The Tide Has Changed

It always amazes me how a situation can change in an instant.

If you read my post titled "Less Than", I spoke of our home study agency (H.A.) restricting us to only being able to adopt one child. There was nothing in our home study that raised red flags on our ability or means to provide for more than one child. This decision was handed down solely due to the size of our family. Unsubstantiated bias is what ruled here. Honestly, some wind went out of my sails when I found this out....but I was grateful that at least we had been approved to adopt a child. But, at the same time, I knew we could handle more if we were allowed to. I really felt that since the Lord was behind the whole adoption, that He was even involved in the decisions that didn't quite make sense as well.

Yesterday, I spoke with our placement agency (P.A.). After reviewing our recently submitted home study from the H.A., the coordinator said that our family was really best suited to take on a sibling set! Ha! Here was an agency that was really looking at our family and not relying on a prejudice or statistic! I am sorry, but this is just amazing to me. The P.A. felt that if we only adopted one child, that the child would feel isolated and very different in our family. They also felt that having a sibling would ease the adjustment for the adopted children as well as give a sense of home that is always there as opposed to only having a distant memory of "what was". I have always believed this as well, and this was the main reason why adopting a sibling set was so attractive to me.

This is where the battle begins between the H.A. and the P.A. The H.A wants us to adopt only one child and the P.A. wants us to adopt more than one child. Unfortunately, we are in the middle of a tug-o-war and we have requested for the H.A. to lift the restriction of only being able to adopt one child. It may end up that we will have to obtain another home study from another provider in order to be able to adopt a sibling set.

Pray for us. Minutes ago, I sent a letter to the H.A. stating that we would like the restriction to be lifted or to give us a refund of our fees. This policy of "restricting how many children may be adopted due to family size" was never, ever disclosed to us verbally or in writing before we paid our home study fee. Had we known, we would have not hired this particular agency to do our home study.

So people, the tide is changing and I will keep you posted as to the response I get.