Foster Care Update: Moving Along

March 20, 2012 By 4 Comments

We are still slowly, buy surely moving along in our process to be licensed for foster care. It has taken so much longer that we ever expected it would. Some of that was our choice, not wanting it to happen before we felt ready. Some of it is just the county working at their own pace. At any rate, I have to believe that our timing will work out perfectly to match up with the child we are intended to care for.

Over the last couple of weeks we have been getting calls and emails from our licensing agent with the last pieces of information she needs to finish our application. We’ve been signing, scanning, and emailing back all the necessary forms. She also let us know that we need to retake the picture proving that we do have a car seat, the one we took was too dark to see well. All of our other required pictures turned out fine. Hopefully, that’s the last missing item.

We were encouraged that our agent is finally checking all of our references that we needed to provide. A couple of our friends let us know that they had received a call requesting information about us. It sure is exciting to know that she was at work on our file yesterday. She also informed us that we had passed our background checks! Not that we were too surprised about that one, but at least that part is finished!

We still need to have one more neighbor reference turned in. We were a little more worried about getting the neighbor references, only because we really don’t know our neighbors very well and weren’t sure how well they would be able to answer questions about us. We asked our next-door neighbor yesterday and she replied that she would be honored to help us out. Yay!

Once we get these last couple of items crossed off our list we will be submitted to the agency’s supervisors for final approval. We’ve been told that it could take anywhere from a couple of days to thirty days… depending on how eager they are to have another home available. Obviously, we are wishing for the quicker time frame, but thirty days isn’t too far off either. We are getting so close!

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Adoption: Pro-Life Follow Through

February 13, 2012 By 18 Comments

We attended our first foster care support group this past week. The group is part of a ministry at a church in our area. It’s intended for anyone who is a foster parent, who is an adoptive parent, those who have been adopted, or anyone who has involvement in the child welfare system. It was awesome and we left feeling so encouraged in our goals.

We got to hear Tony Dungy’s wife, Lauren, speak about their experiences with the five children that they have adopted. She was a great speaker and we really enjoyed hearing about how God has provided for them as the care for the children He chose to give them. She also answered questions about how their daily life works with such a large family. Mrs. Dungy read a verse from Ephesians, which was familiar to me since I’m studying Ephesians right now…

Ephesians 1:5
God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.

My big take-away from the night was the reminder of how important adoptive families are! We hear the arguments for being pro-ife all the time… but what happens to the unwanted babies after they are born? Who will take care of the child after convincing the mother not to have the abortion? Is that child any less important now than it was in the womb?

I had never really thought it all the way through from that perspective. I’m pro-life. It was painful to hear the statistics of how many (thousands) babies were aborted in the last year, just in our county. But it does make an interesting question as to who would have cared for that many babies had they been born.

Pro life

It seems to me that if you’re pro-life, maybe there is something more you could do to be pro-adoption. Not that every family is called to adopt, but there are lots of other ways to make a difference in a unwanted kid’s life.

We’re so excited to see what’s in store as we take on one of our biggest challenges yet!

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Home Study Results

February 8, 2012 By 2 Comments

We had our long-awaited foster care home study yesterday! Our licensing person didn’t find any issues that should hold up our process and she said that we are now her priority case… which is both exciting and scary.

Home study

We did find out why it sometimes takes her a while to get back with us when we contact her. Apparently she is the ONLY person who does licensing in Hillsborough county. We were asking questions and she was explaining how the process will work from this point based on all the other families she has been working with. I almost couldn’t believe her when she said that she personally visits every prospective home in our county… crazy!

We went though the mound of paperwork she had given us to fill out. She was beyond impressed that we had everything done and that we hadn’t lost any of the packet. She said that is very rare. That was funny to hear, not sure why we would have scheduled the visit if we didn’t have things done. So, that was a big positive. We also had to find and make copies of several documents for her such as our driver’s licenses, insurance cards, marriage license, and tax returns. Good thing we have the new printer to make copies on!

She really liked our bedrooms. She started off very professional, but couldn’t help saying “awww… so cute” when we showed her our nursery. I had payed close attention to the rules for setting up the nursery (crib placement and pictures on the walls) so I was very happy that she didn’t see anything that needed to be changed.

We took pictures for our file of our house, bedrooms, and safety measures. We still need to take and send pictures of the community pool area showing that it has a gate around it and a life-saving device in the area. We also need to set up our car seat and send in a picture of that.

She spent quite a while talking with us about our family backgrounds. She wanted to know our parents’ personalities, what my siblings were doing, and how often we talk with each of our family members. All of her observations and our answers get put into a report that she will create. She will come back shortly for us to review and sign the report before she passes it along to her supervisor.

Our next step is a visit for the health inspector. She made the order for an inspection so we are waiting for a call from the health department to set up the inspection. They check for things such as our fridge being set to the correct temperature, our water temperature not being too hot, our medications and chemicals being sufficiently locked away, and general cleanliness. I’m pretty confident that we can pass that just fine, but I know from experience working at a grocery store that it just depends on how picky the inspector wants to be… they can almost surely find something if they feel like looking hard enough.

It was a good, but exhausting day.

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