Our Fostering Journey

What is Respite? Respite is an option used in foster care to give foster parents a needed break from the challenges of parenting a child they didn't birth. Foster parenting can be even more demanding than traditional paren- ting depending on the child's behaviors and needs. It can take not only a physical and emotional toll but also a spiritual toll. In foster care when we want to utilize that option we simply make a call to our agency contact give them the dates needed and they arrange for another foster parent to have the child during that time. We personally have taken respite calls from as far away as 3 hours. It also provides an opportunity for spouses to reconnect and spend time with each and keep their marriage strong. Using respite is a great tool and should be utilized however, when it used to punish the child that is where I disagree. We have taken in children for multiple reasons and a common one is where the foster parent is mad at them for some behavior or action a...

  ---Warning----Long Post----You May Cry---- First, I apologize in advance for any spelling errors or grammar mistakes but I am sure you will understand the spirit and intent of this post.  Really it is a therapy letter for myself and you are invited on this journey with me. Our intention was never to become so attached to a child that we would feel the emotional grief others had warned us about when beginning this journey unless it was OUR CHILD (meaning they were available for adoption).  How naïve, I know.  I had thought I had safeguards in place to protect against that.  But I failed to acknowledge the possibility of what we just went through over the last couple of weeks. The safeguards we had placed were that since we began this journey with the intention to adopt we were only looking at those kiddos that would be placed in our care that would not be returning home to their birth parents, meaning they were in full state guardianship.  However, to get ...

 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...