My child

May312013

We have class! For adoption, that is…

Leave it to me to be all gung ho about starting the adoption blog then no post for 2 weeks. What on earth happened?

The Miami-Dade foster agencies happened. I scoured their websites and called and emailed all 5 agencies. I tried to find someone that would speak to me. Tried to find an agency that was willing to register us for their PRIDE classes. My emails were rejected, sent out of office notifications, and forwarded on to others. My voicemails went unreturned.

Nothing. Well, nothing substantial.

So I gave up. Ok, we can’t start classes until October with CHS? Fine. I tried everything including guilt to get them to let us into the sooner classes since their staff screwed up. Nothing except attitude.

I posted to the Our Kids Facebook page asking questions and got a phone number of a gentleman to call. He was not only helpful, but gave me additional names. But still no classes.

I was getting more and more frustrated with the system down here. After all, we have been actively trying to get information on adopting for 6 weeks. My friend in Orlando contacted an agency after us and was given so much information so quickly that I felt even more disenchanted by the system. (She and her husband have their orientation next week- yay!)

Finally… FINALLY… on Tuesday I got an email from FRC with attachments and a note saying their orientation is June 29th and the classes begin in July. And could we please fill out the forms and get them back to her. I had literally just been ranting to Steve about the horrible system in place and no one wanting to help us adopt and get some kids out of the system. Do they not want kids in safe and permanent homes? What is going on here??

I took Lola outside, popped open my Gmail app and starting freaking out. Right there was an email, sent after hours, from a woman at FRC with the blessed information. I scanned through the attachments and raced back inside to tell him that we finally had good news.

The next day I filled out the paperwork and him to sign it. Yesterday I faxed it back to her. She replied stating that their Orientation class is June 29th and the 10-week PRIDE classes begin on July 16th from 6-9pm. That means they end the day after my birthday. BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!

Referring to my post on the steps to adoption, we should be doing our first Home Visit during the week of August 4th. The second would be in mid-September. We feasibly could have a child (children) in our home by Christmas. That prospect makes me want to rush out and start Christmas shopping!

But also, it means we need to seriously ramp up the apartment hunting and cleaning out the guest bedroom.

May122013

Mother’s Day and the Timeline to Adoption

I posted this on Facebook yesterday:

Next year I will be celebrating Mother’s Day with my own child. *shivers*

To which, amongst others, received this comment:

How quickly will you guys have your little one?

To which I responded and also thought.. what a great blog post!

This is the timeline that we’re working with at the moment:

Our orientation class is June 20th.
From there, we will sign up for our 10 weeks of PRIDE classes (PDF link) which should end right around my birthday in August/September.
After that, we will have our home study done – I was told it had to be completed within 90 days of completion of our classes – so by the end of November.
While that home study is being completed, we will be looking at all the photolistings of children.
Once our home study is approved for adoption, we will select children we want more information about based on their limited online profiles and our social worker will reach out to their social worker and see if we’re a match. If we are, we will get their file and arrange to meet him/her/them.
The timeframe from here on is a little shaky as we really don’t know how long this can take.
After we spend time with him/her/them, we will have a few sleepovers, then they will move in.
If all goes well, 6 months later, we will finalize the adoption in court and apply for new birth certificates.

There are hundred of thousands of children in US foster care. Roughly 40% of them are legally free and available for adoption. The term “special needs” refers to children due to specific factors or conditions such as being over 8, having a particular racial or ethnic background, being part of a sibling group needing to be placed together, medical conditions, and physical, mental, or emotional handicaps.

Now, why do I keep saying “him/her/them” – we have not fully decided boy or girl or one of each. If we can move into a 3-4 bedroom home, we can open our home and lives up to more children. 2 is our max sibling group size at the moment. I do still want a boy and a girl, but we’ve been told that they need their own rooms. So, master, boy room, girl room, office = 4 bedrooms. Unless we can find a super huge master bedroom or a closet-less den to use for an office, we can go to a 3 bedroom.

Anyone know of 3-4 bedroom 2-3 bathroom homes in the Palmetto Bay/ Cutler Bay, West Kendall area for under $1,400 a month? Our current lease is up in August so we’re on the hunt for new digs!

Apr302013

Dreaming of Decorating their Bedrooms

Last week I stopped at Target to pick up 2 items and made the mistake of not going right to the grocery section for said items. You can already see where this is heading, right? First I hit up the clothing section – picked out 2 cute tops that got put back later – then the workout clothing section – a girl needs new yoga pants – then the sock department then as I was heading to the storage container section, I walked into pink and blue heaven. I mean, the children’s room section. Seriously, there’s some cute stuff out there. Sure, I admit that I wanted most of it for myself, but that’s why we decorate kid’s rooms right? Yes, I’m going to allow my child(ren) to decorate their rooms, but don’t think I won’t have some personal mom touches in there.

Holy crap. I’m going to be a mom.

Yep, tears springing into my eyes.

Anyhow, cute stuff. See? OK, so I hit up Pinterest too.

My favorite idea!

I’m super peeved bc the Pinterest link-love doesn’t work so these had to be manually linked. If anyone has figured out how to get this to work with WordPress, please let me know!

Apr292013

The Last Two Weeks

In the last 2 weeks since deciding to move forward with the foster-adoption process, I have. . .

Been in touch several times with the adoption advocate at Our Kids of Miami-Dade County
Scheduled our Orientation class at which we will schedule our 10-weeks of PRIDE classes (PDF link)
Joined a gym to ensure I will be around for a very long time for my child(ren)
Committed to work on my personal problems
Had breakfast with Steve that turned into brunch as we sat for 3 hours talking to a realtor about buying a home, her connections for jobs at UM and FIU, our lives, her schedule, real estate classes and so much more
And subsequently, spent hours looking up homes between South Miami and Cutler Bay
Talked about the process and foster-adoption to loads of people
Discovered that my 20th high school reunion is next year – ugh!
Gathered a ton of information about my amazing friends on the kind of parents they are (or want to be) and began forming the picture in my mind about my parenting style
Got lost in Target in the children’s bedroom aisles – so much pink!
Met another couple for dinner that I can’t wait to hang out with a lot more
And. . . just submitted my information to take classes to become a CASA volunteer with the Guardian Ad Litem program

More to come! I’m sort of playing catch up and trying not to spew out so much information at once. I hope all my knowledge – and trust me, I learn more about foster-adoption every day – will be helpful for other folks as well. It will be interesting to see how many folks I’ve educated and that also adopt from foster care. If you’re thinking about it, let me know, OK?

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