The first time we "waited" we went crazy we did not know about FSA or have any connections with others waiting to adopt. It was hard feeling like we were the only ones going through this. There are so many things to learn about adoption not just the technical paperwork stuff but the players, if you will. What can you expect when you have your first face to face with a birth mom to when your child begins to question why they were placed for adoption and everything in between. Sure you can read books and I read LOTS of books. But it does not compare to talking with others who have gone through what you are going through or what you are about to go through. Adoption is a roller coaster ride and it's always better to have someone else along for the ride. Become involved with FSA and become an advocate for adoption. Do 5th Sunday presentation and presentations at high schools. My thoughts were if I help a birth mom find the blessings of adoption here then someone somewhere else is helping "our" birth mom find the blessings of adoption.
-Cindy
Sometimes with grace and sometimes with a lot of prayer to give us patience to handle it with grace. We took up running long distance races together as a couple, although many people might not enjoy running we found the time together to talk really strengthened our relationship. We entered races together and found new confidence in something that we could control. So many times as couples we feel like there is little we can control and this gave us that feeling that we were very capable of controlling our own lives. Find something to do together to keep you close as a couple so that when you get frustrated and tired of waiting you will pull together instead of apart. There were days where we felt overwhelmed and those days we found ourselves on our knees almost hourly! When you fixate your thoughts on the, "when it will happen", you will miss life in the present and it will feel much harder. President Hinckley said it best, "Forget yourself and get to work".
-Marshall and Molly
We had a 4 year wait, not as long as others we know, but it was plenty long for us. We were first approved while living in California so we took advantage of all that So Cal has to offer. We kept ourselves busy. We went to museums, operas, theater, beaches, camping, etc. And we found lots of things that were free or reduced price. We went to free days at museums, sat in nosebleed seats at the Hollywood Bowl, entered the raffle for several weeks in a row for tickets to Wicked in LA, etc. We were trying to save money for adoption, but still enjoy our time. That first year I didn't want to plan anything too big because "what if we were chosen". So the first year, we kept our plans pretty simple. Mostly to a 4 hours radius of our house in So Cal. The next year we decided that while we longed for kiddos, we were not going to put off doing things just in case we were chosen. I had the chance to go to Europe for 2 weeks with my sisters and mom and after thinking about it, I decided to go. If we were chosen during before then, we would work it out somehow. And so went the next 3 years. We did so many fun things because we simply lived our lives trying the best we could to be happy and have patience.
I took a woodworking class in the community and learned to make pens on a wood lathe. Ryan joined several sports teams. We prayed for kiddos, we wanted nothing more than to find our birth mom and baby, but we accepted that it would happen when the time was right.
We got in touch with old friends, we spent more time with family, we built better relationships with extended family. We organized the first ever extended family reunion and did some adoption advocacy in the process.
It was a long four years, but those four years were the best four years we've had together so far. Now that Landon has been with us for 4 months, we are so grateful we had that time together. It taught us patience and more about enduring to the end. It also taught us about God's plan and just how much it really is "his" plan despite my attempts to make it fit my plan. We just hope it is not another four years until #2.
What our advice would be is this: Don't put your lives on hold because you might get picked, just enjoy your time together and when the time is right it will happen.
-Ryan, Carrie and Landon
At first, we thought we wouldn't be waiting long, but we had a point while we were waiting to be approved where we felt we were supposed to spread the news about our hope to adopt to everyone. Because of this, we wanted to get pass along cards, and ordered some as soon as we were approved. We emailed everyone we knew, mailed out letters and postcards, put magnets on our cars and our family members cars, and updated our blog every week! Although we didn't always see results from these efforts, we felt like we needed to do all we could through the adoption process. We felt that if we weren't working hard to spread the word, it might be our own fault if we didn't get a placement. Who knows how our birth mom would find us?
For us, the easiest way to handle the wait was to be involved and keep working! We were frustrated with waiting when things didn't happen quickly and we got no contacts, so we took a break. Honestly, that didn't do any good, so we got involved with FSA and got to know others who were hoping to adopt and waiting too. It was great! They helped us survive and love adoption even more! We always felt like we were working on our adoption, but we were helping others too.
Waiting was still hard at times (sometimes it was really hard), and we felt that Heavenly Father was trying to teach us a lot of things, like how important it is to be patient and trust in His plan and timing, not our own. We learned over and over again that we really had no control, so working and spreading the word was the only way we did have control over things. We wanted to do all we could, and hoped that something would come from our efforts.
-Andrew and Brianna
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