You might want to mark this date down in your calendar because I am hereby going to say something extremely positive about our personal experiences with the foster/adopt system of my state.
Ahem.
I love our caseworker. Love. Her.
She taught our foster/adopt classes way back when and is the one who arranged for us to go from Horrible Rotten County’s D*C*F*S back to her county, where they actually seem to do things like “communicate” and “follow up” and “do their jobs”. Imagine that.
She visited a couple of weeks ago to meet with us and do her every-six-months check of our home. O wasn’t able to be there but J and I sat and visited and laughed and had a grand old time. I think if we weren’t “case*worker” and “adoptive parent”, we’d have been dear friends. So needless to say, I feel like I can really talk to her and that I can trust her to give me her best advice and to do what she says she’s going to do. That just plain makes me happy.
Basically, we are at the very top of her list for an adoptive placement.
We talked about whether O & I really wanted to foster at this point, and I told her I was really torn about it. Several of my friends have recently had foster children removed from their homes to return to biological family. O’s cousin and his wife are losing their foster son (less than a year old) tomorrow; a child they picked up in the hospital as a newborn with multiple broken bones; a child they love and wanted to adopt. The word “devastation” doesn’t even begin to touch their pain, even though they knew it was a possibility he would be leaving at some point. We just can’t say that we’re ready to sign up for that.
We also don’t want to miss out on an adoptive opportunity and a child who could stay “forever” because our places are filled by a child we are fostering.
Ahem.
I love our caseworker. Love. Her.
She taught our foster/adopt classes way back when and is the one who arranged for us to go from Horrible Rotten County’s D*C*F*S back to her county, where they actually seem to do things like “communicate” and “follow up” and “do their jobs”. Imagine that.
She visited a couple of weeks ago to meet with us and do her every-six-months check of our home. O wasn’t able to be there but J and I sat and visited and laughed and had a grand old time. I think if we weren’t “case*worker” and “adoptive parent”, we’d have been dear friends. So needless to say, I feel like I can really talk to her and that I can trust her to give me her best advice and to do what she says she’s going to do. That just plain makes me happy.
Basically, we are at the very top of her list for an adoptive placement.
We talked about whether O & I really wanted to foster at this point, and I told her I was really torn about it. Several of my friends have recently had foster children removed from their homes to return to biological family. O’s cousin and his wife are losing their foster son (less than a year old) tomorrow; a child they picked up in the hospital as a newborn with multiple broken bones; a child they love and wanted to adopt. The word “devastation” doesn’t even begin to touch their pain, even though they knew it was a possibility he would be leaving at some point. We just can’t say that we’re ready to sign up for that.
We also don’t want to miss out on an adoptive opportunity and a child who could stay “forever” because our places are filled by a child we are fostering.
And of course, we wouldn’t want to remove a foster child who is happily bonded to us because there is an adoptive placement available.
As J said, we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I don’t know that I ever gave her a final answer on what we want to do, but she knows that for now, we are leaning away from it in hopes that an adoptive placement will come along soon.
And it appears that that might be a possibility.
There is one situation that O and I are ridiculously excited about. I’m not going to say much about it right now, as there’s a ways to go before anything could happen, but J is on the case and is keeping us informed as things progress.
There’s another situation with children we are familiar with that may or may not become an adoptive placement. Lots of questions would need to be answered before we’d feel comfortable saying “yea” or “nay”, but again, a possibility.
The out-of-state baby has another court date mid-November so maybe we’ll have some idea of what direction that case is taking. We’re still hopeful that that situation might work out.
At least we’ve got some irons in the fire.
I was interested to hear that our old worker, Mia, may no longer be with Horrible Rotten County any longer – that she had perhaps been let go. I was thrilled to hear it, not in a vengeful way, but because I’ve always felt that if she was so blatantly dropping the ball with us, what in the world was happening with the kids she was supposed to be taking care of?!?! Okay, maybe there was a bit of glee at the thought of her finally being held accountable for the less-than-half-assed approach she seemed to take to her job. Karma. It always comes back around and bites you on the tee-hiney.
Anyway, I came away from my meeting with J ever so hopeful – moreso than I’ve been in a very long time – so hopeful that I even finished the “tree” that I wanted to do for the child’s room in our home and hung it over the bed. I like it. It makes me smile.
As J said, we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I don’t know that I ever gave her a final answer on what we want to do, but she knows that for now, we are leaning away from it in hopes that an adoptive placement will come along soon.
And it appears that that might be a possibility.
There is one situation that O and I are ridiculously excited about. I’m not going to say much about it right now, as there’s a ways to go before anything could happen, but J is on the case and is keeping us informed as things progress.
There’s another situation with children we are familiar with that may or may not become an adoptive placement. Lots of questions would need to be answered before we’d feel comfortable saying “yea” or “nay”, but again, a possibility.
The out-of-state baby has another court date mid-November so maybe we’ll have some idea of what direction that case is taking. We’re still hopeful that that situation might work out.
At least we’ve got some irons in the fire.
I was interested to hear that our old worker, Mia, may no longer be with Horrible Rotten County any longer – that she had perhaps been let go. I was thrilled to hear it, not in a vengeful way, but because I’ve always felt that if she was so blatantly dropping the ball with us, what in the world was happening with the kids she was supposed to be taking care of?!?! Okay, maybe there was a bit of glee at the thought of her finally being held accountable for the less-than-half-assed approach she seemed to take to her job. Karma. It always comes back around and bites you on the tee-hiney.
Anyway, I came away from my meeting with J ever so hopeful – moreso than I’ve been in a very long time – so hopeful that I even finished the “tree” that I wanted to do for the child’s room in our home and hung it over the bed. I like it. It makes me smile.
