Hello world! We know this blog is way overdue... hats off to parents who are able to juggle their time with blogging and keeping up with their young children.. we barely could find the time to type this post up! We started this post months ago... and then kept on updating little by little whenever we have time.
What's new? So many! Our little Mia is almost 17 months and she is a curious explorer these days! She has grown so much and learning a bunch of signs; it is endearing to watch Mia's tiny hands move to express words. She's such a sweetheart... Since you haven't seen any updated pictures of Mia-- here are a few of Mia's first birthday pictures (shot by Amelia Hamilton):
Parenthood has been going well and very busy, indeed... with another nice surprise on the way! Brooke is expecting a second child (already!?) and will be due in late March. She is now past halfway at 24 weeks. What's the story with our second pregnancy? Actually, we always planned on expanding our family and our second baby decided to come much, much earlier and ahead of our schedule. We envisioned that we might struggle to conceive again and didn't expect this pregnancy to happen so quick and easy after when Brooke stopped breastfeeding Mia. The pregnancy test result came out positive. Wowwww! You could imagine how surprised and shocked we were! We are grateful, of course. Mia and baby #2 will be 20 months apart. Two under two....We will have our hands full really soon!
What does that mean for our adoption process? We still want to adopt; after a lengthy discussion about our future plans and such, there are still a lot of uncertainty in the future such as moving to a bigger house for our growing family (but when and where?), Brooke's future job (hopefully when our second baby is ready for pre-school), etc... We are not even sure what will happen after our second baby is born because any new changes in our lives, we would constantly be updating and paying a bunch of fees for our home study. Timing is a huge factor for us, too. When can we really go to China and adopt a child? Would we be able to on a short notice if that's the case? We have decided to adopt through a different route to give us more flexibility without stressing over deadlines and expenses to meet for international adoption. We have decided to pursue adoption via foster care in the state of Texas.
We went to TARE (Texas Adoption Resource Exchange)'s orientation last June to learn about becoming licensed foster parents in this state of Texas. We would like to start our case here in Texas to open doors for some potential foster (deaf) children and to give us the opportunity to help them and adopt them if that's an option; some foster children are eligible for adoption. We just want to increase our chances of adopting a child. We will be required to attend few orientations/workshops to complete our process of becoming foster parents-- there are a lot of criteria to meet for TARE; thus, we do not expect this process to go quick. We were forewarned by other foster parents that the process take a long time because it is under the state-- they do rigorous screening for qualified parents (a lot of red tape involved, too). We are certain that we will get most of the work done after second baby's arrival. Right now until then, we will just do a little bit of the paperwork for TARE/DFPS (Texas Department of Family & Protective Services), but same time to prep for our second baby's arrival, too! We truly feel that the idea of adopting through foster care is the most ideal plan for us and our young family. It would buy us time to prepare and welcome another child in the house under our care and to hopefully adopt our third child by then.
We are excited to see what future will hold for us... :)
We went to TARE (Texas Adoption Resource Exchange)'s orientation last June to learn about becoming licensed foster parents in this state of Texas. We would like to start our case here in Texas to open doors for some potential foster (deaf) children and to give us the opportunity to help them and adopt them if that's an option; some foster children are eligible for adoption. We just want to increase our chances of adopting a child. We will be required to attend few orientations/workshops to complete our process of becoming foster parents-- there are a lot of criteria to meet for TARE; thus, we do not expect this process to go quick. We were forewarned by other foster parents that the process take a long time because it is under the state-- they do rigorous screening for qualified parents (a lot of red tape involved, too). We are certain that we will get most of the work done after second baby's arrival. Right now until then, we will just do a little bit of the paperwork for TARE/DFPS (Texas Department of Family & Protective Services), but same time to prep for our second baby's arrival, too! We truly feel that the idea of adopting through foster care is the most ideal plan for us and our young family. It would buy us time to prepare and welcome another child in the house under our care and to hopefully adopt our third child by then.
We are excited to see what future will hold for us... :)
With love,
Brian, Brooke, Mia, and second little one baking in the oven :)
