1-adoption posts

Used to gather any and all adoption posts

Apr162015

Foster and Life Update

ty-elephant

I am so amazed and grateful for all the folks that have found my blog and FB page – WELCOME to each and every one of you and thank you for reading.

Since my last post in our Facebook page about our upcoming home visit on April 2nd, we had to reschedule as our entire neighborhood lost power just hours before her visit! But of course, it’s not that easy and we still haven’t set a new time. Not only that, but the original license person (Z) has been in touch and will be helping/ completing our foster license. We received the foster license packet a few days ago to start combing through prior to her visit. There is a long list of items to have ready for the first visit – half of which will take at least a month to obtain. Erg.

Another avenue has possibly opened up for us with a phone call from my aunt. She knows someone that works with children from Colombia who I am now playing phone tag with. I have no idea if it’s considered a private adoption or international adoption or what, but we’ll see. I’ll keep everyone posted especially once I find out the name of the charity/ company/ ministry. I’m not terribly thrilled about this option as it seems like it would be religious. We might not even be considered seeing as we have no religion in our home even though I work for a Jewish institution.

In 100% completely new news, I have made a crazy life decision and decided to get a second Master’s degree, this time in Public Administration. Yes, I might be crazy. In fact, I’m fairly sure that I am crazy since it will begin this August providing I am accepted into the program. It is an online program through FIU which is local to us so I can attend all the networking socials and whatnot. I will be able to take 1-4 classes each semester. With my first Master’s, I took 2 classes and worked full time. I’m actually super excited about it even if I think I’m crazy for taking it on at this point in my life.

Let’s recap, shall we?
Grad school – all application pieces have been submitted except the 3-5 page essay about my career goals
2 part-time jobs (oh yeah, I’m back to that…) with 90 minute one way commute
Foster license
Pursuing adoption
Everything else I do in my life on a daily basis

An update on Babycakes.. she had her surgery and is the proud recipient of a new liver! The surgery was 3 weeks ago and so far so good. She still isn’t alert and aware as they’ve kept her in a coma, but at least her body has accepted the new liver.

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Feb132015

Foster License and TWO Kids? Madness!

Sorry loves,

When there isn’t much to discuss, the posts are few and far between. Since last time, quite a few things have happened, just not terribly much in the adoption world.

Foster license: 2 weeks ago, we submitted our paperwork for our foster license. We are still waiting to be assigned a licensing person to complete the license and schedule home visits.

WHAT?! We’re finally getting our foster license? What madness is this, you ask?

How about some backstory, hmm?

A little over a month ago, I was called about a child fairly close to being legally free. The problem is that once she is legally free, she will be going to a pre-adoptive home. We are not currently one of those as we don’t have a foster license.

So a month ago, I called Our Kids and spoke to Donald about getting the paperwork for said foster license. I’ve been told repeatedly for months that we need to get it but have shied away for several reasons. It would appear now that the only way we will actually get a child in our home is to be licensed.

It took about 2 weeks to get our acts together and fill out all the paperwork.

2 weeks ago, we submitted our paperwork for our foster license. We are still waiting to be assigned a licensing person to complete the license and schedule home visits.

elephantChild 1: In mid-December, we met a beautiful little baby (Babycakes) and I fell very much in love with her. She is my friends foster child and in need of major surgery. She is far from legally free for adoption, but that didn’t stop me from cuddling and snuggling with her on multiple occasions. Fast forward the next several weeks of visiting, snuggling and generally loving on Babycakes. She is ridiculously cuddly and such a little love. And then her foster mom was told how large the family was and that they hadn’t been ruled out to adopt her. Then the family started visiting.

At that point, we realized our journey with her was futile and we’d be better off just loving on her but not in a potential adoptive parent type of way.

littleladysifChild 2: About a month ago, a 3 year old child (SIF) was brought to our attention by someone at Our Kids. I contacted her case worker to get more information. We texted and called back and forth frequently and then on Tuesday, CW called me to ask if we were still interested in SIF. If we were, would we be willing to go to court on Thursday (yesterday) to appear before the judge in order to get a court order for visitation. This was needed due to SIF not being legally free for adoption.

So we made our arrangements and went to court. I was a bundle of nerves and Husband was, as expected, calm and collected. We took the train downtown, found the courthouse, and met the GAL and CW’s supervisor. The both told us a little bit about what was going to happen and to basically stay quiet unless the judge speaks to us. Great. I can be quiet.

Court began late, but just sitting and watching everything unfold was very interesting! Mom and grandma were there which apparently threw a wrench in the plans. SIF has been in foster care since August and mom hasn’t done much for her case plan so this was supposed to be a TPR and request for visitation for us from what I understood. Things didn’t quite go that way.

Mom decided that she wanted to parent and take care of what she was supposed to do 6 months ago. Dad is still missing and everyone is trying to track him down. Everyone agreed to allow her. But they also scheduled mediation and a trial. We’re debating attending those as well.

In the meantime, we will follow her case and stay in touch with CW. Our contact at Our Kids will keep us updated on her as well.

And we work on our foster license, keep cleaning out the kids room-turned-storage room and prepare to be parents.

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Dec082014

Digging through drafts

ballerinaI found this as I was digging through my email drafts this morning. Apparently I started several emails to Ballerina that was going to be sent to the email address she would read later.

So much emotion and promise wrapped up in just a few paragraphs here. Maybe something like this is exactly what I needed to do to finally push past. In therapy, a lot of times you’re told to write a letter to whomever is causing you trauma whether alive or dead and whether you send it or not. I actually started a blog a while back writing letters/ blog posts to my very dear friend that had passed away. It was cathartic. I could write about anything and it felt like I was talking to her. Hopefully getting this out will be the closure I need for Ballerina.

Bc as it is, every time we go to an association meeting, I hope to see her. We watched an adoption special on TV bc my friends were all being interviewed and my heart leapt when her photo showed up. It’s bad.

So please, heart, let this be the closure we all need to move on.

##

May 23, 2014
Dear S,

We met you for the first time on Saturday for a play date and hung out again on Sunday. We both adore you and hope like hell that you like us too. I already feel super protective of you and wish we could fast forward the whole process.

To be fair, we have a lot of information about you from your therapists and case workers. We know what happened to you in your young life to bring you into care and the rough journey you’ve had since you’ve been there. We know what happened to both your parents, why you have the relationship you have with your brother and why you despise living in a group home so much. We know your family history, previous placement history, likes, dislikes, and more.

And we still want you in our lives.

And we hope, really hope, that you understand what that means.

We want you – YOU – to be our daughter.

One day you, my little tech savvy child, might find and read my blog. You will read about everything [Husband] and I went through from very early on in our relationship all the way until today. Our adoption journey was fraught with difficulties and frustrations and we pushed through. We prevailed. We might’ve gotten people in trouble along the way, but they weren’t doing their jobs properly. Yes, you will read the glossy version of it all. I don’t mention real names if I can help it.

You, my beautiful girl, are referred to as Ballerina in my blog. Feel free to do a search for yourself.

 

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Dec032014

It’s Been A While…

Hi my lovely bloggy readers,

I know it’s been really quiet around here for the last 6 weeks 3 months. Yes, I started an update post 6 weeks ago and never finished it.

My life in a nutshell these days…

  • Celebrated my 38th birthday!
  • Our 4th wedding anniversary!
  • Paid off 3 credit cards
  • Started a Fiber and Fandoms podcast with my friend Kate – Muggle Yarns!
  • Successfully completed my Kickstarter campaign thanks to my 19 truly amazing backers
  • Dropped to half time – 20 hours – at my full time job
  • Took on 2nd part time job – 25+ hours – back in the development/ fundraising and event planning world at a non-profit
  • Half-heartedly searching for children on several nationwide sites – family-match.org – adoptuskids.org
  • House hunting like crazy – we lost the cutest little house in North Miami Beach bc we took too long deciding
  • Getting over laryngitis that I’ve had for 10 days

Coming up…

  • Getting my knitting out – 2 more projects to try to finish this week
  • Shipping all my Kickstarter projects out
  • Going back to the customers that wanted commissions once this knitting was finished
  • House hunting and hopefully moving north and much closer to my jobs. My current commute time is 1.5-2 hours
  • Paying down and off all my other debts – goal for total payoff is 3 years
  • Still trying to get over and past our failed placement
  • Parenting?

heart bandaidBut what about parenting? Yeah… no idea.

I still attend the meetings and events, but my whole heart isn’t in it anymore. It’s more about hanging out with my friends than hoping there will be a foster parent there to talk to if her foster kids get TPRd. Husband even commented recently about my no longer showing him kid profiles or telling him about more kids. I’m a little down on the whole subject even though I know I could never be truly happy without being a mother. We have recently spent more time looking for houses than at children.

So, yeah, I’m sorta back, just down. Trying to get my life on track and get back in the mindset of focusing on long term goals.

Sooo…. how are you? What’s been happening in your lives in the last 3 months?

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Aug192014

What’s Been Happening…

Nothing.

Well, that’s not true. The only change is that we are currently working on paperwork for our foster license. That’s right, after so much discussion against being foster parents for our own personal reasons, we’ve come to the realization that it’s likely to be the best chance at us getting phone calls and a child.

That said, by the time we were assigned a licensing specialist (Z), Husband and I were both so sick that we kept putting off a home visit and filling out the paperwork. I finally printed the paperwork and started going through it on my own. Meanwhile, Z is using our Home Study to pull other information from.

..

Honestly though, after my first phone call with Z, I was a little more worried about what we are getting ourselves into. Every time I mention the licensing paperwork to the friends we’ve made along the way, I get similar reactions: disbelief. After 16+ months of being 100% certain that we do not want to foster, they’re surprised that we’ve changed our minds.

To a degree.

Our plan is to give Z the same criteria we have for adoption for our licensing, but give further criteria that we are willing to foster children with a very high chance of parental rights termination. She said when Placement starts calling, they don’t always review our criteria as it’s likely for emergency placements or a huge need. We do not want to take in every child that is offered to us. Does that make us selfish? Possibly. Will we end up changing our minds? Maybe. But for now, this is our plan.

We started talking about getting licensed during our visits with Ballerina. Both her CM and TH told us our best bet to push things along would be if we were licensed. That way she could move in with us immediately. It would have been a total immersion into parenting a teenager 24/7. Speaking of Ballerina, we still discuss her quite a lot. I knew it affected me quite a bit, but I didn’t realize how much it affected Husband too. He is the one that brings her up most frequently. I am of the mindset that if she didn’t want to be adopted, we should stop dwelling on her. That… is so much easier said than done.

I still search for kids nationwide, but no luck so far finding a good match.

In the meantime, I am keeping busy researching Doctorate programs for once Husband graduates from his Master’s program and finds a job.

In the meantime, won’t you pretty please help me out? Since it’s been over a month since my last post, my ranking on Top Mommy Blogs has plummeted. (No big surprise there.) Can you please click on this logo to help? The website has so much info on all aspects of parenting, but you don’t have to stick around if you don’t want. Thanks!

Please click! A visit a day boosts my blog ranking at Top Mommy Blogs - The Best Mommy Blog Directory Ever!

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Jul142014

Stagnant

I started writing this post last week and the only thing that’s changed is the last paragraph..

Going NowhereOur search is not going anywhere. In all honesty, I feel a little burned out constantly searching, seeing the same children, and submitting inquiries on them. I ask friends about their fosters and their foster’s siblings. I search nationwide sites. We discussed in vitro and pregnancy again. I… really don’t want to be pregnant. I – we – don’t want an infant. We want a child that can walk and talk and tell us what he or she wants. We want a child that spends his/her days in school learning and socializing with their friends while we are at work.

Sure, the older the foster child, the more likely to be problems from being in the system. We know. We are aware. We are prepared for it.

At least we are prepared in our minds. In reality, we don’t know. Well, I don’t. It’s been over a year since we decided to adopt. I’m exhausted.

There is a lot going on in our non-child lives right now – Husband in school, we are looking for a home to buy, and I am focusing my after-work time on pushing both my knitting and design businesses. My companies have been languishing for years as I focus on other projects. It’s nice to have something to think about constantly now especially since there is no child in our home or lives and we have no idea when there will be one.

Kiwi Crate

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Jun262014

Brief Non-Adoption Update

There is literally nothing at all happening at the moment with our adoption. Of all the kids I requested info on, I’ve received 4 case studies and are awaiting about half a dozen others. We’re reviewing them, but it’s difficult since the majority or them are out of Florida. The logistics of traveling several times to meet a potential child of ours is crazy expensive and we don’t have the time off from work and school to even begin to plan said trips.


We both knew foster care adoption wouldn’t be easy. But we’re dealing with a whole new set of issues that neither of us anticipated. It’s giving us time to reflect and evaluate if we want to get our foster care license as well.

But in the meantime, we are keeping busy by house hunting. Yes, something I swore I’d never do – looking to buy in South Florida. Right now it’s just dreaming as we clean up our (my) credit enough to qualify for a lower interest rate. As much as I love and adore the snow, the older I get and the more friends we make, the more I’m realizing that this little piece of hell on earth isn’t so bad.

Also, Husband is in school for his MBA so time is tight.

On the other hand, since he is now on a daylight schedule, we are getting used to each other again. For 4+ years of our life together (nearly half!), we saw each other at most 2 hours a day and partial weekends. He worked the night shift (9p-9a) and while I was at work, he was sleeping. I’d race home to make dinner, spend some time together then he’d go off to work.

The last month or so, it seems like a vacation. I’ve been slacking on the stuff I’d normally do at night after he’s leave for work – dishes, laundry, knitting – since we now spend a lot of time together… watching TV. We just finished Orange is the New Black (OMG!) and just started Weeds. Separately, he is watching House of Cards.

I hope you’re all well! If you missed any posts, just keep scrolling…


Kiwi Crate

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Jun172014

Matchmaking and Adoption

I learned yesterday at work that when Orthodox Jews are “dating” (used loosely as it is more akin to matchmaking), they are not allowed to speak to other potential partners. Granted, this could be incorrect as I didn’t grill my friend about it. She was talking about a family member to another friend and mentioned that even though there was another very interesting young lady that he would be a good match with, he is currently committed to seeing if he is a match with another young lady. I asked why he wasn’t allowed to talk to both ladies and she said it just wasn’t done that way.

This got me to thinking about both “normal” dating (define that however it makes sense to you), job hunting and the matching process with our future child. There were definitely times when I dated 1-2 guys at a time until I determined which I liked better. OK fine, 2-3. But once I made the decision, I dropped everyone else. It didn’t always work out as I expected, but that’s how life works.

With jobs, when I applied to one that I [thought I] was perfect for, I would fixate on it. I’d do company research; learn about the employees, culture, upper management, office, local area, and more. All before scheduling an interview sometimes. When I’d apply for multiple jobs at a time, I would do the same for all of them. After all, I wanted to be super prepared to work there.

Not easy, but worth itAs much as we would have loved to be Ballerina’s parents, we have not heard anything in over a week since receiving the call from CW that she wanted to put a hold on being adopted at this time. For our peace of mind and hearts, we have moved on.

No, you didn’t miss the post about it. I didn’t post other than a few lines in my last post and with no details. I have been mourning (if you want to call it that) the loss of having her be a part of our family as our daughter. There will never be details posted as to the reasons on here or on FB although I might allude to it every so often. The lessons we learned with our first potential match will be carried forth throughout any future matches.

But back to my earlier point of “dating” one person at a time. With the adoption matching process, it feels strange to request information on several children at a time. We lucked out with how quickly things progressed with Ballerina and how well of a match we were with her. We really did. And even though it didn’t work out, it was still pretty smooth at first. Strange, yes. But we did it. Over the weekend I submitted inquiries on several children from across the country on AdoptUSKids.org. Matching when the child isn’t local is different and potentially difficult, but for the right child for our family, we are willing to do whatever it takes… within reason, of course.

And so begins the next part of our journey as we actively try to find our son or daughter from foster care.

Wish us luck!

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