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