Home Study

Friday is the 1st day of the licensing process. We will meet CW (her initials but could be used for Caseworker) on Friday at our house. Which of course happens to be a disaster zone at the moment. Honey and I were cleaning out closets on Saturday trying to get ready for "The Boys". He had been using the closet in the 2nd Bedroom and we needed to make room in our closet for all of his stuff. So we have piles of donatable clothes, clothes for family members and then the regular stuff we just have no place for in our house. I think its safe to say that tonight and Thursday will be the MOST productive cleaning days I've ever had. Did I mention our cleaning lady has also been on vacation and its been a month since our last visit? And we still have to buy a bed!

Cleaning out the closets was actually really theraputic. And it was cute. Honey kept saying we need to do this or that for "The Boys". Truth be told there are two brothers in another state listed on line that we fell in love with by looking at their pictures. We can't find out more about them until our Home Study is complete and we can officially inquire about them. Now we know that they may not be able to be adopted across state lines or they may not be a match for us but I think having a "visual" is helping us work towards a goal. I'm taking the attitude that what is meant to be will be and if we are meant to be their parents then somehow that will happen.

Baseball Game

My husband went to a baseball game yesterday. We live in a city with two MLB teams and this one was not "Our" team (because Our team wins World Series occasionally but I digress). It was a work event so he had to go. So in the middle of my fairly crazy day I get a text from him.

This little kid was staring at me. So I said Hi and he said - Hi...this is my Dad.

I think my heart actually swelled in my chest. In that instant I flashed to the first time I saw his desk at work and saw a picture of his niece proudly displayed. I loved him in an instant. And I was reminded how much my husband wants to be a Dad.

On the surface the text was innocent. Something silly that happened. But I know my husband. We've been married for almost 4 years, living together for 7 and together for 9 years. He wanted to be DAD. He wants so badly to have a son he can take to a baseball game. To play video games with to teach Math to. Even before we got married he's wanted a son. Maybe because his own Dad passed away. Maybe because he was the only boy in a family of women. Maybe its just whats in his heart. And as this process has started I think he's been able to visualize himself in that role. I've seen him in that role always and one of the reasons I married him was because I knew he'd make a great father.

My text back? Someday soon honey. If possible I love you more today than ever.

Turtles

So after speaking with J a supervisor at DCFS I felt instantly comfortable with their process. He was all for helping us find potential children to adopt and was a straight shooter which I appreciated. So my Honey and I will be going this route. I hope to have some more information next week and start our training classes in the next month or two. The process is going to feel TURTLE SLOW.....

Meanwhile we went and played laser tag. Myself my husband, my brother and my sister-in-law. My brother is newly home from the Army and this seemed like a fun activity. And of course as randomness would have it we were matched up against 9 eight year olds and their dad. They were screaming big kids vs little kids in this tiny little room and I couldn't hear myself think. They were too cute but finally I said - You can have whatever teams you want just don't scream - so of course they screamed even louder! Red or Green? GREEN of course that's their favorite color! More screeching! Hey your gun has the name of the bad guy in Spiderman! No one had the heart to tell him all of the gun names were bad guys. I was Dr. Evil hmmmm.

Their excitement was infectious as they were let into the arena. The screamed the countdown and then came at us. I don't think I've laughed as hard as I did in months. My 6' 2" brother geared up and took the bridge sending me tactical hand signals to wait and hold my position. Around the corned they came - groups of little turtles. Seriously that's what they looked like. Their little bodies not big enough for heir packs so they had green flashing shells. I guess I had forgotten how little 8 year olds can be as I'm use to the teenagers in my life and my 8 year old God Child is well, tall. At first I felt bad. They were clumping together being caught in the laser beam cross fire. It felt too easy. Picking them off one by one. Until Spawn came from behind and shot me in the back then it was ON.

But the whole time I was picturing my future potential children. Would they be skilled at laser tag. Would they think their parents and Aunt and Uncle were dorky for taking this so seriously (we could win a competition in competitiveness)? Would the packs fit them properly? Will they roll their eyes at as reminiscing about our high school laser tag days? And I have to remind myself that I can't get my hopes up yet and that its a slow process. Slow like a turtle.

Confusion

I'm a smart girl. I have a college degree and a paralegal certificate so why is it so hard to figure out the way to start adopting a Waiting Child. I've read forum after forum, link after link on adoption in the US, specifically adoption of children currently in Foster Care (Waiting Children) but no one can seem to give me a straight answer about how to go about this.

You have to become a Foster Parent in order to Adopt. But when they start giving you the information about Foster Licensing they tell you the goal of Foster Parenting is reuniting the child with their birth parents... Huh? Didn't I call the adoption hot line? What if I just want to skip straight to the adopting part? I mean understand needing to go through the education part and getting the home checked out as suitable but why does all the information talk in circles.

Can the terms adoption/foster be used interchangeably. And if not why are the people needed to to do either of this type of parenting always lumped into the same descriptive paragraph. And why did the person from the agency tell me adopting a foster child was a long shot when I just read on the state website that 40% of kids in Foster Care never return to their birth parents and instead get placed for adoption.

And then I get a little skittish. Is this why you always hear about the system being broken? Could this be why these children have such a hard time finding permanent homes? Am I up for this? Are WE up for this? As this seems to be an idea placed safely in my heart I think the answer is yes but I guess a call to DCFS tomorrow is in order. Perhaps I really need to go through them instead of the Private Agency that we were referred to for licensing.

A New Journey

I find blogging theraputic and as such have decided to start putting down some of my feelings about a new journey I am taking: Motherhood. The last 18 months have been something of a rollercoaster. Definate highs and ultimate lows and the same feeling when the ride stops - Let's go again. And so here I am about to embark on a new journey into previously unknown territory foster care/adoption. Ultimately, I feel empowered and prepared and this is how I know this is the right thing for our family.

For those of you who don't know anything about me currently I have an active bout of Neurosarcoidosis. This is an autoimmune disorder that can effect any tissue structure in the body and currently the disease is residing in my brain. If my head were a map the House of Pain is located on Trigeminal Nerve Ave. Left side. Next to The Temple. For reasons unknown my body has decided it doesn't like normal courses of treatment and as such has failed to respond to them. I'm a bit of an unusual case and fully expect to end up as a case study in a medical journal one day. For nearly 18 months I was in chronic, constant pain. And until I tried acupuncture I thought I would stay there. But after nearly two months of acupuncture treatment 2-3 times a week I am almost back to living my life normally and relatively pain free. (Realtivity is an interesting world to live in.) I have found a new normal and a new set of circumstances and information that I live by. I've learned an entirely new language of medical terminology and procedures and have recieved a crash course in hollistic care.

Why is this important? Well 1) because all this has defined a new me 2) because it led myself and my husband to consider a new path to having a family. One of the challenges I was giving to my doctors was treating me with medication that would be relatively safe to give to a pregnant woman or one who wanted to become pregnant soon. If I take that restriction away it buys me some time so to speak to try new therapies that might send the disease into remission. But what about starting our family.

Hmmm