Sunday, March 20, 2016

Puzzle Pieces That Fit Together

That's our family.

Kiddo was the missing puzzle piece that completed the puzzle we call our family.

I had a friend say the other day when she sees kiddo she thinks about what a miracle she is and how she was meant to be with us.

It made me start going down memory lane and I was thinking our journey looked like we were chasing our daughter.

In summer of 2001, kiddo was born.

In summer of 2001, we had gotten information about domestic infant adoption.  We put it on the back burner. It didn't feel right, although we wanted a child.  It also felt overwhelming.

In 2008, we started thinking about it again.  We started fertility treatments because we thought it'd be easier.  It didn't work, so we went back to plan A.

Oddly enough, we started the adoption process, paperwork, home study, etc about the time that kiddo was removed from bio family.  We submitted interest for girls between the age of 4-9. Our preference was 7 and under, but up to 9 was acceptable.  Kiddo was 7 at the time. Her sister was 4.

Our homestudy was approved about the time TPR happened.

Neither time did we find out about kiddo.  At that point, we had also decided to up our age.
Little did we know everytime we decided we wanted to increase the age, our kiddo was having a birthday at that point.

In December 2011, we applied to be parents of an amazing cutie pie.  Our worker didn't send the home study as requested. We found out that she hadn't and reached out to the worker and the worker requested our information.

In February 2012, we interviewed for that cutie and met her for the first time.

In March 2012, we had a weekend visit at our home with that child.  During the weekend visit, she said the following weekend, she was going to another family for the weekend.  Weird.  Some issues happened with that little girl and it took a month before the case worker made the decision.

She made the decision to place her with the other family in April 2012.

In April 2012, our child had just been checked into a psych hospital.  (that's a story for another day) She moved to residential treatment center in May 2012.

On kiddos 11th birthday, her and her sisters profile was sent to us.  They'd found out that the problem was the family and not our child, so her sister was removed in late June and they were placed for adoption together.

We applied for them together, despite that we always said we were more interested in an only child. It just felt right to apply.

No word.  Our worker refused to follow up and we didn't know which office had our child, so we couldn't bypass her.  We were not amused at all.

In September 2012, our kiddo and her sister were separated from each other and placed for adoption separately.  Kiddo's profile showed up on adoptuskids.  I was at work and a friend texted me with a note that said "I found your daughter" This is her.

I opened up the link and literally started crying. I just knew.

I asked hubs if he was interested and he said yes, but reach out to the caseworker first before our adoption worker so she couldn't mess it up.

The next day we got the phone call.  We were asked about a few things and then asked if they could come to our home to discuss her file and talk with us on October 15th.

October 15th was my moms birthday.

We met our child on October 25th and the rest is history.

Everything that happened was just another piece of the puzzle that contributed to a finished puzzle that we call family.

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