Patience is a Virtue

My apologies for not posting in a while.    I know you have all been eagerly awaiting an update on how things are going and having to wait weeks for a post must be killing you.    Well now you know how we feel during this endless waiting game of when will we get updates.  We have no news on anything.  Over the last 2 months our home study has been submitted on 5 children/sibling sets and what have we heard back - nothing, nada, zilch.  That's right - we have no idea if the case workers have made a decision on any of the kids we have inquired on.   In 1 instance we know that the case worker is meeting at the end of the month to review case studies, that will be approximately 2 months since we submitted our home study for consideration.     This is apparently a very slow process.

 My intention when I started this was to post something at least once a week,  in the beginning that was easy but now we  are just in a holding pattern and I find that I don't have much to say unless I post every week that there is no news.   I am frustrated by the lack of communication and updates during this process.  I don't want to nag people but I do want to know what is going on - there has to be some balance.   I'm not sure if this is normal or not.   I would think they would want to place the kids quickly but that doesn't appear to be the case.  

Fierce Competition

Nothing can prepare you for the competition to obtain a match.  Maybe  I shouldn't look at it like a competition but that is what it feels like.   It seems very much like applying for jobs.   You see a listing it sounds good, you do a little bit of research, send in your resume and then you wait for the recruiter to decide whether or not you are considered a potential candidate.    As with job hunting some listings will generate hundreds of candidates and others only a few will apply.

We have sent off a couple of inquiries on kids and some our case worker advised against after finding out more information.  There are certain behaviors we aren't able to consider such as cruelty to animals.    On Friday we inquired on a boy and yesterday I didn't see his profile listed.   I logged into our account and see a message that his profile can only be viewed through our account as there are over 15 outstanding inquiries that the case worker has not responded to.   Once there are that many inquiries waiting for responses the child is removed from the site until the case worker responds to the open inquiries.      I guess that is a good thing to prevent hundreds of open inquiries.  

Weekend Project

I finally got around to working on the photo book project.    To help with the transition I thought it would be good to make a little photo book about us and our family.  This is something we can give to the kid(s) early in the process to help familiarize themselves with what we look like, what the house and neighborhood is like and who is in the family.  

I wouldn't have been able to complete this project without the help of all the family members that sent us photos.   The link to the book will be available for a limited time only.

Click here to view this photo book larger

The new way to make a photo album: photo books by Shutterfly.

You've Got Mail

I have never been so excited to open an envelope - I don't think I was even this excited when I opened my acceptance letter to college.    

We got a redacted piece of paper in the mail yesterday!

This makes it officially official we are licensed and waiting.  

6 Month Check-In

Writing that it seems so strange, it can't possibly be 6 months since we started on this adoption journey but yup the calendar says June so it must be true.  So much has happened at that initial meeting seems so long ago but we still have a long road ahead of us.   I would like to say the hard part is behind us, but I don't think that's the case at all.   What is behind us is:

• The paperwork - oh wait no we still have paperwork ahead of us in terms of tracking visits, medications, and countless other stuff. 
• The presence of strangers in our home ensuring we will be good parents - nope that continues as well.  We will likely have more people through our home to ensure we are doing a good job.
• The training - ugh not that either, we have continuing education to do over the course of the year and for every year that we are foster parents. 
• The waiting - yeah right - longer rights are ahead of us. 
• The uncertainty - will this happen, when will this happen, how will the kid(s) react.  Yeah lots of uncertainty ahead.

Sheesh it seems like we haven't done anything in the last 6 months.   That clearly isn't true here's what we have done:

• Attended informational meetings
• Selected an agency
• Completed 2 rounds of paperwork 
• Attended first aid and CPR training
• Attended foster parent training
• Completed 3 home study visits/interviews
• Child proofed our home - purchased fire escape ladders, fire extinguishers, safety locks for cabinets, covers for electrical outlets, fixed our back deck. 
• Got fingerprinted
• Passed federal and state background checks
• Physicals for me & Dave
• Got certificates of health for Paddy and Koda and made sure they were up to date on shots
• Prepared information and collected photos for our profile

 and this just goes to show that this is a continually evolving process with no end in sight.      

What does keep me going these days is we officially have a profile completed that is being sent out to social workers and we can now submit inquiries on available children.  I'm anxious to see where this goes and a little nervous to actually send off our first inquiries.  

Our First Purchase

When you're pregnant it's easy to compile a list of all of the things you need for a baby, have a shower and start buying things.   I guess if we were adopting an infant the same process would apply.  But we have a very broad age range and we want the kid(s) to  be able to pick out their furnishings so that makes it a lot harder.   Instead I have been mentally compiling a list of all the things we are going to need:

• Furniture
• Linens
• Books
• Games & toys
• Bike & helmet
• Swing set
• X-box 

OK not all of these are necessities but many of these items are going to be needed quickly.  We have been putting money aside each month to cover the cost of the big items that will be needed since we have to wait. This waiting is hard so I was super excited this weekend when we were in Santa Fe and made the first purchase for our future child(ren).    We plan on putting a photo of us/our house in this and giving it to them prior to placement to prepare with the transition.   

We're Licensed!

Well, we don't officially have the license in our hands but we got word on Monday that the missing piece of paperwork was received and we are good to be licensed.   This is HUGE!   It means we are onto the next step of the process; the searching and networking.  

I took a gander at AdoptUsKids this afternoon, it is a website that lists kids available for adoption.  This is only one avenue of the networking but I was curious to see if there were any listings that jumped out at me.   Do you believe in signs?  I normally don't believe in signs but I found this listing and immediately thought - yup these are the kids for us.   Dave said he could deal with sharing his name with a child but having a child share a name with our cat is a bit much.