Article Contributed on: 12/8/2006 12:10:39 AM
I'm constantly amazed when I hear someone say, "what a coincidence" because - even though I catch myself saying it from time to time - I don't believe in coincidence. And I'll tell you why with a few, boring examples from my own life.
First off, I should say that I don't consider myself extraordinary in any way. Oh, I've been uniquely gifted and of course have my own skills and personality that sets me apart from everyone else, but then, so does everyone else.
Just so you know that I'm not telling my story in an attempt to elevate myself or make myself the example that everyone should follow; it just happens to be the story I know best...
Like most everyone on the planet, my life has changed significantly in the last few years. For example, in mid-2004 my wife and I decided to stop using credit cards or borrowing money and to completely pay off all our existing consumer debt.
Then, in April 2005 we decided to investigate the possibility of adopting children, (possibly a sibling set, as they are among the harder to place). The conversation started just after the 'Christmas Tsunami' and began with my wife relating a dream she had in which she was holding three young children who were, in her words, "ours, but not mine."
In the meantime we set about the rather mundane business of living our lives; we went to work, started aggressively paying on our debt, tended to the needs of my wife's parents, who were in failing health, saw our friends from time to time and every 24 hours we grew one day older.
Yet even within this boring framework we experienced some serious changes. My wife was promoted to a supervisory position within her office. I had been reassigned to a new work unit, a new boss and a new schedule: I would eventually, with the agreement of my "old" boss, be allowed to work from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
That October, we started the adoption training at the county offices on Thursday nights, where we would later tell them we were open to being placed with a sibling set of up tothree kids ages 1 to 10, (we had initially agreed to ages 4 to 9, but these things are always open to negotiation).
We were busy and breaking new ground, but we had no idea what lay before us. Life was still what it was and we were just going from day to day and it all seemed all too familiar. Until we finally got
The Call That Changed Our Lives...
Would we, the caller asked, consider taking in a set ofthree siblings?
Of course, we already said we would! What if, the caller asked, the youngest child was just 7 months old?
Well, that's a bit younger than we anticipated but if the children were in need...
What if, the caller asked, he was a meth baby? This was of course a cause of some concern, but we agreed and in August our home was filled with love.
...And noise and diapers and used tissues and 189 metric tons of dirty laundry and Kid Vids and an unexplained sticky goo that seems to cover almost every surface...
But here's the thing: our youngest - the meth baby (who is developmentally perfect, by the way) - was born mere days after we completed our adoption training.
In hospital, he was cared for by the daughter of my "old" boss who is a neo-natal nurse, new to this area at the time.
Even though we said we were unwilling to accept placement of children who were judged to be of "legal risk," (that is, the bio-parents' rights had not been terminated), we entered into a foster agreement with the county to accept these children.
The bio-parents still had the legal right to visit their children. Their visits were scheduled for every Tuesday and Thursday - the very days I was already working from my home office.
The bio-parents' rights were terminated last month, just one day after my wife's birthday.
And finally, since we had accepted children with legal risk we were officially foster parents and therefore the recipients of monthly supplement checks from the county. We usedsaid money to finish our debt-repayment plan. Now we're out of debt (except for our mortgage) and easily able to allow my wife to stay at home with the kids should she choose to...
As I write this, there are three children asleep just down the hall from me. They are siblings and the oldest is 5 years old.
The adoption is not yet final, but I suspect it will be sometime around my birthday, which is in early spring. If I'm right, that would really be something.
But it sure wouldn't be a coincidence...
Chris Stone attends First Baptist Church of Evergreen where he serves on the media team. His views are not necessarily those of the congregation. He is the "acting" Father of 3, the proprietor of his own website and an aspiring novelist.