Jul172013

Welcoming an Older Child Home

When couples adopt or have biological babies, they typically have a baby shower. But what to do if you’re adopting an older child? I found this fantastic website with a TON of amazing information for honoring and welcoming adopted children into your family.

After chatting with my friend Jackie a few nights ago, I totally want to have a meet my son/adoption shower for items to build his library of books and kid-friendly movies, show him all the love and support we have, and, most importantly, introduce him to his new family and our friends.

From the above-mentioned website, these are some of my favorites ideas to use. Also, I really want to find (or make) some awesome wall prints, artwork, creative bookshelves and more to make him feel really at home.

Making our own version of a “baby book‘ from the moment he came into our home (including excerpts from this blog)
A necklace with the date of their child’s birth, the date the child was placed in their home, and the date the adoption was finalized by the court.
Or maybe a plaque with these dates
Or a picture frame to display the photo with the judge and entire team on their adoption day.
Some families have a fun sense of humor and would enjoy a t-shirt or bumper sticker that says, “Yes, I’m their REAL mom.”
Others are more sentimental and like verses such as, “You grew in my heart.”
A birth announcement only works after a child is born. What does a family do when they want to announce the addition of an adopted child to their family? Not everyone is handy enough with a computer to make their own invitations and announcements. They may not have time, either.
Anything with the child’s new name (almost all children have at least a part of their name changed after adoption) is very exciting and meaningful.

There are a few other sites with great ideas to welcome your new little (or not so little) one into your home and family.

Adoption / Foster Care Gifts and Crafts on About.com

Gifts for a former foster mom

Foster Care Adoption Books

Jul162013

Sending him to school out of our district

Seeing as I work 26 miles from home – and in Miami traffic it takes well over an hour to get there and back – and Steve works nights and sleeps days, we have to be creative with the school our child attends. In speaking to the case workers on Friday, they suggested that we look into the Hardship information on the M-DCPS website to see what can be done. That or send him to private school.

Honestly, I am in awe of the Cushman School and would give my left arm to send my children there. Literally, it’s a private school and costs far more then my entire undergrad degree each year. Cushman is a K-8 school and one of the best in the county.

Amongst other things, we have to research and interview schools, pediatrician’s, specialists and dentists and purchase booster seats for our cars, furnish his bedroom, buy clothes, books, etc.

From the M-DCPS website regarding putting him in a school close to my job as opposed to our house:

a. Working Parent Hardship Transfer
The parent or guardian of a kindergarten through eighth grade student of a one-parent or one-guardian family unit who is employed, or a family where both parents or guardians are employed, requests a transfer on the basis that the normal school assignment presents a hardship involving before or after-school supervision. Such request shall be in the form of a signed statement from the employer(s) verifying the parent’s/guardian’s employment, work address, telephone number, working hours; a signed statement from the caregiver verifying the hours the student is cared for as well as the address and telephone number of the caregiver; and any other pertinent information setting forth the nature of the circumstances producing the hardship. This type of transfer must be reviewed annually through the Regional Center serving the assigned school. These transfers should not exceed the assigned percentage of FISH school capacity for the current school year.

We’ve also learned about the McKay Scholarship and Step Up for Students as an option for private school.

Jul152013

After the First Home Visit

The post leading up to our first home visit had a crazy amount of views. Y’all are awesome!

So what happened? Great things!

But first, the prep. I do wish I’d taken pictures of the house a week ago bc right now it looks about 100% different. We are… packrats. Not hoarders, packrats. We are aware of it and know it’s a problem. We just like our stuff. Having a deadline of people coming into our home that will change our life and place a child with us was the greatest motivator ever.

Ever.

We rented a storage unit. We created lists of what to do. We decluttered. We cleaned. We cleaned out. We threw out 4 huge bags of garbage. We donated. We organized. Oh boy did we organize.

F and T were prompt and arrived right at 11am. After locking Lola in her crate and Phoenix in the front bathroom, we chatted at first about what we were looking for (age and gender) and we said we preferred a boy and our range remains 5-11 years old. So when I refer to “him” I am making an assumption that we will have a son as our first placement. Yep, we plan to do this a few more times. Thursday night, we finally decided that we wanted a single child instead of siblings. We would rather focus 100% on 1 child then try to scramble and have 2 kids. In the future, I hope to adopt a sibling group still.

We showed them around the house and the back yard. We did the whole “this is what we have now, and these are our plan for safety of our son. The yard is totally fenced in and we do the upkeep (the association takes care of the front yard) so no worries there. They liked the size and we talked about maybe getting a grill and a table with chairs for the yard. In the laundry room, the plan is to install shelves in the empty space over the water heater for chemicals and cleaning supplies. It is outside and has a lock on the door. In the kitchen, we pointed out that we’re replacing the blue cubes that act as a pantry with a cabinet with doors. The wine was on top of the fridge, so OK there. We pointed out the changes we’re going to make in the kid’s room by moving Steve’s desk into our bedroom and totally rearranging the layout. I still want the bunkbeds and furniture from my childhood, but another option is to pass our queen bed down and upgrade to a king bed. We’ll see. They were ok with both options, the huge closet and en suite bathroom. The linen and craft closets – not too much will change except better organization. The family/ dining room we will likely just rearrange the furniture and hang more pictures.

After the tour, we talked for a while asking a ton of questions about school districts (more on that tomorrow), our work schedules, public vs private schools, grants and scholarships for private school, the class schedule, Steve’s work schedule possibly affecting class, safety requirements, the timeline, and so much more. They said they’re going to try to get the adoption paperwork to distribute to the class so we can all be on top of it prior to being transferred to the Adoption case workers and the Home Study being completed.

We also discussed the 2 foster/adoption events we are planning on attending – Heroes for Our Kids Celebration at Miami Children’s Museum and the SFFAPA Summer Fun Picnic at John Pennekamp Park

I know I felt so good afterwards. As we were laying in the bedroom after they left and right before Steve crashed from staying awake way later than normal, we talked some more about what happened during the visit.

I literally couldn’t stop smiling after this visit. It really hit me that I could be a mommy by the end of the year. In fact, when I posted..

“I am going to be a mom. And I can’t stop grinning about it”

..on FB, I received so much love and support from my friends. However, it seemed like some thought I was pregnant, which amuses me to know end since I’m totally transparent about this adoption and my infertility.

+++++

On Sunday, we went to Kmart and looked at booster seats, little boy clothes, bedroom furniture. We also bought plug socket covers. Yeah, I know it likely won’t make a difference, but at least they can’t say we’re not prepared.

Also, I may have just started using a hashtag for all my adoption posts on FB and twitter #CallMeMommy

Jul132013

This is so not OK

On May 19th, after finding out that CHS was full until September/October, I emailed all the other agencies in Dade county. We obviously had great luck and responsiveness from FRC as they are the agency we’re working with. No one else was really responsive.

Until Tuesday. Yep, 51 days later.

HHCH* replied not with a “oh we’re sorry for not responding sooner but would love to work with you,” but with an invitation to their PRIDE classes.

And they used way too many ALL CAPS for my taste. Ew.

So I responded with “No, we will not be attending. We are working with another agency. I don’t know anything about your agency as no one has ever been in contact with me since I emailed you 2 months ago.”

And she promptly responded to apologize and that she’s not sure what could have happened.

Really?

Thursday morning, another person emailed me about it. I am not planning on responding to her. The only reason I responded on Tuesday was bc it was that I had to RSVP to the class. This email is a total cop out. If your class was full or I had incorrect information, then freakin email me back and let me know. Not an adoption agency? Fine! I don’t want to work with you anyhow as you recommend foster to adopt and we’ve specifically ruled that out.

Hi Becca,

I want to apologize for not emailing you earlier and if I remember correctly the reason was that we had already begun a class and our next Orientation was not until 7/18/13 and you were interested in starting a class right away. In addition, we are not an adoption agency, although you may have the opportunity to adopt a child if the child becomes available to be adopted. We usually recommend our families to foster to adopt where you will have the privilege of fostering a child and/or children and may possibly adopt that child (ren); however, it is not a guarantee.

You may have already begun the classes with CHS on 6/20/13. Please advise if you have not and if you were still interested.

Thanks so much!

Here to Love and to Serve His Kingdom,
NT

—

* In all fairness, I was hesitant to even go with this agency as their website tells about their mission which is very… religious. Neither of us are religious – spiritual, yes, but not religious – and just reading through the site made me a little uncomfortable. So like KB said, everything happens for a reason.

Jul122013

First Home Visit

[image source]

Today we have our first Home Visit at 11am.

I’m nervous like The Doctor when he was about to lose Amy and Rory to the Weeping Angels. Yes. I am a Whovian. Oh, and a geek.

We’ve spent the last week decluttering the house. Cleaning up. Sweeping. Mopping. Re-caulking the tub. And about a million other things.

Keep us in your thoughts!

Jul112013

And After Orientation…

We had lunch at Chili’s, discussed everything we learned, and then we went to Tattoos By Lou where I acquired Oliver.

He is my memorial tattoo. Plus, I love owls and that they represent wisdom and knowledge. The cherry blossoms symbolizes those that I’ve lost in my life. They represent life and death as a symbol of “the cycle of life, death and rebirth, on the one hand, and of productive and reproductive powers, on the other” throughout the history of Japan. [source]

Jul102013

Orientation! #LongestPostEver

Finally! (Geez Becca, why’d you leave us hanging for over a week for this post?!)

We had our Adoption Orientation on Saturday morning, June 30th and it was pretty much awesome. I may have been doing research for months (years) and knew a lot of information going into this, but I still learned more.

One thing I learned was that while we are certainly welcome to adopt from out of Florida, we won’t get the FL benefits if we do so. We will follow those state’s benefits and adoption requirements. Not all state’s offer health care, 4 years of public college/university and a subsidy like Florida does – so that needs to be taken into consideration. We definitely plan on making sure our kids take advantage of the college part!

We also need to decide about the Lola and Phoenix. He is a crochety old cat and doesn’t take BS from anyone. Yes, after 8+ years, he still claws me on occasion. I really need to have the vet do a full eval on him bc while I don’t want to accept it, I don’t think he has much longer with us. He’s got so many health issues and is so overweight even with putting him on a diet. So, there’s that to consider.

But anyhow, what we learned/ had reiterated…

Children available for adoption have had their parental rights terminated (TPR). They will never be taken away from us bc some random family member came back. Once there is no possible chance at reunification and rights are terminated, they’re available to be legally our children.
Judges in South Florida really don’t like waiting the full 6 months once we have a child in our home and tend to push the adoptions through within 30-60 days. This was a major Holy Moly! moment for us. We could be legally mommy and daddy by the New Year.
After we complete our classes, we’re turned over to the adoption specialists. They will then complete our Home Study, run more background checks, and ask many more questions to ensure we get the ideal placement.
The PRIDE classes are not “parenting” classes, but rather how we will play a role in the kids lives.
Most children end up in Foster Care due to abuse, abandonment and neglect
If we want to travel outside of FL before the adoption is finalized, we need a court order. To go to Disney, Gainesville, or anywhere else within FL, we just need to notify the team.
They would prefer to have one parent stay home with the kids initially, but I will likely use my vacation time for that to get them settled before sending them off to a (likely) new school.
If we adopt younger than 5, we do get a day care subsidy for one year for specific preschools – Gold Seal Approved.

Minimum standards for Foster Homes (which we will follow to ensure approval for adoption):

Minimum 40 sq.ft. per child and have adequate storage/ closet space.. In a perfect world, we’d have a 3-bedroom place with a room for each child.
Max 5 kids per household including biological. No problem here as Lola and Phoenix don’t count. 🙂
Kids of opposite sex over age 3 cannot room together. We’re leaning towards 2 boys at this point, so OK there.
Minimum $200 residual income after all bills are paid. We’re getting finances in order so this should be A-OK too.
2 years of employment verification checks will be performed. Yep, no problems there.
Health history and physicals need to be performed for mental, emotional, physical and any other treatments. Ehh, we should be OK.. My therapy is pretty minimal and I have no problems with Dr. S. telling them all about my sessions.
Pets are also checked as I mentioned above. A-OK as I’ve already told the vet to expect the forms.
Many children have no prior religious beliefs and we must respect their beliefs if they do have religious beliefs. We need to decide on a religion as he’s Methodist and I’m Jewish and neither of us are particularly religious.
We are responsible for transporting them to every appointment, recital, etc in a safe vehicle complete with car seats, seat belts, valid insurance and driver’s license. No problems whatsoever as we never planned on making anyone else drive our kids around.
Foster parents need to complete a basic water safety course. We plan on doing that, being CPR certified, and more.
All medications, chemicals, cleaning products, alcohol, guns/ammo, and anything else that can harm a child must be locked away. We’ve already begun planning where the meds and chemicals will be housed. Most likely in the outside laundry room or a lockbox atop the closet.
Kids must have access to a vehicle and phone at all times. We never plan on leaving them alone, so OK. When they’re at school, they’ll have the phone there.
An evacuation plan must be posted in several places and perform fire drills frequently, working and tested fire extinguisher, 2 ways to escape each bedroom, smoke detectors, working battery flashlights in every room, and a first aid kit in the house. OK except for the evacuation plan and the flashlights, we have everything already.
There is a list of forbidden and acceptable discipline methods provided that we must obey. OK, we haven’t established discipline yet so having guidelines is great.
Criminal and abuse checks ((FBI, FDLE, local and abuse registry) are to be performed prior to PRIDE classes. Done and approved.

We will be an integral part of the team of nurses, social workers, case workers, and others. Even once the adoption is finalized, we can utilize the team.

We have decided that fostering will be too difficult for us to handle. And came to that conclusion separately prior to discussing it after the Orientation. Having a child or children in our home for days, weeks, months or even years then having them taken away would be too hard for us both to bear.

Our initial background screenings went off without a hitch. We had to be checked in both FL and NC since we haven’t lived here for 5 years. Once we passed these, we will have our initial Home Visit – on Friday! – and classes begin on Tuesday.

They have said this is an extremely intrusive journey and they will find everything out about us. And yet, we are still raring to go to become parents.

+++++

So where have I been? We have so much work to do on our current home to get it ready for our babies. We have been decluttering and cleaning and making our little home kid-friendly. It’s making me realize big time how not kid-friendly it is. We only have 2 bedrooms, a family room, a kitchen and a decent sized back yard. I’d much prefer to have at least a 3-bedroom with a larger family room, updated everything including a dishwasher. But for right now, we shall deal with this little place. *le sigh*

Also, I’ve been off work (though you’d never know it) since Thursday, had an interview for an amazing job, working at my part-time job, and in general trying to get the house ready for le babies.

+++++

/end #LongestPostEver

Jun272013

24/7 Foster/Adoption Support Line

I thought long and hard about posting the contents of the emails I’ve received since my mysterious phone call, and decided to do it. For any other prospective foster or adoptive parents out there getting lost in the system and thinking no one cares, here’s proof that there are some truly amazing people in the system.

I have heard about and seen posting of this new outreach number and am quite impressed by the initiative. With so many children in the foster care system, it has been quite disheartening to have such a terrible bunch of experiences just getting information.

Honestly, I am still surprised that my little blog has been read by some folks that will hopefully help make our journey easier.

Also, 2 more days. Or rather, in 2 days, we will be almost done with our Adoption Orientation.

image source: me. 🙂

From KB (the phone caller)

Hi Becca,

It was so nice speaking with you. As I said on the phone I wanted you to have my cell phone number. The number is 786-xxx-xxxx. I am so sorry that you had such a frustrating time getting looped into a PRIDE class, but I am happy that you will have your orientation on Saturday. I am sure you will be able to get all the answers to your questions then, but if for any reason you feel that you need additional supports I have copied in the most amazing team one can ever have. Copied on this email are [TP], [MP], [SW] and [RS].

[TP] is the current President of the State Wide Foster and Adoptive Parent Conference. She is also the person that monitors the Foster/Adoption support line and is a great resource as she has decades of experience as both a foster and adoptive parent.

[MP] is the current President of the South Florida Foster and Adoptive Parent Association and is a mentor to our new foster parents. I know she would love to have you at one of their meetings and can also help to answer your questions from a fellow foster parent perspective.

Also on this email you will find [SW]. She oversees our licensing department at Our Kids and is a wealth of knowledge and supports.

Finally I have copied [RS] on this email. She is our Quality Parenting Initiative program manager and is a great person to know and help you if needed.

Again I am so sorry that you had such a hard time getting connected to an agency but I am confident that Family Resource Center will be a great place for you.

So nice speaking to you again and please let me know if you ever need anything.

+++++

From SP:

Thank you [KB].

Becca – We are all very disheartened by your experience with trying to get into classes here in Miami. We are working very diligently to change our system so that other people do not have this same experience. We have initiated a new informational number for people to call and have been advertising in several different mediums.

The number that interested people should call is 855-786-KIDS(5437). We also have an email address that people can submit inquiries to. It is fosterfamily@ourkids.us.

We have implemented these because of some of the things you experienced – numerous agencies to call and difficulty in reaching someone. The phone line is answered 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. The initial call is to gather information and share basic information about becoming a foster parent. The information is then shared with our recruitment staff. This staff person also monitors the email inquiries and calls the interested parties within 1 business day of receiving the information (call or email). We then refer to the agencies in their area and follow up with both the agency and the prospective foster parent within a week of the initial call (5 business days). This is so we can determine what the experience was for the prospective foster parent with the agencies.

I am sharing all this with you as people who may be interested in becoming foster or adoptive parents are likely reading your blog and I hope that you will share this contact information so we can make sure that none of them have the same experience that you had. I appreciate that you are sharing your very personal experience with the world and hope that we can make the rest of the journey less stressful and frustrating for you and your husband.

[image source]

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