Eternal Flame

Chapter 14

Aria's POV

"Good morning," Ezra says and gently pulls me out of my thoughts with a kiss on my cheek.

"Hey," I reply and turn around to face him.

"Is everything ok? You were lost in thought for a while and you look worried."

"No, I was just thinking..." I reply, "I think it's time we start looking for a new house. Don't get me wrong, I love this place but if we want to start a family we will definitely need a bigger house and now that we both have jobs I don't see a reason to keep postponing this. We need to, at least, start getting some information about the process so we can start working on it."

"I couldn't agree more." He replies, "In fact, I have already started looking up houses online."

"You have?"

"Yeah. I knew getting a new house would be the next logical step but I also knew you were under a lot of stress because of your new job and I figured you had enough on your plate so I decided to wait for you to be ready."

"Yeah... The first few days were really stressful and I was scared I wouldn't fit in but I quickly realized there was no need for that. I was welcomed with open arms and in spite of all the responsibility and the stress that comes with it, I couldn't be happier with this job."

"I know and I couldn't be happier for you." He says and I kiss him in reply.

"There's something else I want to talk to you about..."

"What is it?"

"Sarah forwarded me an email about a clarification session about foster care and adoption that will take place in a Philly in a couple weeks. You don't have to reply now but-"

"That sounds great." Ezra replies, and a smile immediately spreads across my face, "We have to start somewhere and what better place than a clarification session? If you send me the email I'll make sure to be free on that day."

"Do you have any idea how much I love you?"

"I think I have an idea but I wouldn't mind if you told me again."

Time flies when you're busy and between work, house hunting and research about adoption and foster care weeks went by and the clarification session starts in a few minutes.

"What did you think of the house?" I ask Ezra on our way to Philly.

"It's amazing. The pictures we saw definitely don't do it justice." He replies, "Plus, the price wasn't bad. I mean it is a bit more what we'd talked about but on the bright side it was just remodelled so we won't need to spend much money on it." He adds, "I think we should schedule another visit. We didn't have enough time to see everything and pay attention to the details today."

"Definitely," I agree, "We better do it soon, though. I doubt that house will stay in the market for much longer."

"Yeah. I'll call Jack when we get home."

"Do that. That was my favourite house so far. I really want to give it a better look. It might be the one, who knows."

We arrive a little bit after the time scheduled but luckily the session hadn't started yet. Ezra and I find a couple of the few seats available and sit down right before a lady walks in and presents herself.

"Hi everyone, I'm Lauren and today, I will be talking to you about adoption and foster care and I hope to clear up all your doubts but if by the end you have any question, don't hesitate to ask." She says, "Some of the reasons why children enter foster care is because they have been abused, neglected or abandoned. These children are in the temporary custody of the state while their birth parents try to rebuild their lives so that their children can be returned to them if it is in the children's best interest but only a little more than half of the children who go into foster care return to their birth families.
There are currently over 100,000 children and teens in the system, waiting for a family to love and protect them and our mission is to find that family. We deeply believe that every child deserves to grow up in a family that gives them the best chance of becoming the best person they can be, whether it is temporarily or for a longer period of time.
As you all know, you have 2 options: adopting and fostering. However, we encourage parents who are considering adoption to be foster parents first. It has several advantages including the opportunity to begin parenting sooner, before you find your match, experience parenting children from a wider range of ages or even to get the chance to create a bond with each other. And if the parents are licensed to provide foster care, a child can live with her future adoptive parents, potentially reducing the amount of time parents must wit before adoption is finalized.
An important aspect of fostering, even if the foster family is being considered to adopt the child in their care, is that they must actively support efforts to reunify children with their birth parents, as determined by a court and public agency that are responsible for their custody and planning, as long as that isn't prejudicial to the kids.
Foster parents must also be prepared for the real possibility that children they hoped to adopt are returned to their birth parents or placed with relatives, although this will nearly always be made prior to designation by the court of the placement as adoption and while I know this thought might be scary, please don't let it stop you from adopting or fostering."

(...)

"I understand that this is a lot of information to take in and that most, if not all, of you need time to think so you have all the time you need and once you've made up your mind, if you want to go forward with the process, we'll have individual meetings to discuss details and what you need to do in order to be able to adopt or foster but in general lines, a prospective adoptive family must demonstrate that they can provide a permanent home for a child or a sibling group, and that they can provide a safe environment and support the child's physical and mental health as well as their educational and social needs. Any questions?" She asks but everyone remains in silence, "Well then, I guess that's it for today. I hope to see you all soon. Have a great week."

None of us says anything on our way home, both absorbed in thoughts and processing everything that happened in the last 2 hours but if there's one thing I'm sure is that this session only assured me that this was the right thing to do.

A/N
Hey guys! I really hope you liked the chapter. I know it had a little too much details and information but I feel like I needed to share more about adoption and fostering. I recently saw a movie about those topics and I really think more people should do it and that it can change the children's lives for the better.
Anyways, I'm traveling this week so I'm not sure I'll be able to update next Sunday but I'll try my best to be able to. As usual, I really, really  hope you liked the chapter and please share your thought about the chapter with me.
Love you all xx