Adoption Orientation

We had our adoption orientation meeting last night.  I was so excited to start doing something physical in the way of our adoption.  I came home crying and depressed.  It's hard for me to admit this because it makes me feel like I'm being pessimistic but I honestly can't help how last night brought all the pain of infertility and the unfairness of life right back to the forefront for me.  

I don't feel like I really learned anything new about the purpose of DCFS and how they operate.  This is definitely more geared toward fostering and temporary placements as "reunification is their number one goal."  I understand reunification and I understand how sometimes it can really work and should be sought to work.  However, I have a much higher standard of how people should take care of their children and if they've proven that they can't or don't care to, then don't force them to!  I'm really hoping I can keep my own attitude about that in check while we go through this course of training.  I am not giving up on the training and the home study.  I am not giving up on adopting through DCFS.  But I am really leery and scared about it now.  They really made it sound like straight adoptions don't happen often and that's not their goal.  They also made it sound like it's hard to adopt without fostering and I really don't want to foster.  I don't think my heart can take it.  

Did you notice all the "I" statements I wrote?  I noticed it last night while I was pouring out my frustrations to Gil.  I don't want to be selfish in this process as we should be thinking about the children first and what's best for them.  But I know that my heart can't take all the hurt from taking a child in, loving them, caring for them, and then having to give them back to people who hurt them, whether directly or indirectly, by their own choosing.

Please keep me in prayer over the next week or so.  Like I said, this has really brought back to the forefront the depressive feelings that infertility has brought to my life.  It's so unfair for us not to be able to have biological children when He allows people to have children who will possibly murder and then stuff them in their car trunk to drive around for months and act like nothing happened... people who kill their one-month-old baby by putting her in a microwave... people who grab their baby by the foot and throw them flailing into their crib because they "lost it".  The stories of abused and murdered babies/children have been endless in the past month and hearing one after the other has hurt me more and more with each story.  I do not want these strong feelings of depression to stay forever... why can't I just accept our infertility and move on?  

Jen on her blog All You Who Hope posted yesterday and her ache echoes my own so closely that I have to share it with you.  Please read her "Down" post by clicking here.