Saturday, July 26, 2014

"The Process"... so far

We attended our informational orientation at the end of April and submitted our first packet of paperwork the next day. The packet went to the Kinship Director to be evaluated on whether or not it seemed we were a good fit for their agency, A few weeks later, we were assigned to and contacted by our Kinship social worker.  She sent us another packet of paperwork and we set up an interview for June 9th.
                                          Here is The Jester excitedly mailing our Paperwork #2!- May 2014


THE INTERVIEW

We weren't quite sure what to expect for the interview, but we went into the office and our social worker and her intern were there.  It seemed very informal, but she asked us to expand on some of the questions we answered in the paperwork.  Some of the questions were what religion do we practice, how do we intend to discipline the child, are we open to visitation from relatives and siblings, what are behaviors we would accept, etc.  We were a little caught off guard by the "what type of behaviors would you accept" question.  I asked her to give us examples of typical behaviors for foster children and she said for a child 0-4 years old, the main behavioral issues are: lying, stealing, tantrums, and hoarding food (since they are often starved and neglected).  Besides the hoarding of food, these seemed like typical child behaviors every parent would need to address.  What was surprising was that she said she had to ask because many people come in expecting a perfect child and they need to weed out those couples.  Strange right?  Of course these are not perfect children... is there such a thing?  She liked our answers and felt we were a good fit and told us we would receive another packet in the mail and to get ready for our training!



                                           This is a picture of us after our interview!- June 9, 2014
ChildSHARE DINNER

ChildShare is a non-profit, Christian organization who supports families going through the foster-adopt process.  They provide encouragement, prayer, and guidance during the tough certification process and support once there is a placement.  We met one of their recruiters, Stephen during our church's fost-adopt fair and have kept in touch ever since.  He has been very supportive and assisted us in choosing a Foster Family Agency (Kinship).  ChildShare hosts a dinner at their President's house for those in the cert process and we attended the dinner in Yorba Linda.  We weren't expecting to have a great time, since when you put a bunch of random strangers in a room together, it typically ends up being awkward.  Far from it!  The staff shared stories about their own relationship with the fost-adopt process and answered our questions and addressed our fears.  The President spent time in foster care himself and his story was just so inspirational!  We left with a blanket for our little one and more hope for the journey we feel God has called us to take.

                                          Such a fun, inspirational evening!- June 21, 2014

PACKET #3

The third packet was a DOOZY, let me tell you!  It included tons of document requests: Original DMV records, copies of our marriage licenses, an emergency evacuation diagram of our home, and lots of other goodies.  The most grueling part of the packet were the two questionnaires.  Each of the sets of paperwork thus far have required us to outline our "preferences" for a child.  Can I stop there?  I think that is such a strange way to phrase that... almost as if we are picking out airline seats or a menu selection for a wedding... I guess there is not anything better to call it. Anyways.... Each packet has required us to delve a little deeper and be even more specific.  This packet was VERY SPECIFIC on ages, gender or perceived gender, abilities, and backgrounds.  Such a strange concept to have to ask yourself: Am I okay if the biological parents are Mother and Son?  Father and Daughter?  Step brother and Step Sister?  Am I okay with a child who is born testing positive for ___________ (insert your drug name here)?  At one point, it asked if we were okay with children who had explosive outbursts and The Jester mentioned, "Are they going to ask us if its alright if the kid has outbursts of using explosions?  So many questions!"  Well.... not two pages later and they ask if we are willing to accept a child who has a history of burning things on purpose.  WOW.... its a shock to think about what some of these little ones have faced and overcome during their short lives.  After that questionnaire, we each had an 18 page questionnaire to fill out asking about how we were raised, our relationships with our families, our marriage, how we deal with conflict, our religious views, etc.  That part was not too difficult.  The next part however, took a few days to get through.  There was a section on family life and how things operate every day with children in the house.  They specified that if we do not have children, we should write how we intend to deal with these things.  Now, as a biological parent, you get to address things as they come, you know the child and have since birth.  This is a different situation.  We had to sit and talk about whether we felt it appropriate for children to sleep in our bed, until what age, are we strict, do we make exceptions, if so/when?  We pretty much had to discuss our entire parenting philosophy right then and there.  Thats not to say that we cannot change our minds as we become more experienced, but talk about hitting the ground at a sprint?!

  Who can be so happy at a Police Station?  July 8, 2014

Part of the packet required us to get fingerprinted.  The Jester wanted to go to a Police station to ensure that our information was protected... no Mailboxes Etc. for us!  I made 2 appointments for the next day.  We showed up at 1:00pm to get fingerprinted and the woman informed us that since we each need to get for 2 different systems, that we needed 4 appointments.  I asked if we could see if we could get everything done within our appointment times, and she said no.  Since I was on my lunch break and The Jester works from home, we decided he would return another day.  I went to the back and had my prints taken within 30 minutes.  Hmmmm.... and why couldnt he have used the other appointment time for his?  Bureaucracy at its best people!!  Anyway, the grand total for each of us for fingerprints was $106!!! Holy frijoles that is a lot of paper!

MORE TO COME ON TRAINING IN A FEW!


Sunday, July 13, 2014

How we came to this....

My husband (hereby referred to as The Jester from now on) and I met in AP English our senior year of high school.  We fell in love within a month, dated throughout college, and married our senior year of college.  We are 100% made for one another and that is obvious in our life goals, faith, values, terrible senses of humor, and most other facets of our personalities.  While in college, we talked about adoption being something we both desired and felt called to do.  In the Bible, Christians are directed to care for the widows and orphans of the world.  Fast forward many years to about a year and a half ago.  The Jester and I began "the discussion" of when, how many, how's this gonna go in relation to the whole kid thing.  We toyed with the idea of trying for our own biological children, but decided that many people do not feel the call to adoption and that since we did, why not go that route first or maybe only?

Being the crazy planning and research obsessed person that I am, I immediately went into research mode about every form and process of adoption in order to map out our journey as best I could.  We attended a Riverside County orientation, which scared the socks off of The Jester and I.  I am pretty sure it was intended to scare away people who only view foster care as a business, but going through the County just didn't seem like the right fit for us.  Researching private adoptions came up with total sticker shock as we discovered it cost between $20,000-50,000 to adopt privately or internationally.  Oh heck no!!!  A few months ago, we attended a foster-adopt support group at our wonderful church where we discovered that there are foster family agencies, which are non-profit organizations who can certify you to become eligible to foster-adopt.  We chose Kinship Center, based out of Orange County and Redlands, to be our agency.  Since then, we have started the process, which will soon follow in another post.  

Our hope for this blog is that it will be a way for us to memorialize our journey through the foster-adopt  process, provide encouragement to those who think they can't do it, and have as much faith through the process as possible.  If you are willing, please pray for us throughout our journey!

Our Prayers:
- Let us keep our eyes prayerfully on the will He has for our family, especially in regards to the specific needs of the children we may be matched with.
- Keep our hearts guarded against spiritual attack, especially fear.