Homecoming

Just an update: My husband and I are licensed foster parents hoping to adopt a child under three. Everyone told us that it would be very unlikely that we could adopt a reasonably healthy child under three directly from the state of Pennsylvania. We were waiting to foster a child with the hopes of adopting but recent changes with the Department of Human Services have reduced the number of infants being placed into foster care. We got a call in June about a potential placement with a two-year-old boy who had been in foster care for 15 months and his parental rights were recently terminated. We have spent all of July meeting our new son and transitioning him into our home.
Long story, short, our two-year-old son is coming home tomorrow! It has been a chllenging month going from one child to two. Our three-year-old son has had to learn how to share and there have been some tears and tantrums (from kids and parents alike). But we are definitely getting used to each other and becoming a family. I will keep you all posted on how the next six months go before me move towards finalization.

Wow!

We have been placed with our second child. Instead of a private adoption we went through foster care. It has been a hard process but very worth it. Jamir is a ridculously cute biracial two-year-old boy. He has been in foster care for 15 months.
Our first visit to meet with Jaymir was today. Wouldn't you know it! our camera malfunctioned and we could only take one good shot of Jaymir (aka Jay Jay). Isn't he a cutie? The first visit went very well. Kevin played trains with Jay Jay on the floor and I got a lot of care and feeding tips from his foster mother. On Thursday, we will bring Quincy to meet his baby brother. I am expecting fireworks but I think they will eventually get along well. Hopefully we will be able to bring Jay Jay home by the end of July.

So much has happened, so little has happened

Good news, bad news! Good news! We found out that the little boy from an abusive family we so desperately wanted to foster to adopt is being reunified with his family. Bad news! That really is the good news! More bad news, our agency says that DHS is not longer removing young children from neglectful homes so our agency has not gotten a placement of a child under five since January. They are pushing us towards domestic adoption, which is a great option even though it costs 1/4 of our annual income before the legal fees.
I have been reviewing the adoption photolisting of waiting children in other states. The NJ Department of Human Services told us to come back in 6 years when our kid is 9 and we can adopt an older child. (More good news!) I have contacted another agency, which works with counties outside of Philadelphia. So maybe we may have to switch. Maybe we will have a better chance to foster to adopt during the summer. The only thing I am sure of is that I am very, very sad. It was all I could do to keep from crying when I was talking to the new agency.

The waiting continues

I have started reading my Son Q stories about being a big brother a few months ago. I read him thse books off and on. Lately he has been requesting the big brother book. I know this is just a ploy from Q to lengthen his bedtime routine and if I would read the Altoona Yellow Pages Q would be down with that too.
Still as I read Q the sing-song verses of the big brother book a part of me hopes that a part of him is warming to the idea of having a sibling.

Out of the Blue

This April, I spent a few days with my mom and my step-dad. The last time I saw Ed he had been in a drug-induced coma. It was good to see him up and moving around. But it was hard to see him weak and so thin. Coming home from my trip, I was emotionally exhausted.

Out of the blue, I get a call from our old adoption agency. The agency had a birthmother who was due in a few days and they were looking for prospective adoptive parents. The birthmother is a heavy cocaine user, over 40, and had no pre-natal care. That night Kevin and I wrestled over whether we should go back to domestic adoption or stay with the foster care system. We decided to stay with the foster care system because we did not know what type of medical treatment the infant may need. I have been waiting so long for a second child, it felt horrible to say no.

That very afternoon, my social worker called me about that 18-month-old toddler. Now it looks like the reunification process will not go through. The little boy has special needs, a lot of special needs, but he is doing well. The little boy's next court date is in a month. This is still all up in the air, but I have hope.

Right now I have a terrible head cold, Quincy has entered the wonderful, obnoxious stage where he is a brat for every waking moment, Kevin is blissfully oblivious, and I am filled with emotion. So much is in my heart and on my mind, I am vibrating. I think I will go knit a sweater.

From the Outside Looking in

Right now, I am freezing. Q has yet again given me a cold so I am shivering, my muscles hurt, and my throat feels raw. Q passed this wonderful cold to me last Sunday when we went to a friend's house for dinner. I should have known Q was sick because he was quiet and very well behaved. My friend has two kids under four. Whenever I visit families with multiple kids I always judge if I will be a good mother for more than one kids.
From the outside looking in, having multiple kids seems terrible. They seem to be always kicking each other or one is crying while the other is laughing maniacally. Last Saturday, we went to a botancial garden with another friend and her two children. We had a lovely day together but I could see how exhausted she was by the end of the day.
I have finished reading Toddler Adoption and scour the Internet for tips on adopting a older child. But no one can talk me through what it will be like to juggle two kids. Lately, I have been looking at a pair of adorable two-year-old twins on the SWAN website. Three kids! Kevin asked if I was crazy, but I caught him looking at the twins' picture, too.
Everyday I wait for the call from the social worker so we can begin this next journey. Every time the phone rings I wonder will this be the call. I so want that call, but I am also terrified by the thought of multiple kids in my house, all trying to drive me crazy.

This Child

There are three types of plans in foster care, reunification, concurrent, and preadoptive. Reunification plan means that all efforts will be used to improve and support the birth family and the child will be returned to his birth family. Preadoptive planning means parental rights will be terminated because of neglect or abuse and the agency will focus on finding an adoptive family for the child. Concurrent planning means strangely the agency has to do both reunification and preadoptive at the same time. Four weeks ago, our social worker encouraged us to get all of our outstanding paperwork in because an 18-month-old African American boy had come on to her service. The boy had been severely abused and he had been through so much that she really wanted to find a forever family for him. Fast forward to yesterday, our social worker left a message again about this same boy. He needed to be moved from his current foster home (his fourth foster home) and our social worker had Kevin's federal fingerprint clearance form in her hands and all she needed was mine so that we could be placed with this child. I left her a hurried, excited message. I spent the rest of afternoon on pins and needles. Writing my parenting column distractedly, answering stupid emails stupidly. A few hours later the social worker called back. She was dejected. The social worker had been sure that the child's judge would have ordered that a preadoptive plan be implemented due to the severity of the child's injuries, instead the new judge was "family-friendly" and ordered a reunification plan. The social worker apologized for getting our hopes up. We discovered that my fingerprint clearance form had been in her office all along, simply misfiled. She apologized again and rang off. That was it.

It would have been worse if my form had been found earlier and we had had the little boy in our home for a week only to lose him. Maybe God willing (parent willing, really) the reunification will work out and this little boy will be okay.

I hope.

I grieve.

I hope.

Crying over my new Ipod Nano

My ipod mini finally went the way of all flesh and after much deliberation I settled on a new nano. Settled is the perfect word because I really had my heart set on a Creative Zen but they did not sell the 8 gb Creative Zen at Target and I chickened out over losing my music library on iTunes. Kevin was convinced we could have burned them all to discs, but he was also convinced we could grow tomatoes in the backyard and we all know what a wilted yellow stem fiasco that turned into.
So long story short, my new nano arrived today. The mailman left it on the front step in the rain, but it was fine. Or at least I thought so. Plug and play, my ass! I spent two hours trying to get my computer to recognize my device (two hours of restoring and resetting and re-everythinging) before it finally dawned on me that my new USB cable must be damaged and the new nano was barely charged after over two hours.

I am distraught and angry. I am legitimately angry at Apple for delivering a cool looking but obnoxious device with a cumbersome, murky, and remarkably unhelpful online help section. I mean Steve Jobs has 2 gazillions dollars and he cannot spring for a decent frequently asked questions section. Come on! But as I ascend from the five rings of hell that comprise the 5 R's of Apple help section and charge my pathetic, but still cool looking nano on my spare AC adaptor I realize I am not this upset about my ipod. I am upset because I went to the OB/GYN yesterday and he thinks my crippling period pain is a symptom of endometriosis. It is a sad day when you find yourself rooting for a diagnosis of uterine tumors. You see, the treatment for tumors is surgical embolization, but the treatment for endometriosis is simply going back to birth control pills. Now intellectually I know I have about as much chance of getting pregnant as I have of growing hair on a bowling ball, but going back on the pill ( or in this case the NuvoRing) is the final nail in my fertility coffin.

I should be fine with it. I know with my scar tissue and advanced maternal age my baby-making years are gone. And the monthly pain has become devastating. Yet just looking at the Ring package makes me cry. I tried explaining it to my husband but he doesn't get it. For him this is all ancient history and for me it is all painful present. Luckily, I have k.d. lang and some cheap white wine.

I also know the waterworks are a sign my period is around the corner. Tears, moodiness, and that tell-tale pimple on my forehead are all harbingers. Soon I will take my first dose of the Ring and hopefully not spend the next week doubled over in pain. At least not physical pain.

Gettting Off the Sofa

This has been one of those days where I want to spend curled up in a blanket on the sofa all day. My stepfather Ed is still in the ICU. I tell myself that he is going to be okay and get better. I tell myself that whatever happens will be for the best because I hate to see him in pain. But mostly I just try to be there for my mom and take care of myself.

Trainer Babies and the Chosen Few

We are down to the last few steps of being licensed foster parents. We only need our two remaining references to be completed and to find a flipping FBI-approved site for our fingerprinting. I just read a report that said nearly a quarter of a million people contact the foster system each year to inquire about adoption but only about 8% make it through the homestudy process. I feel like a mighty warrior, one of the chosen few.



In addition to listening to the Rocky Theme in my head as I lumber up the foster care staircase, I have been babysitting my four-month-old nephew. He is adorable and ridiculously fat and looks a lot like I did when I was an infant chunker. It is giving me a chance to practice handling two kids under three at the same time. I have to say it sucks. Babies are heavy and floppy and Quincy insists he is the baby.



Today my back is aching from carrying Aiden in the carseat and my head is pounding from Q's many "I'm the baby" meltdowns. Still tonight I gave my nephew a bath in the kitchen sink with Kevin's help while Quincy watched ardently. So yeah juggling two kids is hard, but it is also really, really special.

I can't wait.

Ketchup and Mayo

Our parenting class for Jewish Family and Children's Services was held on Jan. 12th. It was quite an experience. I knew that the class would not actually cover anything that has anything to do with day-to-day parenting. Real parenting covers how to get your kid to eat something other than candy canes and McNuggets. This class covers basic first aid, which is nice but not detailed enough to be really useful, and how to recognize grief and depression in children, and what to do if your baby turns out to be psycho. The class information was not that helpful for me because I have been researching adoption and foster care related issues for a while now so it was mostly old news.
What was really illuminating was to listen to the social workers and recognize how helpful they would not be once we became foster parents. What I learned was that I was willingly entering a Kafka-inspired bureaucratic nightmare where I would be expected to conform to set requirements even if they are beyond logic and reason, even if they are completely impractical, impossible, and possibly dangerous.
Case in point: Medical insurance. All foster children have medical insurance, not state insurance that is accepted by everyone, but Health Partners, which is basically garbage and accepted by hardly anyone. I asked, "Wouldn't it make more sense for me to use my personal insurance to cover my foster child so I could take him to my local doctor versus trying to drive out of my way to find a doctor who takes Health Partners?"
Social Worker: Yes, but we don't do it that way.
Me: What if I can get to a Health Partners doctor?
SW: Well there is always the emergency room.
Me: But infants have a lot of appointments and they get sick all the time. How can I take care of my foster child and my other child and still work if I am drive all over town, trying to find a Health Partners doctor, or sitting for 18 hours in an ER?
SW: That is certainly something for you to consider.
So I guess I did learn a lot from our class. Kevin listened attentively during the class and at one point I asked what did he think of this convoluted quagmire we were about to enter.
He looked up from his notes, which turned out to be random, rude comments and sang "Ketchup and Mayo" the refrain from the McNuggets commercial.
God, I love my husband.

Good news, bad news

Good news, my friends have agreed to write our refences for the foster care agency. It is so sweet to think there are are people out ther writing nice things about me and Kevin and our wonderful parenting skills.

Bad news, Quincy the shining example of our wonderful parenting skills is still refusing to sleep. He spent much of the night getting out of bed and protesting. When he cries it just tears my heart out. But I know if he sleeps in our bed no one sleeps.

Good news, our parenting classes start January 12th! That is right around the corner and I am so excited.

Bad news, I have terrible cramps that are defying all painkillers known to man and I cannot fall asleep myself I have to interview a HVAC contractor first thing in the morning and make some ridiculous, fantasy, I don't know what I am doing budget for one of my volunteer groups.

Good news, bad news, exhausted news. I am going to try to sleep.