Disappointment

Hi everyone, it's Andy. Thank you all very much for your advice and for listening to us, for wanting to know how things have been progressing, and for praying for us since our last post. After three weeks, we have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we should finally decline our referral, and it's very hard.

We spent our time getting as educated as we could about FASD and talking to people who have adopted children with this diagnosis, as well as going over our current house situation. The conclusion we arrived at was that we should decline the referral, and then use this time to finish getting our living situation squared away, and probably revise our dossier to state that we are interested in two children rather than two or three.

We are very disappointed, but think this is the right move for us, for a number of interlocking reasons; none of them were conclusive by themselves but taken together the collective weight of the whole led us to make this difficult choice.



1. Adopting three kids at one time, especially with one or more older children, is very difficult. This was the counsel we got from just about everyone we talked to. It's not impossible, but with additional difficulties it would have been very hard on our marriage.


2. While there wasn't conclusive proof of FASD for any one of the kids, their risk factors were so high that we would very likely have had to deal with at least one, maybe two, and perhaps all three kids having it to some extent. Raising children with this condition is very challenging, and although it can be done its a very different parenting experience than for children without it.


3. If we were to accept this referral it would have been extremely unlikely that we could have gotten our house sold and a new one purchased and prepared before taking custody of the children. This would have been quite stressful for us and would have made it just that much harder to help ourselves and the kids adjust to our new life together as a family. Our current house just doesn't have the space for what three kids and ourselves would need, and moving forward now would really put us into a time-critical situation.


So, now we go back into the queue and wait for the next referral, and trying to use our time wisely in preparing as much as we can. We are so grateful for all of you, and for the remarkable amount of information and moral support there is around Minneapolis for adoptive families in situations like ours. Everyone has been wonderful, and we take a good deal of comfort from knowing that so many people want to help us succeed in our desire to adopt. We continue to need your prayers and support as we move on from this referral, and starting waiting hopefully for the next one.