My child

Jun282017

A Twist of Fate

We have been hesitant about restarting the adoption process after the utter disaster we had in Miami.

This week, I am in Boynton Beach for my new job. I’ve been staying in an Airbnb alone with hubby at home with Lola and all the packing. All day yesterday I was thinking about Friday’s for dinner. All. Freakin. Day.

Well on a whim, I went to Alehouse instead where I happened to hear a couple across the restaurant mention that they’re adopting. I so so badly want to go over and drill them about how, their timeline, and which agency. I felt like a total creeper, but I did it anyway. Hey, at least I waited until after they paid their check and were leaving.

Thank you:  https://favim.com/hopeful/

I approached them outside and she was apprehensive when a total stranger said “I happened to overhear, but are you guys adopting?” So I quickly added that we’d been trying in Miami for several years with no luck and are moving here next week. They both opened up pretty quickly afterwards. And showed me a photo of their future daughter plus gave me names of a handful of other children they’d met along the way.

It took them under a year from their classes, 2 weeks to complete their home study, and their overnight visits start next weekend. They are straight adoption as well and have had ZERO problems and are not required to have a foster license. (Miami agencies refused to consider us for adoption unless we got our foster license.) She said they do a ton of mixers up here to be able to meet the adoptable kids (which we kept asking for in Miami!) and positively raved over the woman I’ve already been in touch with at ChildNet. Their future little one is 4 years old and they’re accelerating the visitation schedule due to her age. She will be living with them within a few weeks. We exchanged info and they said to contact them anytime with questions.

THEY GAVE ME SO MUCH HOPE YOU GUYS!! I called husband to tell him what happened and even he was getting a little bit excited. We so badly want to parent and this may be the solution! Pregnancy may not happen with all the medical issues I’ve been having, but it’s also not being ruled out.

Thank you: https://orlandoespinosa.wordpress.com

spacer
Feb232016

The Changing Tides…

So I had this great post lined up talking about my new nephew, WEB. He is beautiful and perfect and I couldn’t wait to hold and snuggle him. But for various reasons, this is a different kind of post.

Now, this will just be a normal update.

San Diego Comic ConFor starters, we – husband and I – are ridiculously fortunate to have scored badges to San Diego Comic Con this year!!!! (Every single type of badge sold out in under 60 minutes…) Y’all know just how much we love our cons as we’ve been attending Megacon and Supercon for the last 5 years and this year we attended Magic City for the first time. Seeing as SDCC is clear across the country, we are making a vacation out of it and spending a few days before and after to really soak everything in. The OMG feeling still hasn’t disappeared 3 days later.

School is good. I met a lot of great contacts at an ASPA conference last week.

Work is work… you know how that goes.

I currently have a super mild case of strep that I caught from 1 of 2 sources, both at work.

We attended WordCamp Miami this weekend and it was fantastic! Of course it pumped me up again to incorporate and push my design business again. It happens every year, and every year I do nothing.

Adoption? Nothing really. As you know I am on the Board of SFFAPA and very involved in the foster and adoption world. Will our child come to us this way? I honestly don’t know anymore. We have begun to explore both international-ish adoption and private newborn adoption. Of course, there is an extremely high cost associated with both of these and the benefits of a foster adoption aren’t part of either option. For example, international and private adoptions don’t provide free college tuition which would suck! That was a huge thing for us as we want our children to attend some sort of college of vo-tech school.

For those wondering, WEB was born on the 9th and had initial troubles but finally went home on the 15th. He was preemie so they are under self-imposed quarantine for a few more weeks.

spacer
Jan192016

It’s Been A While….

Hey friends!

I am still around. Things are crazy busy between my MPA (I ended my first semester with 2 A’s!!), working 2 jobs, freelancing, volunteering with my board and trying to keep my head above water. Husband graduated with his MBA in December and started his Doctorate this month. Needless to say, we’ve been keeping very busy since we have no children still.

To be fair, we did stop the foster license process back in August when I was beginning my Master’s classes. We do have a contingency plan in the instance of getting the opportunity to parent.

What we’ve been up to since the last post (I know, I always do these..)

  • We celebrated 5 years married on 10-10-10!
  • We found out we are having a NEPHEW(!!) in February from my baby brother and his girlfriend. For our longtime readers, they came to Vegas with us for our wedding.
  • I got a new laptop – only a big deal to my techies, but it’s lighter and smaller which means I can throw it in my bag and carry it with me everywhere to do homework and freelance work.
  • My Foster association created a petition to help foster children and within the 1st day we got over 1,000 signatures! We have surpassed 5,600 to date.
  • I became active in the Miami Geek Girls Brunch chapter and made awesome new geeky friends.
  • Puppykins developed a horrible ulcer in her eye and had to wear a cone for a month. She hated it and slept the best in her life the day we removed the cone.
  • Met. Richelle. Mead. Only one of my all time authors on the planet!
  • Decided to leave Miami. Like for real this time. There may be a slight bump in the plans, but I can’t discuss it at the moment.
  • Met Peter Davidson.
  • Met Jenna Coleman.
  • Met Billie Piper.
  • Meeting Matt Smith tonight!

I feel bad saying I’ll post more and then not. But I will try…

 

spacer
Oct062015

Hello!

helloCan we just ignore that I promised to update more and haven’t? Seriously, I am sorry about that. Life is, as expected, crazy.

In the last 2.5 months, we (I) made the decision to pause our foster application due to all the insanity in our lives. Between my starting grad school, the 4-5 hour round trip commute to work each day (it’s gotten worse 🙁 ), being Communications Chair for the South Florida Foster and Adoptive Parent Association and my constant house hunting (I really want to own a home!)… PLUS Husband’s finishing his MBA and applying for a Doctorate and his work, we barely have time to sleep. Also, I have been actively job hunting and made it to the final rounds with 2 jobs but things happened and, wibbly wobbly, both fell through.

Then I turned 39! And we went to Painting With A Twist with a small group of friends. Husband, SIL, and I went off book and made our paintings our very own by not really following directions all that well…

And on October 10th is our 5th wedding anniversary!

Since we do, in fact, have the ability to time this avenue of bringing a child into our home, we are taking advantage. Also, in the last few weeks, I have been really drawn to changing our age range to teens or at least an older age range. Right now we are approved to adopt 3-8 year old children. I’ve been thinking about upping it to 12 or 13. The older kids are more rewarding from what I am getting from my friends that foster teens as you can speak to and reason with them. While I would love the cuddles of a little one, well I have plenty of friends with little ones plus, a new baby in my family is coming soon!!

Now, frequent visitors will have noticed that there is finally a new blog design. I changed my hosting, rearranged a few domains and hopefully it will speed everything up. Also, I plan on using FletcherFam.com as a family focused website as opposed to just this blog which is very child-focused. I will post here when that goes live.

From last post, my MPA classes are going well so far. This semester I am in an “intro” to Public Administration and a Human Resources course. I promised more info last time. With all the heartaches and hardship we’ve gone through with the adoption process in the last 2 years, I finally decided that something needed to be done. My ultimate “grown up” goal is to be the COO or CEO of a foster care agency or government entity working towards the protection of children. In 5 years, I hope to have graduated and be working in the industry. This MPA will supplement the knowledge I gained from my MBA to focus on non-profits and government agencies.

I hope you’re all well!

spacer
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.

spacer
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.

spacer
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.

 

spacer
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?

spacer