Went to adoption orientation meeting today

What an emotional exhausting couple of hours! Here is the deal:

We take classes (21 hours) together. During those classes, you start 'the process' (fingerprints, home study, etc). You are never obligated to anything by doing that. After you take the classes and are approved, you officially become a foster parent. What kind of foster parent is up to you. Some are respite care, some are emergency, some are long term, some never foster but only adopt (the route we would take). Children 0-6 (white) almost never come up for adoption. The foster family almost always takes them when they are available. It does happen, but rarely. Some cases, these kids were given to permanent foster care homes (home that will always be foster...never going into it to adopt). No time frame for a 2-6 year old child could be given. It's the luck of the draw. When a child becomes available, they put the stats into a computer system and names are pulled up that match that child. They go down the list and call people. If you aren't home, they go to the next name (note to self, put my cell as my primary phone number).

The wait time on this could be years...could be hours. Nobody has a way of knowing. One thing they did say was that I need to learn now to say NO. They will call with all ages of kids, all races, etc. If I'm not comfortable with it for any reason, I say no...no matter what story I have been given. He (social worker) said they do it all the time...call every number they have trying to find placement...even the only adopt 2-6 people get the 16 year old boy calls.

What Todd and I decided...we will NEVER foster to adopt. I can't handle it. I would die if a child I had grown to love went back to a junkie (no matter how 'rehabilitated' they seem) or abuser. We will go through the classes and start the process immediately. It will probably take a while to get through them with Todd's schedule. Todd said that with going through the state, he would be ok with getting a child before our bills are completely paid. We aren't going to have to shell out $40k for an international adoption this way so he is ok with us financially doing what we are doing now (continuing to pay off bills) and getting another child. That way, we can get on a waiting list sooner rather than later. We would also be ok with getting a sibling group (2 kids only) rather than just one. More often that not, a child has a sibling when they enter into foster care.

We also talked to the social worker about moving within the area in the middle of the process...or waiting...in order to get a bigger house. The SW kind of chuckled and said "well, we are all for you getting a larger home..more rooms for us" (said kinda jokingly..lol) But all in all, he said that was no problem. We may have to do the home study again, but it was no big deal. We did tell him we are remodeling and it shows. He said as long as everything was safe, that wasn't' a problem. I see no health problem with no baseboards, it's just ugly..lol

So...in a nutshell..we start our classes in a month or so and hopefully get put on a waiting list in 6 months to a year. Then comes the waiting..and trying to get into a bigger place.


Oh yeah...$$$ They pay for the adoption and all of the costs involved. At the end, you may have a fee of $750 but not more than that. If you take a special needs child (meaning, african american, sibling group, older than 7, etc...not necessarily a sick child), that fee is waived and you are paid a monthly fee (up to $500 per child) and medical care is given until that child is 18 years old...even though you have adopted said child/children.