal drugs and alcohol.

-We individualize children.

-We’re respectful of birth families.

-We’re involved parents.

-I’m an at home mom.

-We’re an active family in regards to camping, hiking, and other physical and recreational activities.

-We have friends who have adopted.

-We have a good support system.

-We’re actively involved with our group of homeschoolers.

-We’ve (I in particular) have had involvement and success with counseling.

-We’re open to contact with the foster mom.

-They really enjoyed our video and got a good feel for how comfortable we are in our home and how child friendly it is.

-We’ve involved Davan in the adoption process.