Day Four, Gift Four

Sorry for the delay, I did do my fourth gift on my fourth day. I had a really bad health day today and stayed in bed all morning. I went to the doctor's in the afternoon and had an encouraging appointment. After about an hour of crying we were able to make some progress and have decided to aggressively switch my medication. This most likely will make me incredibly ill and stuck in bed for the next two weeks, however, if it works, it could change everything...

For my fourth gift, I decided to give a special token to Justin's adoption worker. She was coming out to my house for the last time ever to go over finalization. The adoption has been final for sometime, but there is always paperwork, paperwork, paperwork in the world of adoption.

I gave her a beautiful coaster I made with a picture of Justin angelically sleeping on it. It stated, "To the world, you may be a person, but to me you are the world." She was very touched!

One reader emailed me about the following quote which is on the bottom of all my emails:

If less than 1% of Christian American families made a choice to adopt one child, there would be no more children waiting to be adopted in the U.S. foster care system, and a million orphaned children from other countries would join an American family...something to think about - one child makes a difference. It's a solvable problem!

To see children waiting right now for a forever home go to:

www.adoptuskids.org

Adoption is very special and having both biological and adopted children I can assure you that you love them both and it doesn't matter, I promise!

The person who emailed me was concerned with how much people spend on fertility treatments, etc, when there are so many children in the world waiting to be adopted. For those families who can't have children, I can't say I know how it feels. Both times I tried to conceive I became pregnant very quickly. However, carrying through the pregnancy has been pure and total torture due to my health. I think regardless of whether I had normal pregnancies or not, I would have loved to adopt.

When you adopt from the foster care system, it is amazing. We had our first placement, Justin, just two days after receiving our license. There are so many children "waiting" out there and if homes are not available they go to "group homes"...what are these, you might ask? They are orphanages, but they call it that anymore. For those of you who only want a "baby", I want to tell you about my friend who inspired me to adopt foster children.

I used to work as a therapist for developmentally disabled children. I would go to her house and work with one of her ten, yes I said TEN children! She was a gorgeous little two year old that I couldn't get enough of. The curls crowned around her little Hispanic face and her smile lit up a room. I thought, "I could totally adopt this girl!" and then that happened with EVERY foster child I met after that.

Adopting through foster care does not cost anything, so money is not an issue!!! They pay for all the adoption expenses and many times will give you a HUGE tax credit for doing so...in addition, they provide support for life, both financial, emotional, and health insurance too! I can't really imagine why anyone would want to do it any other way? You can tell the foster system what age, sex, etc, of a child you would like to adopt. Back to my friend...she has had 26 infants come through her home, she only takes newborns...the first six in a row came up for adoption and so adopted them all!!! Statistically, 50% of more of the infants placed in foster care go up for adoption.

I wanted to give a gift to my adoption worker because they are sorely overworked, underpaid, and under-appreciated. I hope she knows how much I appreciate her!