I’m a father of 7 adopted kids! Originally, I only wanted a maximum of 2 kids, but that is not what happened. No matter how much I grumbled and dragged my feet, in the end, I have been blessed with 7 kids that I couldn’t live without.

As the unwilling partner, it helped to:

• Listen to my spouse’s wants and needs.
• Make an effort to support my spouse’s plans and thought processes.
• Do everything I could to help and be part of the changes happening.
• Do my best to keep an open mind.
• Love the kids as my own because they are mine

Accepting The Fact That These Kids Are Not Biologically Mine

One of the hurdles I faced was the fact that these children were not biologically mine. Everyone who wants a child of their own wants to look down at the baby and see something of themselves like their father’s eyes, their mother’s smile, or some sort of family resemblance. But that wasn’t in the cards for us. We went to a fertility specialist and did the testing (and more testing) and found out that we were unable to have children on our own without going through In Vitro Fertilization. I didn’t feel like that is what God had intended but if that is what my wife wanted I would support her in her decision. We didn’t go that route due to multiple factors.

Adoption Apprehensions

When Kaycee came to me about adoption I had my apprehensions. I still wanted my own children, not someone else’s. Boy, which was the wrong way of thinking! I can’t say it enough, you will fall in love with the child. Don’t get me wrong they will drive you crazy, but what kid doesn’t do that? I also was concerned about the cost. At the time my employer, like most other employers, didn’t cover any cost for adoption. And, health insurance only covers the birthing process. We were lucky that this type of private adoption qualified us for subsidies from the state. Then with our adoptions that came through the foster care system, again we qualified for subsidies. Since we have started the process of adoption, many companies have instituted reimbursements for adoption to help families with the financial burden.

Adoption Fears

The process of our first adoption wasn’t that scary since it was a private adoption. The biggest problem is waiting:

1. We had to wait for the approval process.
2. We had to wait to be chosen by the biological mother.
3. Then we had to wait for Sam to be born.
   

The worst part was waiting to get Sam after he was born, the not knowing when he would be ours was horrible. The reason we had to wait was because of the time it took for an opening at court to be made available for the birth mom to sign away her rights. During this time Sam was with a great foster family that took great care of him. And to top it off it was around Christmas, we just wanted to have him at home for the holidays.

Fostering and Adoption

Once you look into the eyes of the newborn baby and are taking them home with you, you know they are yours. It doesn’t matter who their biological mother and father are, you are now their world and they are your world. You will love and raise them as your own. As with private adoption and fostering to adopt, you might be the only chance the child has to succeed in life.

• Private adoption: The birth parent makes the choice not to abort the child but to give the child a chance at life.
• Foster care to adoption: It’s not always the parents’ choice, they have the chance to make the right decision; to change their life to become the parent(s) they need to be to raise their child or give their rights away so the child has a chance at life without drugs, abuse, and/or neglect to name a few reasons children are taken into foster care.

Fostering and Adoption Fears

Unlike private adoption, there were multiple fears during the foster/adoptive process including:

• Will the child be healthy? This is a fear for all prospective parents and we have no control over it. Although, we also had to factor in drug-exposed babies which we wouldn’t have if we had our own biological children. All I could do was to pray that God would give us what we could handle and equip us to raise the kids the best we could. We didn’t get all healthy children. We had a couple of babies with Failure to Thrive (FTT), multiple drug-exposed babies, and one with a clubbed foot. Not to mention other emotional and physical issues.
• How old will they be? Sam was 6 when we started taking foster care placements and we wanted to keep him as the number one in the birth order. When we were going through our training to become foster parents we were told we would most likely only get older kids. Getting babies was not to be expected, so our only request was that the kids would be younger than Sam. For us, the majority of our foster kids were babies.
• Will we have to give the child back to the biological family? This is a hard one. On one hand, you want and work for the children to be reunited with the birth parents, but on the other hand, you will love the children as your own. We were fortunate that we were able to adopt most of our foster children, but it was hard to see other kids go.
• Will I be able to provide for them? When we went from 1 child to 5 children in one year so there were big changes; multiple diaper changes, more mouths to feed, the need for clothing, and the arrangements for sleeping (multiple cribs and beds).

Again, I only wanted a max of 2 kids. So, every time Kaycee would come to me and say that the state called I would cringe. It seemed like every time we were done fostering, the state would call needing us to take on another kid. I’m thinking, how are we going to be able to take care of another kid, our house and cars are only so big. Even though I was reluctant, everything worked out.

I hope that if you are the unwilling or reluctant parent that this has helped you. I just found that between Kaycee and me, God gave us the strength, guidance, knowledge, and perseverance to take these kids in and make them our own. I’m not saying everything is perfect, it’s not, but all families have to go through the growing process.

With our drug-exposed babies we learned how to take care of them, the biggest thing I did was to hold them. You create a bond with the baby when you have to hold them tight during their tremors so they can feel comforted and be able to fall asleep. That is one thing I miss now that our youngest is 3, not being able to hold them on my belly until they fall asleep.

I was the spouse who didn’t want to adopt. I was the unwilling partner that didn’t want to have a big family, adopt, go through the testing for infertility, and foster someone else’s kid. I was the one dragging my feet, seeing every negative aspect of everything, and making my wife’s life miserable. In the end, through the help of God, our family, our friends, our church, and other resources I’m now a proud father of 7 wonderful kids that I would never have known if I hadn’t listened to Kaycee’s hopes and dreams. We still have our tough times but we will continue to thrive as long as we have each other and God.

So keep your head up and keep praying for the strength, guidance, and knowledge to be the best parent you can be. Don’t be afraid to reach out to someone for help like family, friends, and your church. If you feel like God is calling you to love a child through foster care or adoption, then don’t be afraid to give it a try. I’m glad I did.