Trusting

Well, it turns out that little girl isn't part of this adoption. That doesn't mean that the family chosen for the boys won't be able to adopt her; it just means...well...I'm not completely sure what it means. But, I know my heart hurts. Of course, I don't really have the right to be disappointed just yet. After all, we haven't been chosen to parent these precious kids. But, there is still sadness knowing that the children may have to be separated, even if for a little while.  Foster children have already experienced so much loss in their young lives, it's hard to know that more may be coming.

On a brighter note, in the midst of the craziness of the past week - the different information depending where I call, the challenge of filling out another comprehensive set of paperwork, scheduling fingerprints (two separate times, days apart), and trying to manage our crazy calendars to fit upcoming trainings and interviews - I got an email yesterday from a social worker who is our appointed representative at the matching conference next month. This was a nice surprise. Basically, as I understand it, her job is to get to know us and then be our advocate when the committee meets to choose a family for the boys.

I suppose I didn't expect so much involvement before being chosen. When we adopted A, we submitted our home study a number of times (two dozen maybe?) before A's birth mom chose us. Those rejections weren't fun, but they were pretty straightforward: we read background info and decided whether or not to submit; birth mom either chose or didn't choose us.  We didn't have any contact with the birth family; we didn't even have any real identifying information - just first names and states of residence and some generic health and situational info. No "real" connections.

In this, our second adoption experience, we get to see pictures of the children before we even submit, and we get to hear a bit about their backgrounds and personalities. Most often, we don't hear anything unless we are being preliminarily considered. In the case of these boys for which we are one of three families, we have seen pictures, spoken with foster mom, read background info, heard their stories, etc. My heart started to attach long ago, and nothing is certain yet. Except the most important thing: God is in control of this whole situation.

From the first time I saw these boys, I have prayed that the Lord would place them in the home that HE has chosen for them.  Of course, I hope that home is ours, but more important than what I want is what He wants, after all, they do belong to Him first. So, when we pray, we ask that the Lord would place these children in the home where they best can receive what they need to become what He created them to be. If you feel so inclined, we would welcome your prayers to that end, too. With all our kids we really need to remember that they first belong to God Who then gives us the privilege to raise them. Just as Hannah gave Samuel to the Lord none of us really can lay claim to our children.

So...as we wait to see how this unfolds, we will do our part to update paperwork, attend trainings, compile family picture books, and research necessary resources. And, we'll trust that God knows the end from the beginning.

Foster Mom

I think I may have been a little unclear in my last post. Nothing is definite yet. This isn't the first time a caseworker has contacted our social worker to ask if we are still interested in certain children. In fact, several months ago, I spoke at length with a caseworker about a specific young girl in whom we had expressed interest. Another time, we were asked to answer several questions about a trio of children to see if the caseworker wanted to continue considering our family. We've gotten a second look in a handful of cases so far, but for one reason or another we either didn't make the cut or we withdrew our names. 

My heart breaks often in reading what some of these precious children have had to handle in their short lives. It really is unthinkable. And, to be honest, there is a bit of guilt for me in this process. Sometimes I think adoptive parents get to make too many choices. It took me a long time to be able to be honest about what I couldn't handle...things like severe autism or sickle cell anemia. 

Several times we've had to complete pages of checklists asking what kinds of behaviors, family histories, illnesses, and handicaps we would consider accepting. In many cases, we even get to decide gender. That last part seems a bit unnatural to me. Of course, if I gave birth to a baby with Down Syndrome or a cleft palate, we would love and care for that baby. But, as a mom through adoption, I get to turn down those kids. That's sometimes tough to handle.

But, back to caseworker inquiries... In reality, since each state is so very different, a caseworker asking if we are still interested generally just means that it has been some time since our initial contact (in this case about seven weeks), and she is just checking to be sure we haven't been matched with other children so that she can continue considering us. So, while I was very excited to receive the email, I spent about two days trying to temper that excitement.

I originally intended to call foster mom after the holiday so as not to disturb her Memorial Day weekend, but I couldn't help myself, so I phoned her on Saturday. What does one say to a foster mom? I generally don't find myself at a loss for words, and goodness knows I've made plenty of phone calls to people I don't know, but somehow this was very, very different.

It turns out that foster mom, R, put me right at ease. In fact, we talked for an hour and twenty minutes! She told me that we are one of three families being considered for the children, and she answered my questions and asked some of her own. I found her to be a wonderful resource, especially since she has fostered them for quite some time.

One of the biggest questions I had for her had to do with whether or not she would want contact after an adoption. We have a semi-open adoption with A's mother now. Basically that means we email and text each other. I would welcome an open relationship with R should we be chosen for these children.

One important thing that came out during our conversation was that the family chosen would need to be dually certified both to adopt and to foster since at least one of the children is a legal risk placement, meaning that the parental rights have not yet been terminated. That means another layer of certification for us. I can see that the next few weeks will be quite busy.

Twists and Turns...

The agency through which we adopted our daughter posted on their Facebook yesterday a blog post called "8 Tips on Adoption." It's a worthwhile read for those considering adoption. I would especially highlight the first tip: learn all you can.

Per my social worker's suggestion of a few weeks ago, I contacted a local agency that works to place waiting children. Among my other questions, I asked if this agency would accept our home study as a transfer (this is not uncommon, although there is a cost involved). The adoption specialist told me that our home study is not sufficient since we do not have the national PRIDE (Parent Resource for Information, Development, Education) training and that other states will not place children with us because we don't meet the standards. Naturally, this threw me into a tailspin. No agency will provide the PRIDE training for us unless we commit to working with them, and the only place that offers it online won't work with individuals.

Next, I contacted our state foster care system to see if they would allow me to participate in the training. The specialist at the state told me that not having PRIDE training means that we cannot adopt from our home state of NJ, since NJ only places waiting children in homes that are specifically foster/adoption licensed, but she then told me that we should be good to adopt from any other state. Sometimes, it's hard to know who has the whole story...

Some good [GREAT] news in all of this... A week ago today, our social worker received an email from the caseworker for the sibling set that started our journey (the one I grieved last year and then saw again in April...I wrote about them in my last post). The boys' caseworker wanted to know if we were still interested and if we would also consider the younger sister.

Wow. Four more kids. Crazy.

We responded that we indeed were still very interested. Two days later, the caseworker sent our social worker about 50 pages of information on background, reasons for removal from home, health history, etc. She also asked us to call the current foster mom.

Yup, it's been a crazy week. We're definitely on a wild ride...

Paper pregnant - Part II

I hate roller coasters, both the physical and the emotional kind. It's funny how God works in our lives to help us trust Him. I'm thinking He put me on this roller coaster so I could learn that true stability comes from Him.

Our daughter (now 17 1/2 months old) was a surprise. We found out about her the day after she was born and within twelve hours were at the airport ready to fly across the country. We took her home from the hospital and lived in a hotel for just over a week while waiting for our ICPC clearance (Interstate Compact Placement of Children). Adoption is very much a state issue, so we needed permission to leave one state and enter another. In fact, until our adoption was finalized 6 months later, we were required to notify the agency whenever we left our home state.

Meanwhile, here is A in her first crib while waiting for ICPC clearance:

And my favorite is on the hotel room's couch (since I think she is so adorable):

What a roller coaster ride those first few weeks were...

This paper pregnancy is quite different, and it makes our first adoption feel like a kiddie carousel ride. When our little A was about 3 months old, we began talking about the process of adopting again, knowing that it could take a long time.  The average estimated wait for waiting child adoption is 18-24 months. We learned, however, that we could not start a new home study until our first adoption was legally finalized, and that was set for just after A's 6-month birthday.

While we were waiting, I was still researching, and we fell in love with a sibling set of three boys. Naturally, this prompted us to work as hard as we could to complete the mountain of paperwork required. We signed up for classes, got fingerprinted, submitted our police and child abuse checks, wrote our autobiographies, asked friends for reference letters, and pseudo-cleaned our house for our social worker's visit. :) As an aside, social workers ought to have a day reserved just to honor them (mine especially). I can't imagine working daily with such emotionally charged families!

Our home study was stamped on October 4, 2013. We were approved for up to three siblings ranging in age from infant to 16 years. Step one, done.

So, I submitted our home study for this sibling group. A week later we found out that the caseworker had stopped accepting home studies and that she never got ours. There had been an administrative glitch. I think I cried for three days. I was so sure these children were supposed to be in our home. Being rejected because we aren't a good fit is one thing; being rejected without ever having a chance to be considered is entirely different.

Fast forward to April 1st. (By then, we had submitted our home study to 38 other situations and had heard back from only a handful. It's quite rare to hear back from a caseworker unless she is interested. So, in this situation, no news is not good news.) We got an email update from our matching service listing new available children, and these three boys were again on the list! I immediately submitted our home study and then told Peter afterwards. :)

Then, the waiting began anew. We inquired about ten more situations, submitting our home study for most of them. As of this post, our total submissions number 49, for over 120 children.

One of the emotionally challenging things about this process is that for each submission, we picture particular children as part of our family, so we discuss various factors such as logistics (schooling, bedrooms, etc); and we talk about how we could meet any special needs and build relationships, transition the children into our home, etc., only to have to do it all over again the following day for another child or children. Another difficulty we've discovered involves scheduling. Not knowing when our "due date" is makes it difficult to make commitments, since we don't know if we'll be able to keep them. I've turned down a number of opportunities that I could have done because I don't know when we'll have to be ready to go.

Recently, my social worker encouraged me to contact other agencies specializing in waiting child adoption. For a number of reasons, we had our home study done through an agency that does mostly domestic infant adoptions, so our wonderful social worker wants to make sure that we have all the necessary support in place.

In my next post, I'll share some of the twists and turns my research unearthed and why adoptive families need to learn early to ask questions (lots of them) and become proactive advocates ....

Paper pregnant - part I

We're expecting. But, I'm not showing. In fact, I'm not even pregnant (but I do have odd food cravings, just ask my husband).

Actually, my husband and I are in the middle (beginning? end?) of our second adoption - we're paper pregnant. With our first baby, we kept everything quiet for a number of reasons. Among those were: it was unchartered territory (for us); people ask odd (and by odd, I also mean rude) questions; we have no due date (a biggie); it seems strange to have a baby shower without a baby bump; we knew the possibility of a failed adoption; things either happen at a snail's pace or in a whirlwind and updates get wearisome; etc.

Up until now, few people have been privy to our process, but I recently read a statistic that 75% of families who begin the adoption process get discouraged for lack of support. I know that discouragement. So, with my husband's blessing, I will be writing more about this new experience as we go through it, when the emotions are raw rather than forgotten. Hopefully, someone will read and be encouraged in the midst of what can be a discouraging and lonely process.

Our first adoption was relatively smooth as far as adoptions go, I imagine. Every situation is different. Sure, we had some rough spots (paperwork, clearances, more paperwork, more clearances, interviews, references, classes, waiting, rejection, home visits, legal paperwork, and other things I seem to have forgotten as a pregnant mom forgets the pains of labor...). But, all in all, we had smooth sailing after we [finally] settled on an agency. Within roughly four months of going active, we were matched.

This time around is definitely different. About a year ago when our daughter was around 3 months old, I began researching. We like to say around here that I am the gas pedal and my husband is the brake. It was on my heart to adopt siblings from the foster care system, but I knew that was something that the Lord would have to speak to my husband. I can argue a good case, but bringing home hurting children (and more than one, at that) would require teamwork and complete commitment on both our parts. Imagine my surprise when one day my husband informed me that he thought we should adopt siblings!

So, we started the process last July, shortly after our first adoption was finalized, and were approved in early October. I read a blogger who referred to the paperwork part as the first trimester. Six months ago we entered our second "trimester."

This process is definitely more of a marathon than a sprint. Stay tuned....