Our Fostering Journey

  Tuesday, August 18th Today I was checking in with our agency concerning the kiddo we decided that we wanted to move forward with to see what the next steps were.  Everything about this is new and trying to navigate unchartered waters.  Quite often, you feel a little lost because you don't recognize the path and with every motion or rocking of the boat you question if it is normal or something to be alarmed about. A few hours later I got an email asking what days and times would be good for my wife and to have a conference call with the kiddo's care team for the following week to do a "FULL DISCLOSURE".  Well, that really made me nervous because I am now thinking, how much more does this kid have in his history and trauma?  Is he going to be more than we can handle?  Will we be the right fit for him? She said we need to set aside about 2 hours of our time for the call.  I am thinking, we spent just a little over an hour already getting information on ...

 Thursday, August 13, 2020 I woke up this morning with an intuitive feeling.  Now, I don't always speak about my intuition or my family's intuitive "power" but sometimes you just can't ignore it.  My VERY FIRST thought was of our future foster son.   I had a deep feeling that today, we were going to receive a call.  Now, that call could be for the "one", our forever kid, or could be for a temporary placement.  Either way, I didn't know.  I kept this feeling to myself until it happened. First, it was a message saying that we were officially approved by DCS as being certified and that our home was now "Open". Next was the message the agency was actively searching for a kiddo for our family.  A couple of hours later we got word. It was a message to check out a profile on www.adoptuskids.org.  So I checked it out and watched the video while I was waiting for my lunch order.  I thought, "Okay, we will see if this kid seems like a good fi...

  Friday, August 21 We began preparing for our first kiddo, Mr. D, the day before.  I had changed bed sheets and linens and put a few snacks in his room along a with note of how excited we were to have him and to make himself at home.  There were a few thing I wasn't sure about like, if would need help with homework for the weekend or not, as well as if we need to stock some toiletry items for him.  Also, wouldn't you know it, before he arrived the A/C froze up.  So, we are going to have to suffer through the weekend without A/C. It seems, every time we have guests the A/C goes out!!  Adding it to the repair list and moving on.  It is what it is. Now the question of what will we do this weekend comes up.  I figured we would just got with the flow and kind of let him dictate it, whether we just chill and hang out or if we will be active.  Trying not to force anything on him or pushing him do things, even though we would be excited to do all ki...

  Wednesday, August 19 Typically we get a phone call for a placement but this time I got a text message.  I get a lot of text messages throughout the day.  Mostly notifications, some spam, and of course, some actually communication with a real human. After a little bit I remembered I had a message that I hadn't looked at.  I would have looked at it immediately but I didn't recognize the number so I just thought is was either spam or a notification.  When I checked it, it was a very brief message. My thought was, "well, this could be a good thing because it will help us have a little bit of experience" and "we don't really have anything else going on this weekend, so why not?".  With that, I picked up the phone and called her to find out more information. The conversation was just as brief as the text message.  Probably no more then about 5-10 minutes.  But, before I called the agency back, I called the wife.  Then I reached out to her and fou...

Monday, August 10th As I am writing this I am resting on the couch fresh from a dental procedure which ended up being a little bit more of morning adventure because the car battery died while I was in the office.  It became a huge ordeal to get a jump start since I didn't carry my cables in that particular vehicle. I actually keep them in my wife's car as she is the one most likely to need them. The lesson I learned is to buy a set for every car. We finally got that situation resolved.  My worry was that the Novocaine would wear off before I could get my pain medication filled. While at the pharmacy getting medicine filled we got the call. It seems every time I have a dental appointment that's when it happens and it is difficult to talk or ask questions. Maybe God doesn't want me to talk, just listen. Well we proceeded to listen about this kiddo who is more in our age range than last time and the situation or circumstance that has lead to this call. It is now in our whe...

Surprise!  We got our first call!  I was laying in bed because I have been dealing with a VERY ANGRY tooth the last couple of days and just came back from the dentist with some prescriptions to ease the pain and was finally able to sleep or nap because I didn't sleep at all the night before when the phone rang.  Well, actually, I didn't answer the phone the first time because I was knocked out.  But when I came to I check the call log and saw a number I didn't recognize but they left a voicemail. It was our foster agency with a placement.  I sat there and was like, okay, this is happening.  Are we ready? This is what we were waiting for.  My wife was out doing some shopping at the time and so she wasn't there when I called back.  I was a little nervous but I hit the redial button and off we went.  The agency began describing this little boy.  She prefaced by saying, "We know he is a little younger than you prefer but we thought of you gu...

After we made our initial interest known it began the ball rolling.  I will say that it can be pretty intense and time consuming between attending the training sessions as well as the required paperwork, biographies, interviews, and background checks.  Youth Villages was very good and breaking things down for us, otherwise, it would be just overwhelming and I think most people would just quit before ever getting started if they knew the full extent of getting "certified".  The paperwork alone would stop anyone. There were several training sessions we had to attend through DCS and then we had some additional sessions hosted by Youth Villages.  Each session was approximately 3-4 hours.  Because of COVID we had to do all this through web conferencing.  Attendance is taken each time and if you miss a session you are required to make it up.  Considering they only offer these sessions periodically that means it could push you timeline WAY back to getting cer...

Well, this is kind of hard to answer.  Believe it or not this is one of the first questions asked when you are applying to become a foster parent.  Everyone's story can be unique.  For some it is because they are unable to have kids of their own.  For others it could be that they have already been parents to "bio-kids" (their own biollogical kids) and now may have empty nest syndrome and still have plenty of love to give.  Or perhaps they are current parents with kids still living at home and want to have a bigger family or they of course have room to spare in their homes and in their hearts. For us, well, it is the first one.  My wife has a genetic disease that runs in her family and we chose early on that we didn't want to pass that disease one to a child.  The odds were 50/50 but I don't know if it would be ethical to do so with the odds.  For some people they chose to have kids anyways and let God decide and I get that act of faith too.  ...

With all the training, classes, and paperwork now complete we begin the waiting process.  The waiting for our first placement.  Our hope is that it will be our one and only placement.  We are looking for a boy that is available for adoption menaing that parental rights have been terminated.  One that is looking for a forever family as we are looking for a forever son. Our preferences were for a a boy age 12 and up.  Although we may consider a little younger depending on the circumstances.  By choosing this age it puts us in a position where TPR is most likely.  If reunification occurs while they are in the system it is typical for it to happen while younger age.  Most foster/adoptive parents are looking for young kids or even babies and shy away from the older/teens.  It is unfortunate but the teens know that and the reality of being adopted or finding a home is less likely.  Really quite sad.   Kristi and I's experience match ...