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!!