An unfortunate experience...

Let me just pre-warn everyone that this post is not for those of you that like all the fluff, flowers and happy faces on this blog, it's real, and it's hard and it's what we're going through so stop reading now if you're not interested:)

Last Thursday we had an appointment with our adoption agency to go through the "child availables".  My mom came over to watch the girls while Andy and I anxiously drove all the way to Modesto for this experience.  We didn't really talk about any expectations that we had, but in hindsight we were both expecting to look at all the kiddos and walk away with some options of future Koning kids.  We thought the hardest part was going to be saying no to all of the kids that needed loving homes because we would want to take them all home, we were wrong, way wrong.

As we started opening the different folders of various counties reality hit us.  In the system (in our experience, in CA) there are mainly older kids and large sibling sets (sets of 4-6 children ages 6 years and up).  Each page had a picture of the child at the top with some of their interests and then their "story" below.  This included why they were taken away from their parents and the horrible situations that they were in.  At first we were reading about each and every kid.  The social worker had told us despite the fact they might not be within our set "parameters" we might fall in love with a child because of their picture or story so we were trying to be open.  After about the 4th child, Andy and I felt physically ill and had to stop.  We then only looked at details of children that fit our parameters and even then, it was too much for us.

After an hour of this we walked out of the room defeated.  The social worker asked if we had found any children we were interested in and I broke down.  For those that know me personally, you know I cry a lot so if we're honest this isn't the biggest surprise of my life but the situation seemed so hopeless.  Not necessarily for me and my family and our future family, but for these poor kids who have been through Hell and are just waiting for someone to love them.  After a super awkward 15 minutes with the social worker and the 2 receptionists I pulled it together and we left.  We had a really hard time putting a finger on why we were so upset and feeling depressed.  Looking back, we think it was just a really rude awakening of the evil in the world.  We're so sheltered here in San Ramon and can be so focused on things like choosing the perfect new paint color for our master bedroom that we easily forget there are people, children specifically in horrific situations.  It almost instills a bigger fire underneath me to adopt because there are so many people out there that need help.

Both of us felt like we walked away empty.  We were expecting to have interest in at least a few children but walked away without any options on top of being upset about all of the things we read.  Despite this, a good friend had texted me asking how it went, when I told her how awful it was, her response was a beautiful reminder.  She said "Praise God for clarity.  Your baby is out there, and you have a powerful God orchestrating the whole thing."  Amen sister, we believe this and trust in this (even though it's sometimes hard to remember during the discouraging times:).  We went home, squeezed our girls, and took a 2.5 hour nap, it felt good.  We hope to not have to go through this again. Our social worker is on vacation until the end of October but we do have someone else looking for our child/children.  All we can do at this point is pray for safety for our child and patience for us.  People weren't kidding...this really is the hardest part.