In The New Year...

I am so excited to be entering into a new year! The new year is a symbol of a fresh start & a new beginning. I'm looking forward to continuing to simplify our lives. Getting rid of the negative, unnecessary & excess is liberating & leaves me feeling so light. Focusing on the positive things in our lives like our family & kids is the goal for 2012. The older I get the more I'm grateful for never changing who I am or letting the opinions of others influence me, my relationships, my life or my heart. Surrounding yourself with people who accept you for who you are is what life is made of & I hope I continue to be able to instill this is my children. I hope to raise a child that is tolerant & kind even of those who's lives & beliefs he may not agree with or understand. Being grateful to God everyday for showing me how to purge my life of things that are toxic & move on to BETTER things is just one of my new years resolutions. I am excited to go into this year with wide eyes & an open heart for whatever it is that God has in store for me & our growing family. On a side note some blog changes for 2012, I love the way blogger lets us see who is reading our blogs. Its very interesting to see where everyone is located, how you got to my blog, etc so for now I am staying on Blogger. Because of how well the blog has been going I have recently acquired http://www.crazychaosperfect.com/, which will link you back here to for now but in the future may host the main website as Blogger has limited hosting capabilities. I have also been busy getting a facebook page & other loose ends tied up for the site. I never thought the blog would do so well & I feel very blessed to be able to share the story of our journey & I love hearing from you guys about yours too. I hope it may bring some of you guys traveling this CRAZY road just a little bit of comfort knowing your story is just like ours. I know for me the last time we went through this, talking to other adoptive mommies kept me sane.

Face Sheets & Family Albums

 

Once we got approved we are now scheduled for our "adoption matching orientation". This is when we go down to our agency & meet the matching coordinators face to face. I think this is so great & really important, after all these people will be deciding if your home matches the needs of a child. Their job is to find that perfect "match". If you've read some of my previous posts you will know, this can be very difficult. They have to analyze your personalities, your wants & needs as well as what you can handle & then find a child that meets all of those things. To me this meeting is more than just a "face to face" or putting a "face to a name", it is an opportunity for you to ask all the questions you have & for this team to get an idea of your whole essence & soul in once single visit (no pressure). When we go down for our meeting we will bring along our "face sheets" & our "family album". Face Sheets are basically 1 page summary of your life. They usually include photos with a small bio about everyone in the family as well as a little bit about what type of child you want to adopt & what your family style is. This is usually the VERY first thing a child's case worker sees when you submit your home study. The family album stays at the agency & when you get matched it is given to the child to help make them more comfortable with you & your house etc. Inside the album is photos of our home, our friends & family as well as us doing many of the things we love! Interested in what our Face Sheet looks like? Well scroll on down!! I have been debating for a couple of days whether or not to show our actual face sheet, but I think the point of the blog is to be open & educational, so I hope it helps. (Again I have left out parts of our info, also it was a little neater before I formatted it to fit here, also you can click it to make it larger).

The Reason for the Season...

The Christmas seasons has always been one of my favorites. There is something about the lights, the trees, the family & the music that really gets to me. As I've gotten older the true impact of what this Holiday means has really hit home. Having brought Tuck home the week before Thanksgiving made the holidays so much sweeter. I hope our son has amazing warm memories of this time of year. Not necessarily about the gifts but of our amazing family & the support system that he has growing up. We aren't a perfect family by any means, we fight & annoy each other but that's a REAL family. I would rather argue it out & know our family is the real deal than to pretend to be something we will never be. I hope our son sees that we may not be perfect but we're in it together & for the long haul. Every year during this time I really worry for Tuck's 3 siblings & what their lives might be like now. Knowing that none of them were adopted, yet stayed in their biological families & then made their way to various friends & homes it makes me very worried knowing all the siblings are growing up without each other. I pray one day if our son meets them, they too knew a childhood filled with happiness & amazing holidays. Another thing that I try to remember during this time of year is the reason we have to celebrate. I don't know where I would be without the power of God in my life. He has never given me more than I could handle & looking back I am grateful for every rocky road he has made me weather. It has made me a better person, a better mother & has strengthened my relationship with my amazing husband. The power God has in our lives never ceases to amaze me. Though I am terrified for what the upcoming year could mean for our family & the rollarcoaster that awaits us,I know the path He has planned will lead us to where we are supposed to be. No one has ever said this journey was easy & I should know by know that it's true, but we're optimistic about what the future holds.

Was all that work for this??

Well we just got our "license" in. In case you're wondering this is what it looks like. Its kinda like graduating from high school or college, all that work for a piece of paper? But after all these months, I was happy to see it in the mail & its kinda made my day. The only thing is I was a bit surprised to see the TWO children portion, seeing as we have only said we want one.  Even though we got approved on Friday we haven't heard anything from anyone except our compliance specialist. A compliance specialist is an employee of our agency. From what I gather their sole purpose to to make sure foster homes are keeping up with the requirements of TDFPS. On a side note, one of the main reasons we decided to use an agency rather than go straight with CPS is simple, turnover as well as the personal attention. CPS had a 25% turnover rate for case workers last year. That is appalling. When we were with our agency last time we worked with them for nearly 2 years & during that time not a SINGLE person we encountered quit or left. In fact we worked with the same exact people this time as during our adoption in 2008. We had the same recruiter, the same home study worker etc.This time around we've been working with them since April & we just had our first person quit.  We found out recently that the home study supervisor we had been working with left her position. There are a few other reasons that we have gone with an agency but it is all a personal preference. I know other people that have gone straight via CPS & have had great experiences because they say it cuts out the "middle man". But in all honesty, you aren't working with MORE just different people. You are working with YOUR case worker with your agency rather than a CPS case worker, there aren't 2 sets of workers. Another myth is the old "cps keeps all the "good" kids for their families". I don't know how to respond to that except to say, I've done this once before, I've applied for dozens of "good" kids. Agencies don't just get CPS scraps, their families get the same shot at the same kids as CPS families. If you do some research on how children are broadcast & matched you will quickly realize why this is ridiculous & unfounded. Another reason used an agency is its no surprise that CPS is overwhelmed & under staffed. I would think this is the number one reason so many case workers quit. Our agency has always gone above & beyond, not only for us but for the kids. They hold parent retreats, summer camps for the kids, BBQ's for the families, a Holiday party for all the foster kids, they give out football tickets, they have on site counselors & I could go on & on. I know many people think these events are frivolous but it gives adoptive & foster children the chance to be around kids like themselves without the judgment that they can often get from their peers. Please note this is just my experience with CPS vs. Agencies & my personal preference. Please don't message me your personal "agency" horror stories. There are bad experiences on BOTH sides of the fence. I would just say for families to research, research, research. (The photo above has been edited to protect the innocent. Well for privacy reasons)

Its Official...

  It is official, we got word today we are licensed & open for placements. This is probably the most exciting part of the process, minus actually having your match. There really isn't really going to be much going on at this point except us apply for kids. Applying for kids is basically when CPS has a child that needs a family they send out a "broadcast" or a short bio of the child & their needs, to all the agencies requesting families to be submitted. At this point our agency looks & sees if the child meets our criteria, if they do they agency forwards the broadcast on to us where we read the little bio & decide if we want them to submit our home study. So at this point, though its exciting there isn't going to much action, we pretty much just hurry up & wait. I will try to post updates about how many children we are applying for etc. Because of privacy I can't be very specific but I will try & give an idea of what kind of traffic we are seeing. Can I also just say I have a new found respect for foster parents, because the paperwork & red tape in this process is insane. (To be totally honest I have had this typed up & ready to post for awhile!). The above photo is Tuck on Thanksgiving.

Tis The Season.....

   One thing I have noticed pretty consistently is how difficult this time of year is on waiting families. There is something about having "a baby by Christmas" that seems to consume your soul when you are in this process. With our son, we were in October, & we were giving up hope on being matched by Christmas. I had saved up ALL my vacation & time off the whole year, in hopes of using it when we got matched. Finally I had to admit it wasn't going to happen & take a week off. Sure enough the first day of my vacation I find out we were selected as a top 4 family on a little boy, and 3 days later we were selected! He was home the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Isn't that the way it always works? Though we are settled on the fact that we won't have our daughter by Christmas, it is still a difficult time. We remember Thanksgiving as being such a happy time & its when we really became a family. I am also feeling a little bittersweet about Christmas this year as its probably the last where he is an only child & I want those memories to be sweet. We hope that this upcoming year fulfills our dreams of having a daughter, but even if it doesn't, Christmas is such a special time of year for us and our son. ( The picture above is Tuck holding his Daddy's hand at the Alley Theater waiting to see a production of A Christmas Carol, it was his first live theater show & he loved it!).

What is a Home Study Like?

Since things are incredibly slow on the home front I thought I would do a little bit on one area of the adoption process that seems to make people freeze in terror, the HOME STUDY. I will only be referencing this for a home study intended for DPFS or foster children since that is what I have experience in, I can't speak for home studies for private adoptions. Basically this is when a social worker comes to your home & interviews you about your lives, lifestyle & hopes for adoption. What this does is gives the workers an idea of who you are, your strengths as a parent & how a child will fit into your life. They want to know who you are as people & as a family. Knowing these things helps workers make sure the child you are matched with works for you. If you are a clean freak & super organized, having a child that is a free spirit might make you nuts. Likewise, if you are outgoing & love to do new things & travel quite a bit, a child that is a homebody or anxious with new places won't be a good fit. Remember that you have to be a "fit", some people wonder why they wait for a child when there are so many children in foster care & this is the reason why. These aren't puppies at a shelter, you have to be compatible & realistic. I think if more people were open & honest about their expectations or fears & hid less during their home study, there would be far fewer disruptions in adoption (disruptions are when a child doesn't work out & the adoptive family gives them up). By being realistic I mean you can't say you want a 4-8 year old, then send them back after 3-4 months because they lie, won't hug you, throw fits etc. I will do a blog post on disruptions at a later date because it is a very sad reality of adoptions. Some of the things the workers go into are your childhood, how you were raised & your relationships with your family members. I think the most important thing to do is just be honest & tell the truth. I would not attempt to sugar coat your life in anyway, this can come back to bite you later. They know everyone has fights, every couple bickers and we all have a past. The other point I hear quite a bit is, how clean in clean enough. I don't know how to answer this except to say, if your home is so clean you can eat off the floors, how welcoming is that to a toddler? Just try to be who you are, and be honest with the workers.

Almost There.....

Well, we have spent the last couple of weeks getting all the extra requirements to foster done. We had to go back & get a fire inspection of our home. We also had to take an additional class on policies & procedures. There were a few other loose ends that had to be tied up, as well as our home study going before the committee for approval. We're happy to say last week our home study was officially approved & as of Saturday all the other requirements have been met. We are waiting on one last thing which is TB tests. Hopefully in the next week or so we get the go ahead that our file is complete & we should do our TB tests. They require the tests to be done within 30 days of your home "opening" or accepting placements. This has been one loooong & bumpy road but we can see the end. Well at least the end of THIS road & the beginning of the road where you wait a lot. We are hopeful by December we can start submitting our home study for children!

Moving toward fostering.....

Well we decided to move along toward our foster license. Our hope is to take only legal risk placements. Legal risk placements are usually when there is a very good chance the child will come up for adoption but it is not 100%. They can only place children in a "straight adopt" home when they are 100% free. DFPS is now wanting to move children sooner & sooner. So now when a child has a TPR (termination of parental rights), they immediately move that child into a foster to adopt home if their current foster parents choose not to adopt them. Though their parental rights have been terminated there is still a 90 day grace period for appeal, or for an alternate family member to come forward for the child. Previously they would let the child remain in the foster home until they were 100% free & THEN move then to a "straight adopt" home. There are a few good things about this situation, the first is we could end up with a much younger child. For example, our son was taken at birth, & had TPR done when he was 19 months old. By the time he came home to us, he was 28 months. Had we been willing to foster to adopt, or accept legal risk placements, he would have been home 9 months sooner. The other good thing about doing legal risk, or fostering is that we could get a placement faster. There are more kids waiting for foster families than straight adopt homes. The downside to the whole situation is that risk that the child will not stay. In order to get our foster license we had to get a fire inspection & take another training class. We got our fire inspection last week & are scheduled to complete our last training class the 2nd week in November. We are hoping to have our home study go to committee the first week or two of November.

The choice of two paths.....

I would like to start this blog by saying, this experience in NO way reflects the agency we use, how they have treated us as a whole during this adoption, or our previous adoption, but it does show how one person can throw a wrench in the whole process.Well, yesterday we got really bad news from our adoption agency. I feel the news they told us warranted a phone call, not an email, but I guess that's personal opinion. Up until this point (over 5 months in) we have been working to get our license to do straight adopt. We selected the 0-5 age range, in order to keep our kids in age order, and we wanted a girl. Apparently, our agency stopped licensing families in this age range to straight adopt awhile ago. The email we received yesterday from our home study worker basically said either we agree to foster, or we're done. We have not wanted to foster for the simple fact it would devastate our son to have a sibling, then that child go away. Our home study worker & her supervisor caught the mistake. I was completely blind sided & felt like I was punched in the stomach since up until this point our recruiter NEVER said this to us. We were told we could go the straight adopt route, we just need to accept a child of any race, which we were willing to do. I just don't understand how we made it this far in the process & no one had double checked our recruiters work. They do admit this was an error on the recruiters part & will be handling that accordingly. In order for us to proceed inside our age range with our current agency, we would be required to get licensed to foster first. We do have the option to leave this agency & try through another one, but we would have to start completely fresh with every document, reference & training class. At this point we have decided to move ahead & pursue our foster license with the hope of accepting a legal risk child. Sometimes it is hard to remember that our path is rocky, but it will lead us to our family. I pray that there is a reason we are being led down this road. Even after so many years, 3 miscarriages & more tears than I can count, when I look at my son, I would do every single bit of it again to have him. I hope in a couple years when we look back on this time, we say the same thing for our daughter.

Home study time.....

 

Well, I know I have been kinda MIA lately so I thought I would post a little update. We are scheduled for our home study tomorrow morning. We have the same home study worker as last time, so that's nice. The other surprising thing is since we've already done one with their agency they only need to do one visit for an update to the one they already have. Hopefully we head to committee to get our home study approved & begin submitting on children by the end of the month. I will post a little update tomorrow after our visit just to give a heads up on exactly what happened. We have also been busy & had to postpone our home study because our little boy had his tonsils removed last Friday. This was his third surgery in 18 months & his second since June. I did research before hand to see how the recovery was from this surgery & I'm not sure if that was a curse or a blessing. On one hand I was prepared for the crying, vomiting & lack of eating, but I was also dreading it. As of the last couple days he is doing much better & is eating & drink a bit more. We are very excited to move on to the next leg of this journey & start submitting our home study for children! (The photo above is Tuck after we got home, he was feeling pretty good because the morphine from the hospital hadn't worn off yet).

Crystal

"Is He....Yours?"

             Since things are so slow on the new adoption front I thought I would go ahead & tackle the inevitable subject of race. I wish I had been keeping count of just how many of the "is he yours?" questions I have received over the years. The phrasing of such questions of course vary. We have the bold "is he yours?", to the "is this your little boy?" I would like to respond each & every time with "yea, he just called me MOM didn't he?" or a nice "yea he's mine, I won him in a poker game a few years back" but I generally curb the sarcasm & just reply with a vacant stare & a "yes". At this point a stranger has two options, either drop it & take a hint or pursue a line of questioning that is so inappropriate I would scold my 5 year old for it. Generally adults seem OK to take the latter of the two. The next sentence in this line up is generally "oh, he MUST look like his Daddy", or "is your husband Hispanic?" the last time I received that last one I just looked at the woman as if she had two heads, at that point she looked back down at my son & back to me & added "or Filipino?" I just shook my head no & walked off. I am not quite sure what it is about complete strangers sticking their nose into my sons genetic make-up that annoys me so bad, but I  find it generally rude & just not appropriate. Not everyone SAYS stuff, we do get the ones who give dirty looks or stare, back & forth, back & forth. I always say these people are trying to "figure it out". After awhile you do start to take it all in stride but I think it boils down to insensitivity of adults to children. Whether an adult realizes it or not, this line of questioning often points out to a child that they are somehow "different". The subject of race obviously will come up between parents & children in every trans racial family, but it shouldn't be prompted by the hands of strangers. I am in no way in denial of the fact my son is not the same race as us, I also do not hide it from my son either. If we have a casual relationship feel free to ask, however, if you see me in line at a grocery store please do not come up to me & ask if my son is mixed! Every person handles the whole race card in their own way. I'm always open to race & discussions about that but I just feel when it involves children it is private. I think when considering adoption especially via foster care, this is one of the easiest or the hardest decisions to make. For our family it was an easy decision. We were open to race with our son & we will be open to race with our daughter. I think a large portion of those who have a difficult time with the decision of what races to accept do so because of other people in their lives. Though they are fine with a child of another race having family, friends or a community that aren't accepting can be very difficult. The most important thing I think to remember is your children will take your cues. If you are comfortable accepting & open about race, they can tell. If you are anxious or uncomfortable with their race, they most likely will be to.
***The picture above was at a recent Astros game here in Houston, the games are fun even if they never win!***

Its That Time Again....

        Well, it is that time of year again. School started on Wednesday for our little boy. He started Kindergarten this year & it was very tough (for me, not him). He did great & was very happy to be going to school all day like the big kids, he was in 1/2 day pre school last year. I am starting to see how some people end up with so many kids! Every time one of mine goes off to school I am going to want another little one. We are still waiting to hear from our Homestudy worker. It seems like it has been a very long wait, but its only been a week & a half. Maybe it is just the fact that our baby is growing up so quickly. It seems like just yesterday we were bringing him home & now he is so big! Hopefully we get a call & can start on our home study soon. We are definitely ready to ad another little one to the family!

Waiting on Homestudy........

 

          We got notice yesterday that we are done with training, all our references are in & we have been moved to homestudy. We may have a 2-3 week wait before we get contacted by our homestudy worker because they have a backlog. Our last homestudy took 2 visits, the first visit was about 3 hours, the second was 5-6 if I remember correctly. I was much more nervous for our last one than I am this time around. We are now well aware of what the worker is looking for. Our last worker told us, super clean houses aren't required (thank goodness for that!). I think the number one thing they want to see is that you are being honest & realistic. We didn't sugar coat anything and answered everything with honesty. She asked us questions like, what do we fight about most often, back then it was the division of household chores. She asked us about our families, our marriage, our jobs & just our relationship. Please do not think they are wanting you to say "oh, we never fight, we just negotiate!", they want you to say the truth & know how you handle pressure & disagreements. If this is your first adoption, or like us your first child, you will find all types of NEW things to fight about. Our last homestudy didn't go perfectly smooth. On our first visit our worker stepped in dog poop in our back yard (twice). Then while we were touring the house my dog spilled her coffee on her laptop & mouse. I was VERY embarrassed but she was a good sport! I will post an update as soon as we schedule our first visit!

Tuck Turns Five.

           Five years ago today a little boy was born as the 4th child of a drug addict. She was unable to care for the children she already had & he was left behind at the hospital. It took more than 2 years & thousands of prayers before he would come home as our son & we would know God's plan for him. I couldn't be more proud to be his Mommy & walk beside him in his life. He amazes me everyday with his ability to overcome the life he was born into & grow into the strong, smart, free spirit he is today. So to the little boy that made all of MY childhood dreams come true, Happy Birthday Tuck!!

We're moving right along....

          Yesterday we completed our training that was required in order to move on to Homestudy. We had Praesidium Risk Prevention in the morning & CPR & 1st Aid in the afternoon. Praesidium Risk Prevention is a training program that helps Foster & Adoptive parents know what to look for in order to lower the risk of abuse for your children. The class goes over typical behaviors of predators & how they prey on children. The class also covers steps to take to lower risks of accusations from your foster or adoptive children. We took lunch & after that we did our CPR & 1st Aid certification. We are now officially done with all of our training & are now waiting to move on to Homestudy. Because our agency has so many families coming through training their Homestudy workers are behind. We are expecting to wait a couple of weeks before we start that next step.

Mini PRIDE & training continues......

        Once our file was complete we still have to complete training. Since it had been over a year since our placement & we didn't complete the 30 hours a year required to maintain our license we had to start completely over. Our training consists of PRIDE training, which is basically your core classes. We completed our PRIDE training this past week & now have 3 more classes to complete before we move to homestudy. PRIDE training goes over the basic things to expect once you receive your placement. They cover discipline, sexual abuse signs & symptoms, behavior management, grief, SIDS, shaken baby syndrome and those types of basic topics. We still have to complete a 2 hour course on psychotropic medications which we will do Wednesday evening, Praesedium risk prevention (I have no idea what this is) which we will do Saturday morning, we have lunch, then we will complete CPR & 1st Aid. Once your training is complete you then move on to a homestudy worker. Our agency is currently a little behind, so we may have to wait 2-3 weeks before our homestudy interviews.

The File is complete..............

     An update on the process. Once we got the call about our application, there are still a few things to clear up before our file is complete to move forward. We have been busy the last month or so getting a few loose ends tied up & our son had surgery as well so things have been moving slowly. We both had to under go our FBI fingerprint & background checks. Our agency required us to pay this out of pocket, if your homestudy is approved they will then reimburse us the cost, about $48 each. We also had to do online medical consent training, get our pets shot records, as well as statements of health. The statements of health had to be written by our doctor. They basically say that we are healthy & able to raise a child. Our agency does not reimburse for this cost, so it is out of pocket. Our file is now complete to move forward to training. We are scheduled for our PRIDE training next month, along with 3 secondary training classes, we should be finished & heading into Homestudy by August. We have also been organizing the house to fit another child. The homestudy is an important time to prove your home is ready & able to welcome a child. We realized they want to see a child's room decorated and ready to go. With our last adoption we held out on decorating & buying things as we didn't know the sex or age of the child. I got advice from another Mommy a little further along in the process & she said we needed to decorate ASAP. Within a month of decorating the room (in a neutral theme) we got matched. I have also updated the blog format to show better on mobile devices. As I am new at this it took me a bit to figure that out. Oh, the pic above is our son from Halloween. His Daddy made this amazing costume & it was a crowd favorite!

    -Crystal

The Race Is On..............

            We got a call today regarding our new adoption application. We will be working with the same recruiter as our last adoption. She called today to let us know she got our information & to start the ball rolling. From this point she will go ahead & submit our background checks, schedule us for FBI fingerprinting & send out our reference checks. Generally you complete your PRIDE training first, which is basically your core class(es). After PRIDE training there are still a few misc. classes left to complete before moving on to your home study. We completed our PRIDE training last time by doing a class that was all day Thursday, Friday & Saturday. We will be doing the same classes this time as well. The office location we will be doing our PRIDE classes at only offers them every other month. The next class starts this month on the 19th & is too soon for us to take off for. We will be completing our PRIDE classes the next time they are offered in July. She did agree to go ahead & let us start completing the misc. classes out of order since we can apparently be trusted to complete the training (as we have one successful adoption & know what to expect). I would assume this order is because many people do NOT make it through PRIDE training for various reasons & the agency does not want to waste time or resource training people who can't complete the PRIDE. Hopefully we have some more news pretty soon!
      
         -Crystal

The First Step is The Hardest

    Today we took the first step in our new adoption & put our application in the mail. If you have never done this, it consists of a 15 page questionnaire about everything from your religious beliefs to your child care plans. We also had to gather countless references (thank you everyone who volunteered & those of you that didn't but we put you down anyway). You also have to include photos of every room in your home & yards, along with pets & everyone living in the home. Also required were 2 most recent pay stubs, proof of auto insurance, birth certificates, FBI background releases, a floor plan of our home & a financial form. Now this is where many people get nervous! I would just like to say this is not where they determine if you are "rich" enough to adopt a child. What they basically want to know is if you have stability & are able to make ends meet before adopting or fostering. They do not want to have people that can't pay their bills volunteer to adopt or foster just for a paycheck, Yes people do this. From my memory it should take a couple of weeks before the recruiter pounces on us like a lion after a gazelle. For recruiters every new family is a "foster" family. Due to the high number of children in foster care & the low numbers of volunteers, they need foster families BAD. This is a decision every family must make for themselves. We decided early on this wasn't for us with our first placement. We just didn't think we could handle finally getting the family we wanted & living with the risk that we may not get to keep that child forever. With this adoption we talked about it quite a bit but ultimately decided that again, it wasn't right. Our son was ripped away from the only family he ever knew at 2 years old. I think this builds a sense of dis-trust in him that we have spent YEARS rebuilding. To bring in a sibling for him to love (he asks daily for a sister), then to have to rip that child away isn't an option for us. So on one hand this could be a faster placement for us since we've been told your second adoption always goes way faster because you have proved you can do it. On the other hand, since we are wanting a little girl this time we may be waiting a bit longer. It seems there are much fewer girls available than boys. So I will post an update once we move on to the next step!

          -Crystal

This is the chaos I mean..........

   This post is short. This afternoon I got a text from my mother who was at my house, this is what it said "I just found a dried out quesadilla hanging from the clothes in the spare room"........Enough Said.

Home sweet home...

   When you bring home a child that is a complete stranger, you learn so many things about one another, and you do it QUICKLY! On our 8 hour drive to our home from our sons foster home we discovered, he gets car sick, BAD. This was just the first of our parenting lessons we learned the hard way. We often consider our adoption to have gone "perfectly" but that is not to say that it was without its challenges. Once home we had many sleepless night with our son. Though he was 2, he had been ripped away from the only life & family he had ever know. This being said, we were very lucky in the whole transition process. We used an amazing agency that was able to give us great advice & reassure us that we were doing the right things to help him adjust to his new life! In the last 2 years our son has grown into an amazing little person that still amazes me every single day. I often worry that our next adoption will not got as smoothly as our sons did. Our son is VERY ready for a sibling seeing as he asks every day for a brother or sister. Despite our worries we are excited to add a little girl to our family!

Baby makes Three, Well Toddler Makes Three!

    When we started our adoption we selected the criteria we were willing to accept as a placement. Our request was, boy or girl, ages 0-4, any race. When we said "any race" we really meant that, but for some reason it was a kinda hard concept for some people at our agency to understand. I am going to SKIM over that subject & keep going, if you have questions about THAT please feel free to message me. The way the matching went was, our matching specialist got a "broadcast" of a child that was looking for a family, she then sent it on to me if she felt it was a match, to which I replied yes or no. If it was a "yes" she sent in our Homestudy for consideration. During the following 8 months we were submitted for 30+  children, only 4 of which were girls. Out of all of those submissions we had one RAS meeting, I consider this the semi-finals of adoption. A RAS is when the submitted families are narrowed down to the top 4, your matching specialist, or case worker, then goes to a meeting along with workers for the other 3 families & the child. During this meeting one family is chosen & the other 3 go back to the drawing board. Our first RAS meeting was about 5 months in, and we weren't selected. Though I was disappointed I really felt OK with the decision. In October of 2008 we got a phone call that we were selected to go into a RAS, for a little boy we had submitted for in MAY! I immediately went to my email (where I had saved every single broadcast), & looked up the little boy we were fighting for. Because the child was located outside of our region (about 6 hours away), our worker would not be able to attend in person, instead she would be fighting for us, on speaker phone. She asked me to answer some final questions that may come up in the meeting as well as write a short letter stating what we could do to help this child transition (he was speaking mainly Spanish, which we do not). The RAS was scheduled for the following Tuesday at 2:30, she said she would call as soon as the meeting was over, usually 1-2 hours. Well to say the least I didn't let my phone leave my side. I stared at it intensely. At one point I did have to actually leave to pick my nephew up from school. While waiting in the car rider line I hear the familiar ding of my voice mail. I was in shock, it never rang, i snatched it up & immediately checked my voice mail. It was our matching specialist. She said she couldn't believe I didn't answer, but to call her back ASAP, we were selected & it was a match! I knew right away this was our son. Though we had to wait for his file to come in before it was official, we were over the moon. It was October 30th when his complete file came in, we rushed down the same day & read it cover to cover. Once we read the whole file we were ready to continue & schedule our in person visits. Our first meeting was the 2nd weekend in November. We would be leaving Houston on Friday morning, for the 6 hour drive to meet our son. To make matters worse, I was car sick the entire 6 hours, we were late & I was sick while our son was waiting. The photo above was taken an hour after we arrived in town, in the drive way of his foster mothers home, we look happy, but he was terrified. Five minutes earlier I had to hold him down in the car seat while my husband strapped him in. I sat in the back seat with him & took pictures with my phone to make him happy. This is our first photo together. That first night we were allowed to take him to dinner & just out to spend some time together. We took him to Target, to pick out a toy. I had brought a Spanish/English dictionary with us, but asking people walking by proved to be the most useful form of translation. After that we went to McDonalds to eat together. We had to take him home that first night, but Saturday night he got to stay with us at the hotel. We spent the next afternoon at the zoo, had lunch & shopped a bit. We had NOTHING for him & we didn't expect his foster family to provide anything. After all this was our son & providing for him was our job, the subsidy that foster families receives is barely enough to feed them, much less provide a whole wardrobe & room full of toys. Leaving our son that first week was unbearable. We had to go home without him, in hopes of bringing him home the following weekend. The following weekend we went down Friday night & scheduled to leave with him Sunday morning. As an adoptive parent you miss so much. We missed our sons first 2 birthdays, his first words, steps & teeth. More than anything in that whole process I was grateful my son had a foster family that taught him to love for the first 2 years of his life. I think often adoptive families forget these people, but the pain his foster mother felt giving him up is very real to me. I know she wanted to keep him very badly, but as a single mother she felt he deserved a father & she couldn't give him that. I am so grateful to her for what she did for our son, she took photos at his birthdays, at the park and of him as a baby. These are the only things I have for the first 2 years of his life and they are the most precious things to us. I do still send photos & keep in contact with some of his foster family, its the least we can do! After we got home with our baby boy, life as we knew it was turned upside down!

The rocky road to parenthood....

     Five years into our marriage the REAL journey to become parents started. We did tons of research & decided on a local adoption agency with a great reputation for placing children from DFPS. We went through 60+ hours of training on every topic from psychotropic medications, discipline, bonding & the dreaded sexual abuse (many people had trouble making it through this class). We heard stories and met children that had been through abuse and things that would make the strongest adult crumble. There are few experiences that really shake your soul and on our day of physical abuse class I experienced that for the first time. A couple came in with their 2 foster daughters, with the intent of showing the class how a healthy family can help a child overcome abuse. This was also to show us what we were in for, this is where they separate the boys from the men. Though both girls had been through sexual abuse it was the older of the 2 girls that endured the worst. She was about 4-5 and had the biggest brown eyes, brown hair & a big smile. I still remember her name but won't share that for privacy reasons. When they arrived in class she had both arms in casts to her elbows. Of course we assumed this was abuse but she would have been lucky to have just suffered broken arms. After their
"foster" Mom led the girls from the room their "foster" Dad began to tell us her story. She was taken from her biological mom the previous year, where they lived with her moms boyfriend. After the investigation it was determined her mothers boyfriend had set her on fire. Her arms were in casts after surgery to correct the 3rd degree burns that started at her arms & extended onto her lower body. She had lost many of her fingers and had been through many surgeries. I will never forget this little girl as long as I live. The hardest thing about this process is knowing that my daughter or my son may have a story like hers to tell. I remember thinking how blessed she was to have her foster family that was fighting to adopt her. But after adopting my son I realize that her foster family are the lucky ones. This little girl teaches her parents every day what a family can do to change the life and future of a child in foster care. Without her, they were just ordinary people, but the journey they took with her made them extraordinary.You can't "save" children. You can't adopt to "save" a child. You adopt for one reason & that is to be a parent. At this point, though terrified, I knew we were where we belonged! We endured all the training then our Homestudy began. It was 2 days long & we were asked our opinions on everything from sex to plastic surgery. In the end, after 8 months of training and classes we got the news we had been waiting for, we were Licensed & official waiting!

To get things started.....

          I should most likely start at the beginning of our journey. My husband and I met at work when I was 19 & he was 20, it was not love at first sight, or anything extraordinary, there weren't trumpets sounding & there were not birds chirping. But our first date changed our whole lives & the course of our destiny. I knew that night I had met the person I would marry & spend my life with. We were inseparable & complimented each other in every single way. I'm not going to say everyone was thrilled when 6 weeks later we decided we wanted to get married, but we had our families support. February 20th 2003, one year & 4 days after our first date we were married. As a child I never dreamed of getting married or a big white dress, I had one dream growing up & that was to be a Mom. Our dreams were shattered when after one miscarriage & 3 months into another pregnancy we were dealt a blow that would change our lives. I would ultimately lose that pregnancy as well and was stuck grappling with the realization our family would be much different than we had imagined. They say loss or tragedy can tear couples apart or bring them together. I believe this is very true. There were times I was very afraid I may lose my marriage but in the end we held on tight & when the smoke cleared he was still by my side. We never strongly considered attempting another pregnancy, or risking a babies health to fulfill our selfish want for a biological child. We decided early after that our family would be built by adoption. The next 6 years we built our relationship, set down roots & bought a house. Marriage is not easy and it was no fairy tale but once we got past the 5 year itch we knew we were ready to start our family.