I woke up on Saturday morning and wondered for a second if it had all been a dream – if our home study had actually been approved or if my poor tired brain had conjured the entire thing from thin air as I slept. And then I remembered.
The e-mail – that beautiful glorious e-mail.
I can be honest now and tell you that deep down, I never thought we’d be approved.
Wow, it feels strange to write those words. I never even shared that thought with O, and we share just about everything.
If you were to ask me why I felt that way, my answer would have been something truly eloquent – something along the lines of, “Because we just won’t.”
I couldn’t really expand on it beyond that, but that was absolutely what I believed.
Yes, I went through the motions, pretty passionately at times. I did everything I knew how to do to get our home study completed, but I thought the end result would be the same no matter what I did or how hard I fought.
I’m not sure where that came from. I’m not a pessimistic person. Not at all.
Anyway, I said all that to say this:
When you get an opportunity you never thought you’d have, life is pretty sweet.
My instinct now is to hit the ground running – to try and make up for all the time that was wasted as our file sat on a desk in the state office for over a year.
My idea was to put together a few folders about us. They would include a letter of introduction, the form listing the characteristics we’re looking for in a child who we feel would be a good match for us, a few of our scrapbook pages that show photos of us and our life together here on the farm.
The e-mail – that beautiful glorious e-mail.
I can be honest now and tell you that deep down, I never thought we’d be approved.
Wow, it feels strange to write those words. I never even shared that thought with O, and we share just about everything.
If you were to ask me why I felt that way, my answer would have been something truly eloquent – something along the lines of, “Because we just won’t.”
I couldn’t really expand on it beyond that, but that was absolutely what I believed.
Yes, I went through the motions, pretty passionately at times. I did everything I knew how to do to get our home study completed, but I thought the end result would be the same no matter what I did or how hard I fought.
I’m not sure where that came from. I’m not a pessimistic person. Not at all.
Anyway, I said all that to say this:
When you get an opportunity you never thought you’d have, life is pretty sweet.
My instinct now is to hit the ground running – to try and make up for all the time that was wasted as our file sat on a desk in the state office for over a year.
My idea was to put together a few folders about us. They would include a letter of introduction, the form listing the characteristics we’re looking for in a child who we feel would be a good match for us, a few of our scrapbook pages that show photos of us and our life together here on the farm.
I would then contact our friends in the local foster/adoptive community (meaning in our third of the state) to see if they’d be willing to pass them along to the social workers they know who might be placing children in the future.
I contacted C, who works for D*C*F*S and who has been a tremendous resource for us in this process. She nixed the idea for a few reasons. First, SW’s are very busy and have a tremendous amount of paperwork coming across their desks every day. My folder would likely end up in the garbage. Secondly, because no one has ever done this, the workers wouldn’t have a method in place to file and keep track of such a request.
I contacted C, who works for D*C*F*S and who has been a tremendous resource for us in this process. She nixed the idea for a few reasons. First, SW’s are very busy and have a tremendous amount of paperwork coming across their desks every day. My folder would likely end up in the garbage. Secondly, because no one has ever done this, the workers wouldn’t have a method in place to file and keep track of such a request.
Apparently the state now has a new computer system in place that lets SW’s access prospective foster parents’ info in surrounding counties to see if they meet the needs of a child they have to place. As for adoption, if a child’s paren**tal righ**ts are terminated and they aren’t being adopted by their foster parents, their information is sent to the state for resour*ce work*ers to place them.
So, C reiterated that sending the folders was not at all necessary, but my thought is this:
Even if most of the folders end up in the trash, all it’s going to take is for one worker to keep it, or for us to pop into their heads six months from now if they have a child to place. even if they don't remember us, they would likely remember the name of our SW who is really well known in the area.
I don’t know.
Maybe it’s my strong desire to be DOING SOMETHING that has me thinking this is a good idea. So once again, I turn to those of you with experience in this area to share your wisdom.
What would you do?
