First Respite Care Experience

Last weekend we were asked to provide respite care for a six month old little girl. We, of course, said yes. Respite care, in the foster care system, means that a foster parent has a need for temporary extended care. It could be that they need to go out of town and the foster child is not free to be taken out of town or some other reason.

We were told that we would have her from early Saturday morning to early Sunday morning and nothing else. We emailed our case worker to at least find out if there were any allergies we should know about. There were none.

She was the sweetest thing. Hardly a fuss in the 24 hours she was with us. I do wish that we were a little more set up for a 6 month old. However, I am confident that if we end up with a child that young we will have what we need.

As for the rest, still crickets.....................

Stasis

We have a running joke going between us about the adoption. If only one of us freaks out at a time then we are good. The real trouble will start if we both freak out at the same time.

We have placed a ton of inquiries into children and sets of children, my guess would be around 35 so far. We have had sparse feedback. I know our case worker is doing her best to try and contact people and get updates or even contact people, but it is dreadfully slow and there is little feedback. We had been told that they would start interviewing families for a pair of brothers at the end of July or beginning of August, we have heard nothing back. Apparently, it is not the normal case that they let you know if they chose not to interview you, or they found another family etc. I personally think some of this process needs some automation. Even if it is a list of families that are interested in a certain child(ren) that sends automatic emails out to folks to say that so and so has found a home. That way we may be sad, if we had our hopes up, but we can be glad they have found a loving home also.

Recently we've had a bit of turn about is fair play. We have had 2 case workers contact our case worker and ask if we were interested in a set of children. Both times we got little more information than their ages, but we have replied, YES! to each. So now our profile goes out to the case worker for the children and if they like us, I assume, we will then get the children's profiles. It is a good feeling to know that we are being picked for something, even if we hear crickets afterwards.

So for now, its Sit! Stay! for both of us.

Waiting... watching... hoping......

So we are waiting.... And waiting.... And waiting some more. Adoption is definitely not a speedy process.

We have been done with the certification process for about a month now. At this point, we have perused the big book of children that our case worker has.  Prior to her visit this week she had been to a conference and gotten quite a few more fliers. We did get a bit smarter with the book this time, we used removable flags to identify kids we wanted to learn now about. It was definitely a helpful tactic add the book is over 3 inches thick

So our case worker, Amanda, is researching several more kids and sets of kids. We have also widened our age range from 0-13. With our looking, we decided it was a logical move for us.

We also have our profile in with the case worker for a pair of boys. They are going through the profiles that have been submitted and decide who they want to interview as possible matches.

One dream Two strategies

We discovered a difference in approaches to foster / adoption Wednesday that I don't think we realized existed before.

Our caseworker had contacted us to let us know that there were some children that were available and in their big book of brochures, but not on the PA website. She was going to be in the area so she offered to drop over Wednesday night at 5 PM.

We both raced home that night and barely were in the door before she showed up with an extremely thick binder. Unfortunately, there was no separation of brochures that were on the website and ones not on the website, so we dug in. Reading the descriptions back to back to back was a challenge. Not only does Susan read about 3-4X as fast as me, but some of these were copies of copies of copies, and the descriptions started to look like cookie cutter write ups. One sentence about what foods they like, one about activities they like, and perhaps a line or two on personality and a vague description of any health issues.

As we perused the binder, we noted some children that we might want to know some more about, and this is where things got confusing for me. Time was running down and our caseworker had to leave for another appointment. Susan spoke up and asked the caseworker to get us more information for 5+ kids or sibling groups that we had looked at. This took me totally by shock.

You see, from my point of view we were "just browsing", and we would talk about the kids alone later and come back to it, narrow it down, see if we are drawn to any one child or sibling group and then ask for more information. Unfortunately, my habit is to mull things over and evaluate and re-evaluate something until I've come to a conclusion. I think this serves me well in my profession, but not necessarily in my personal life.

Susan's perspective, if I can be allowed to attempt to describe it, is that any kids we are interested in we should get more information on, then do some more evaluation on our feelings etc. I've taken to referring to this as the shotgun approach, where I would describe my approach as a laser approach. Focus in on one child or sibling group and follow up. I don't think there is anything wrong with either approach, but it really gave both of us a shock to find out each other had different expectations of the process we were going to follow. For now, we are going to take the shotgun approach. We are hoping that this way there will be less of a let down when children we are interested in are not available. We've already had that happen once and I think we were both saddened when the listing for the child disappeared. It will also give us a chance to explore the process and work out any other details of the process.

We are also struggling over waiting for our image of an "ideal" addition to the family versus helping out every child we see. It's very a very emotional process because your heart goes out to so many kids you see in the foster care system and I feel guilty and selfish if I say no to any one of them.

All this and we haven't even gotten to the stage of meeting with any kids and hoping that the fit feels right from both sides.

Red Tape, Shredded, now the waiting begins

We have gotten through all of the red tape of certification! We are now certified as a foster family and have begun the process of matching.

Matching could go quickly, or take years. We've already made one inquiry that did not pan out. The child was removed from the list within a week of our inquiry. We were also approached about a child, however, we unfortunately had to defer. The child needed more care than a household with 2 working parents could possibly manage.

We believe we are only starting what will prove to be the roller coaster ride of our lives. Fasten your seat belts, keep your arms and legs inside the car at all times.

Enjoy the Ride!

Almost done with the home study

We had our fourth home study visit this past week.  There is only one more form to turn in and then we will have completed all of our home study paperwork.  The last piece is just my physical,  which will be done in a few days. Brian had his physical last week. Our last home study visit will be on June 13. 
It's hard to believe that we have almost finished it already.  It is very exciting,  but nerve wracking at the same time.  We want to thank those people who wrote references for us, and everyone who helped us with all the paperwork we have had to do.
On the homestudy visit on the 13th, we will be reviewing our family profile and signing off on it. Then we start matching. We don't know how long it will take to find a match,  but we will keep updating as we go through that process as well.
We also have one more training to complete.  We will be attending a car seat training class on the 15th.

Moving at lightspeed in the slow lane

We have already gotten 3 house visits under our heels. Fast and Furious has nothing on us. When we started this process we were told that to get through paperwork and clearances it would take 4-6 months. So we both set our mental clocks in that direction.

During a talk with Susan about all of the paperwork that we needed to do, she expressed the opinion that I was not going to help with the paperwork and that I really needed to do my part. She is very correct, I despise paperwork. It's boring and I have no patience for it in most cases, even more so when you get asked the same question over and over again. What's that? you need my name address and social again? Oh your computer system doesn't talk with that one? Why not? Oh hell... Ok, I'll write it out one more time....

So we dug in and got as much as done as quickly as we could. We got our criminal background checks done, and our child abuse clearances, and sent in our finger prints to the FBI for clearances there also. I still feel weird about voluntarily putting myself into the FBI database. Next my genetic code? In any case, less than a month later we only have the smallest amount of paperwork to be done. We have to write up a couple short paragraphs about our lives. We need to finish writing out the resources worksheet. After that we are pretty much done. We go for certification in CPR/First Aid/AED on Saturday.

After these minor things are done we just need to read over the family profile that our social worker is writing up about us and approve it. Eventually we need to get car seat training done, but this will not hold up certification.

It looks like we will only need to have 2 more house visits and then we will be done. We will have everything complete in about a 2 month time frame. Our mental clocks have not quite caught up to the new time frame, but we are working on it.

This is exciting/scary and has put me into a much more contemplative mood as of late. I keep examining my life and the way I live, and the way I think I should be living. What impact I want to have on a child's life. All I can really say, is that in the end, things will change.

A quote hit me in the right spot today and I thought I'd pass it along
"Perfect is the enemy of good." ~ Voltaire

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Matching Event

Yesterday, was a fairly busy day for the two of us. We went to a "Matching Event" with Project Star and then directly to a wedding. It was definitely a day of lots of varied emotions.

The matching event that Project Star put together had about 24 counties in Pennsylvania present. It started with a class on inter-racial adoption. These classes are intended as continuing certification credits for those who are fostering. I can't say that I was personally impressed with the class. If the intention of the class was to convince people that there are challenges to raising a child with a different racial background than yourself, it did that. In fact, the speaker spent 55 minutes of an hour seminar doing that. I personally felt the 5 minutes spent on strategies to deal with raising a child not of your own race, were rather glib and obvious.

We then all proceeded to the matching event. Imagine walking into a trade show/job fair where every vendor  has their own table. They each have displays up, candy dishes out, and even swag like pens, clips etc sitting out. Only here, the featured thing are the kids. It's kind of a surreal experience. One that I find a bit distasteful. I realize that events like this are very important for getting willing families and kids in need together, but on the face of it, it just feels ... commercial... superficial ... awkward. Pretty much every county (felt like, "vendor") person would ask you what age child you were looking for, and the conversation would go from there.

We are not far along enough in the process to get very bogged down in this. We need to finish being certified and get all of our paperwork in line before an event like this can really lead anywhere for us. I'm glad we went. It may have helped prepare us for this type of thing in the future.

Last Friday we were assigned our caseworker, and we even got to meet her at the event. So now it is off to the races. Getting the house in order and paperwork done.

God Bless.

Adoption Class #3

This past Saturday we covered Parenting skills, Resources, and Children with special needs.

My father was able to join us this week and its great that my parents are involved and willing to get the clearances that they will need to help us while we are fostering. I'm not sure we've covered this, in the program we are going through, we will be adopting from foster care. Because of that, we will need to be considered foster parents for at least 6 months and possible longer as the legal system works its way out. This will mean that many agencies will be walking through our door to check on our house and the child(ren) during the fostering period. It also means that anyone who babysits or provides daycare etc, must have child abuse clearances and have fingerprints on file with the FBI.

The parenting skills part of the class was a good discussion. There will be a number of things that we need to make sure we adhere to, according to the county or state that we are adopting from. We have a little bit of reading ahead of us.None of it looks, on its face, like we will have any issues being in line with the guidelines.

The resources part of the class discussed the support groups around the area that we might want to join or at least explore. We also did an exercise where we listed out our circles of support. This consisted of us in the middle, then the next ring who we would contact if we couldn't figure out an issue ourselves, then the ring kept expanding out, essentially listing out all of the resources we have as backups. It was a worthwhile exercise.

We also covered a section on parenting children with special needs. I think it may be likely that we will end up with a child(ren) with special needs, because we both feel we have something to offer here. We have both had our own medical issues and with Susan's background being a nanny and then a nurse and my lifelong experience dealing with doctors/nurses/pharmacies/insurance companies, we believe this give us a good basis to work with a child(ren) that need what we can provide.

The problem here is deciding exactly what we can handle. How severe of this or that, or multiple issues with this or that. What we think we can provide and what prognosis they would have with our help. It's all a judgement call, and it will be very hard to make. It was heartening to see that many others in the class were looking to help children with special needs.

A note about class #2. I hadn't really written anything on it before. Mostly because Susan's explanation pretty much summed it up. Both of my parents were there. It ended up being more of a discussion class instead of what I would call a class class. (i.e. someone presenting material in a structured way with some discussion as we go along). I find the discussion class hard to follow, or at least hard to sum up. At the end of each section we are given a sheet to fill out. How did the section affect us? What did we learn about the children? What did we learn about ourselves? Do we have any questions? All of these are hard to put together when there is not a firm structure around the class, that emphasizes what the point is that they are trying to get across.

One thing we did do in week #2 that really illuminated things for me, was a chart we filled out as a group. It had 5 columns in it. The first column we listed a specific abuse that could happen to a child. The next column was how they would feel because of it. The third column was how they may act because of what they are feeling. The fourth column was how you might feel when a child is acting in column 3. Finally in column 5 was what action you may take when you are feeling like you do in column 4.  Once the chart was filled out, we blocked off the middle 3 columns and you could see that you might be acting in a very inappropriate manner because of an abuse that the child had suffered.

Let me see if I can make this clearer:
action - a child is physically abused, hit etc.
feeling - the child feels powerless
action - the child dominates others to gain power back
feeling - the foster parent feels like they can't control the child
action - the foster parent withdraws / or the foster parent yells, screams etc.

So you have a child that was physically abused, so you are yelling at them, or withdrawing from the situation. The exercise really makes you take a minute and examine why a child is acting this way or that and what you can do to constructively help. It also makes plain that we need all the information we can get about the child(ren) and what has happened to them so we will be in a position to help.

Now on to paperwork, house work, certifications, and clearances....

Adoption class #2

So we have successfully completed adoption class number 2.  This week's class covered grief and loss, healing the hurts, and attachment. The classes really focused on all the pain these kids have gone through.   When we do finally reach the point of adopting we could be facing many challenges in developing a healthy relationship with our child.  But even with the challenges, they should be able to be overcome and we'll be able to give our child a better future.
This week was also different as Brian's parents joined us for class.   Project Star is very open about friends and family being allowed to come to class as it helps your support system be better informed on the process.

Adoption Class #1 and house prep - Brian's View

The first adoption class was heart wrenching. These children have been through so much, and you have to wonder if you have the fortitude to help as much as your heart wants to. The class emphasized what the children will likely have been through, and what behaviors they may exhibit because of what they've been through. My general impression is that our job will be to support the children the best way we can, to help them grow up, deal with whatever their situation was before they entered in our life and help them forward. Our challenges can range from a withdrawn child, to one that is behind socially/educationally, to one that outright rejects and resents you being there, sees you as an interloper, all the way to pretty much any extreme you can think of. It may be that we will end up needing as much support as we give our adopted/foster children. It is good to know that there are many ways in which support is available to us, should we want or need it.

After this class I feel more driven for us to do whatever we can to help.

The paperwork is going to be daunting, and I need to take an active role in gathering information and filling out forms. I generally avoid things like that, but I can't expect Susan to do it all. This is a joint effort.

We are making progress on the house checklist, getting ready for the house inspection. Some days I look at the list and it seems manageable, others it feels overwhelming when combined with the things we want to do on top of what we need to do.

We learned that family could attend the classes with us, even if they were not going for certification. We invited my parents along, since they are local. It looks likely that my father will make it for next Saturday's class and possible that my Mom will be there for part of it. It will be great to have one or both of them there and to get their impressions.


Peace, Love and Joy...

Brian

Adoption Class #1 and house prep

So on Saturday, Brian and I attended our first adoption class with Project Star.  To say it was a bit overwhelming would be an understatement.  We were one of six families going through the training.  2 families were there for to be foster parents only and the other four were looking into adoption.  The instructor, Bethany, was very nice and kicked the day off with an icebreaker.  We were to think about being on a deserted island and say what person and what item we wanted to take with us.  Brian and I managed to make everyone chuckle when we both stated that we would not take the other.  Apparently we each think the other is a bit useless in the wild. 
Anyways, on to the heart of the matter.... the actual class.  This first class was split into four sections.  First was titled "Who are the parents?"  It covered why people foster or adopt, what you can expect from fostering/adoption, and many of the legalities that go along with it.
 The second section was "Who are the Children?"  Personally, this was the most depressing part of the class.  It covered how kids end up in foster care and many of the issues they face.  There was a video shown in this part that had me darn near tears.  It was a very simple one of children describing the foster care process from their view.  The whole section made Brian and I wish we could help more kids.
The third section was on child development.  It was really designed to give people without child rearing experience an idea of normal development.  We were put in teams in this part and had to draw a child of a specific age and write down normal developmental milestones for them.  It was rather entertaining.  Some of the people in our class are real artists. 
The last section was a review of all the paperwork that will have to be completed.  "OY VEY!" is the best description I have for this part.  We at least have our beginning application done already, but I think the paperwork seems more overwhelming than working with the kids.  We'll get through it all its just going to be very tedious. 
So by the end of the day Saturday we had two brand new binders.  One is 1.5 inches wide and has all of our class materials.  The other is 2 inches wide and its just for our paperwork.  I'm a bit afraid to see how thick it gets.  This will all be a definite experience to say the least.
In house prep news, the puppies went for their yearly vet visit.  They both were brave and did really well.  The evil kitty goes to the vet in a couple of weeks.  I'm sure he'll love me after that trip.  We wanted to get all of their yearly stuff done before the homestudy officially starts.  The other news on house prep is that we are working on the downstairs bathroom.  Its getting a nice update.  We'll post some pics when its done.
That's about all the news for now on the adoption front.  We hope all are well and we'll post again after this coming Saturday and class #2.

And we begin...

Susan mailed off our application today! One small step for us, one giant leap towards adoption!

We have started doing little things around the house that we know will need to be done for the inspection. For starters, we put up a fire extinguisher in the kitchen, started updating the downstairs bathroom, and ordered a new fire alarm and key pad that tie into our household security system. Next we need to post Fire/Police/Ambulance numbers in the house, install child plug clips, secure cleaning products and other poisonous items, and find a place that we can keep my medications secure from a child.

Our adoption classes got moved back a week, so they will not start until March 16th. This works out for me nicely since my blown glass classes end on March 9th. This way we will be able to go to all of the classes together. ♥

Good night all!

Perspectives

So Brian and I are working through our first piece of paperwork for our adoption with Project Star.  For the most part it is a straight forward application, basic information about us, etc.  However, there is one section we have been trying to decide how to fill out.   They want us to describe why we want to be parents, and what skills we'll bring to parenthood that will benefit our future children.  It seems like a simple question but we have been searching for the right words to describe ourselves.  Its interesting though to try and find a way to describe ourselves without seeming overblown or uninterested.  We want Project Star to get to know us, as currently their perspective will be the one that matters.

Changes...Changes...Changes...

So I apologise for how long it has been between posts everyone.  There have been a lot of changes in our adoption plan in the last few months.  We had every intention of completing an international adoption from Bulgaria through Adoption Ark.  However, due to the changed in Russia's adoption policy, Adoption Ark could no longer stay open, so that door has closed.  But as we all know, when God closes a door he opens a window.  That window for our family has been Project Star through the Children's Institute.
Brian and I over the last three years have had contact with over two dozen different adoption agencies.  Until we came across Adoption Ark, we had never been able to find an agency willing to work with us due to Brian having CF and having a double lung transplant.  Most agencies seem to have fear of an illness they aren't willing to learn about.  Adoption Ark gave us the hope that we could adopt successfully.  Anyways, at least at the time we learned that Adoption Ark was closing, we had not yet paid anything.
I had originally heard of Project Star a few years ago when I was taking a friend's son to The Children's Institute for OT.  At the time, I thought they only worked to place children with severe issues.  When we learned of the closure, I started researching new options and came across Project Star again.  This time, I learned that they work with any foster adoption.
So with some continued research, Brian and I decided to attend one of Project Star's information meetings.  Which we did, on Valentine's Day.  After the meeting, we went to our Valentine's dinner at The Melting Pot, which was incredibly yummy.  Over dinner we decided we are going to proceed with a domestic foster care adoption through Project Star.
We are very excited to take this step forward to growing our family, and the process should move at a faster pace than international adoption would have gone.  It will also be significantly more cost effective for our family as we will not be traveling overseas.
The next step is 24 hours of adoption classes which we'll begin in March.  We do hope you all will come along with us on this amazing, exciting journey to complete our family, and we'll work hard on keeping the blog up to date.  We also apologise for any confusion with the change of blog title, but we felt with the change of plans and countries it needed a change.