plus 1

We are adding another teen to our family . She is 13 and waiting for someplace to call home. Her blog name will be Sunday. Sunday is currently living in a group home in the city. We had a family sit down to talk about the pros and cons last night and to my surprise even our 16 year old is on board. She spent two weeks at the same group home and wants to help out another child wanting to get away from that environment. She did not want me to pick up her bio sister from the same place when she disrupted from her foster home because of false allegations. She said it would be to much drama.
So the deal is we already committed to providing respite for our friends two toddlers for the weekend bumping us up to six children so we can not formally accept her as a full time placement until the boys go home on Sunday. Our caseworker is going to fax a release form to the group home so I can host her during daytime hours until Monday morning when she can formally be released to me. Our wonderful charter school has two eighth grade spots available so we will head over to the school on Monday for a tour and to get her enrolled.
The weekend should be interesting with seven children. I plan on only leaving the house for Soccer and Church.

TPR Hearing in the morning

Life has flown by since I last posted. We have had six placements since becoming foster parents. Growing so fast was a huge undertaking. I am proud of how we as a family handled all of the changes.
Currently we have four children at home. Our girls ages 6 and 2. Along with two children that joined our family through fostering. We where blessed with our first teen at the end on June a 16 year old girl. River is still with us his goal is now adoption and we are going to our second hearing in the morning.
His first hearing was postponed for a month because after being in care for 16 months his mom decided to try to get sober and work her case plan. Her efforts only lasted two weeks. In the seven months River has been with us she has only been able to attend two visits those where during the time she was sober. The last time we where in court her plan was to try to retain private council.
I have let the powers that be know that we are still willing to participate in an open adoption on some level. What I have come up with is to send photos to a P.O. Box quarterly. I'm not sure if that is something she can even maintain given her current situation.
I worry about her. Tomorrow is going to be a hard day. I hope that she shows up. I pray that she is safe.

Sweet Boy

I picked River up yesterday morning. He is a very sweet boy. At the moment is is pretty sick. The evening before I went to pick him up I spoke with his kinship mother and she said he had a fever of 103. He had been sick for several days. I made arrangements with our pediatrician to bring him as soon as he was in my care for pink eye in both eyes. It turns out he also has pneumonia.
Our doctor considered admitting him instead sent me home with FIVE medications and his nebilizer. Our daughter came home from Ethiopia with pneumonia and major stomach issue so this in some ways feels familiar. At this point I'm confident that I will get him in good health soon.
All of his belongings reeked of cigarette smoke and he was attending a large day care. I am hopeful that with just removing those to aspects he will improve and stay well.
I was able to get tons of back round information and I am so grateful for every bit of it. we have a very pleasant and kind caseworker. She has returned of of my phone calls promptly. She said she has 27 children on her case load currently.
Okay he just woke up. More later.

Placement Called!!!!

Placement called today at 2:00. They asked if we would be willing to take in a 19 month old boy. My DH works from home so we both got to hear his background information. My husband was nodding yes to me while I was talking. I told our placement coordinator I would call her back in a few minutes with an answer. Basically I hung up the phone asked my DH if he was ready to have children only two months apart our youngest is 21 months .
His blog name will be River. This will be his fifth move. From what I hear he is sporting a strawberry blond mohawk and has hazel eyes.
We will pick him up on Friday....

We got the call!

We are officially licensed to provide care for three children age 6 and under. I just got the call. I was in the middle of giving a highchair a deep cleaning. A moment that will be locked in my brain for eternity.
Our SW sits right next the placement coordinators. As of today there are no children in our age range in need of homes. I will update when placement calls.

Still Waiting

I am alive and well! We are still waiting for our license to be approved. Our file has been approved by two of the three departments that need to approve it. It was sent into the state for final approval on Jan 28. My SW said they have 30 days to respond. My best guess is that we will hear something next week. She is good about keeping me in the loop. Her latest response was the she "heard" the guy who approves file is backed up.

I took a break from blogging. Waiting is sooo hard. Feb 4th we attended foster care support group at the end of the meeting the organizer announced that as of 4:30 that afternoon placement still needed homes for a 15 year old girl, 10 and 7 year old sibling set, and a healthy one year old boy. On Monday a 6 year old local boy was beaten to death by his stepfather after DCF had investigated the family three times. It's just heart breaking to be ready and willing to help and continue to count days.

I just hold onto the idea that it will all come together soon and do my best to continue on with everyday life. I've been working on tightening up the grocery budget, meal planning, and laundry schedules. I continue to nest and enjoy my girls. I will be sure to post the minute I get the call from what I hear we can expect a placement within minute of receiving our license.

Why am I excited?

Today I am getting my first mini-van! It is 2001 Honda Odyssey with 119,000 miles. It has been well cared for by a good friend of mine. Most importantly it has a third row I can access without having to climb over seats or pulling my back out. Another great feature is a jazzy automatic door that slides open with the push of a button.
Why am I excited about this? My husband and I have been sharing a car for two and a half years. In general I am happy to have saved so much money over these past few years sharing a car. With the arrival of more children I feel much better having the added freedom a second car will bring.
On Thursday evening I told my SW of my plan to resist my urge to pester her for updates and only contact her every other week. She said that our file had moved onto the main agency representative who has 30 days to review it and then send it onto someone in Tallahassee who has another 30 days. She originally gave us a 4-6 week waiting estimate. she is counting on things moving along faster. I am going to email her on Thursday. I'll post any updates.

At Last

This evening I will attend the last in a ten week series of MAPP training classes. Yeah! The class started out with about twenty five people. We are down to at least half if not less then that. Most of the people that attending the class are child specific. There are only two other families that are interested in fostering. I hope we can maintain contact with both of the families.

We are having a potluck in class this evening and guest speakers. A few caseworkers and a former foster child that aged out will be available for questions. I am actually looking forward to getting some helpful information.

Having been through the adoption process and being a certified teacher most of the information was review for me. My husband found it to be interesting and full of new information. We did a few skits and listened while two smart, tired SW's read out of a class manual.

The real motivator for me to push through and get my paper work in early came through our local paper. There where two large sibling groups put in care over the holidays. One group of seven and another group of nine!

Our district has had a 30% increase in caseloads this past year. About half way through training a SW shared that a CW wanted to know if she had anyone in the "pipeline" to take a sibling group of three ages 3,2,1. She thought of us but we where still to far from being finished. She also shared that they had to be split up.

My brother In law and his family are coming into town for MLK weekend. Having guests will take my mind off the wait. I'm excited to see my nephew. It should be a fun weekend.

Nesting

It seems most of the physical stuff is finished. Funny as I type that my mind starts running over a list of things I want to do or buy that will somehow make me feel "ready". It is a nesting thing I find it interesting to reflect back on how my nesting habits have evolved.
With our first daughter it was pretty simple and short. I just washed and organized dozens of baby cloths from simple onesies to boutique dresses. I did other little things like bought paper plates so I wouldn't have to worry about dishes for the first few weeks.
International Adoption brought nesting to a whole new level. The idea of taking care of an infant in a developing country sent me into a organizing frenzy. I can remember having all of my goods separated into Rubbermaid containers in a spare bedroom and visiting them each night refolding and organizing. I can also remember falling to my knees in prayer in that room after learning our baby girl was fighting a sepsis infection half way across the world. I threw the contents of those containers into a few suitcases and got onto a plane.
Fostering has really thrown my therapeutic organizing for a spin. I do have my trusty Rubbermaid's organized. It hard to put into words but instead of nesting in joyous way I systematical preparing myself for numerous emergencies.

Waiting.....

We are waiting for our foster care license to be approved. Last Friday we signed off on our home study. We can expect a 4-6 week wait until we are officially licensed. There is a great need for new families in our area. It is normal to get a placement call with in minutes of approval. We are taking up to three children in addition to our two at home all are six and under.
The beds are in place. Clothing reserves have been sorted. I gave notice to one of my volunteer jobs. I have special one on one activities planned with the girls. From the moment I wake up until I go to sleep I am waiting.