Timeline

Sep302013

First of Three ACW Visits

We had our first home visit with our ACW on Saturday!

When I spoke to her last Friday, we set up our appointment for yesterday afternoon and getting our fingerprints done Friday.

One thing she mentioned which we both – actually a few classmates too – questioned was the need to get things done within 90 days and if not, we’ll have to have stuff run again (abuse reports, domestic violence reports and fingerprinting). The reason not being that we won’t have new fingerprints or anything like that, but rather so they can ensure that nothing has changed in our background – criminal or otherwise. OK, explained that way it makes a whole lot more sense!

We sat and answered her questions and she answered ours for about 90 minutes. After that we gave her the tour of our home and yard. I had to hold Phoenix so he wouldn’t bolt out of the middle bathroom so she could take a look at it. She was amazed at how large the child’s bedroom is and that it has a private bathroom and massive closet. We pointed out where the furniture was going and how we were moving the desk currently in there into our bedroom. We then selected the next date she’d come out to ask us more questions and show her the hopefully furnished bedroom.

From the list in my last post, we still need the following items before her next visit:

~~Drivers license’s~~ DONE
~~Social security cards~~ DONE
~~Marriage license~~ DONE
~~Current lease~~ DONE
Paystubs to show we’re gainfully employed
Tax returns for the last few years
Bank statements for all our accounts
Lola and Phoenix vaccine records
Steve’s divorce decree
Physical’s for us both
Employment verification for us both
~~A voided check~~ DONE
and a few others

She left a huge packet of info for us to begin filling out and signing. There was some informational info in there as well about the process, etc. We also need 5 personal and professional references. We have 3 in mind and need to select the other 2. Oh and also ask everyone if they’d be willing to write a letter for us.

We learned that she won’t actually help us with the placement of our child. Once she completes the home study, it will be passed to her supervisor for final review and approval. If there is anything that needs further explanation, we will be referred to the Adoption Review Panel. If it gets approved, he will pass it along to Our Kids and I will make sure my contacts there have it as well. They will then work on matching us with the best possible child so we can begin the informal setting dates, day visits, and eventual sleepovers.

Aside from these visits with the ACW, there really isn’t much going on. We have to work with the process and let it work for us.

All we can do is cooperate and wait patiently and try not to look at the little munchkins on the photolisting sites.

Sep272013

Fingerprinting! And other good news..

This afternoon we are venturing to downtown Miami to get our fingerprinting done. For some odd reason – I’m sure it’s been explained but still – we have to go to our agency main office in order to have this done. So yay! We also get to finally meet our case worker as up to this point all our contact has been over the phone and via email.

I’m totally hoping we see our awesome teachers while we’re there! In fact, I emailed them last night to give them the heads up that we’re going to be there and to let them know that on Saturday…

We have our first Home Visit!! Um, with our Adoption Case Worker (ACW) as opposed to the one during our PRIDE training.

Yep, Saturday is our first home visit and she’ll be asking us eleventy billion questions from the Life Stories we turned in. When I mentioned them, she said she preferred to do it this way and then incorporate the written outlines later. Uh, OK. Glad we took the time to write them then.

We have to compile a bunch of documents, not limited to:

Our marriage license
Current lease
Paystubs to show we’re gainfully employed
Tax returns for the last few years
Bank statements for all our accounts- 3 months worth
Lola and Phoenix vaccine records
Steve’s divorce decree – the NC court website isn’t very user friendly 🙁
A voided check for the monthly stipend

This will be the first of 2-3 visits and will last about 2 hours. She said it is more of an informal meeting and to walk through our house. We don’t need to have everything child-proofed, have the office converted, or all the medication and chemicals locked up. It’s going to give us time to ask her all the questions we both have since up until now, we’ve not been able to ask an adoption person these questions. Well, not exactly. The awesome folks at Our Kids are crazy knowledgeable and we couldn’t have made it this far without their help.

By her next visit in a few weeks, we should have the bedroom furnished with “whatever [we] would buy as parents to furnish [my] child’s bedroom.”

Sep172013

Progress Report

I started writing this last week after our final class. It was amazing. We wrapped up the lessons, turned in all homework/ life stories/ online assignments, had 5 guest speakers – 2 of which I’d been put in touch with months ago via my MPC – and lots of food. So. Much. Food. During the breaks and after class we chatted with everyone, exchanged phone numbers and got even more information about the local associations. I can’t believe it was our last class!

Seriously, didn’t we just attend orientation like yesterday??

Now begins the long trek through the finger printing, references, physicals, final home visit and so much more. And then, finally, a Fletchling.

We were told we would be assigned a Case Worker within 2 weeks of class ending. Imagine my surprise when I got a phone call yesterday with our new CWs name!! Yes, it honestly was the greatest birthday gift ever. Eh. Ver.

Oh, you want actual dates? Let’s see what I can plug in…

Updated Timeline–

Classes ended last Tuesday (dear self, do not drive to class tonight!)
We were assigned to our ACW yesterday and she will do our Home Study which includes a second and maybe third home visit and all the paperwork/ fingerprinting.
Once the Home Study is completed, we are officially in “the books”
We search, they search, I use all the amazing resources I have accumulated, we get matched – ummmm, November? December? I have no idea.
From there we have several informal meetings and sleepovers with the child and then he will move in with us after an unspecified amount of time.
We keep hearing different “child in home” answers so it could be anywhere from 1 month to 6 prior to the adoption being finalized.

And somewhere in there we have to furnish the Fletchling’s bedroom and piece together a computer for homework. And I have to knit the other 75% of the blanket.

This was taken last night. It’s currently 14″ long out of way more than that…

Sep082013

Furnishing the Little One’s Bedroom

A few days ago I thought maybe it was time to check prices for my baby’s bedroom. After all, our very last PRIDE class is in 2 days.

First I checked Rooms To Go, then I posted a question to my FB and got a crazy amount of responses, and finally hit up IKEA at the suggestion of my MPC.

SCORE!

I priced out both twin and full beds and settled on the full. A good point was made that this will work best for older kids and we could have any age from 5 to 11 years old. If only they sold the full on the bottom/ twin on top bunk beds, I would get that in a heartbeat. I saw some at RTG but they are ridiculously expensive. The bed alone was more than the entire room at IKEA. Blerg.

So right now, I have the basics – bed, mattress, desk, dresser and nightstand – picked out. I selected a nice generic (gender neutral) green set of sheets and figure he (or she) could go to town with decorating the rest as they see fit. S/He can pick out the rugs, curtains, lamps, artwork, anything else. Well, mommy might just have to put some fun artwork in there that I create. (*ahem* Thanks, Pinterest!) Plus the blanket I’m busy knitting.

Based on this list below, is there anything I’m missing or don’t need?

Now we just need to figure out a time to get up to IKEA and have a spare $550ish in our account. We might have to rent a truck or borrow from a friend bc I’m not sure this will all fit into my car even if it’s totally cleaned out.

This ish is getting real!

Sep072013

‘Tis a Teeny Tiny World

I know, I suck as a blogger. There really hasn’t been too much going on. Except for my awesome newly discovered connection with my Mysterious Phone Caller (She told me I should refer to her this way on here.. lol)

Ready for this?

I friended her on FB and saw we had some people in common. One was my aunt. Weird, but OK as she seems to know like half of Miami. I happen to be at my aunt’s office that afternoon so I asked how she knew MPC (ha!) and she said she’s know her parents for a long time. Turns out they live down the street from each other and MPC also knows my cousins.

Weird! But that’s not all. Oh no, there’s more.

I posted something on FB and was going back and forth with one of my oldest frieds about one of our campers having something to do with it. MPC popped in to ask what camp. We went back and forth only to discover that the ONE year she was a camper there was the ONE year that I was a counselor. I attended as a camper for like 8 years prior to that.

Small world? No, tiny world!

And all bc someone told her about my blog and that she should read it.

This relates how?

We were emailing back and forth about the teeny tiny world and she said

Can you send me the specifics of what type of child you are looking for? I want to start a search to see if you can’t start some visits with potential children and try to move along the process.

*jaw drop*

*pick jaw up off keyboard* and responded then asked if she knew about the timelines. She didn’t, but said…

I really don’t know time frames but I will try to push on my end 🙂

+++++

I love this lady!

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

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.

Jun132013

We’re Official(ly signed up)!

(If you’re so inclined to read it, clicking makes it much larger)

This arrived sometime in the last week while we were out of town.

It’s our official invitation to the orientation for foster or adoptive parents.

Thank Ood that it arrived. Now I can cancel the original one on the 20th with the agency that didn’t want to work with us. At. All.

(That’s right, I said “Thank Ood” bc I’m a Doctor Who geek.)

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