Turns out to be rather anticlimactic. There are no revealing secrets about us. No confessions told by my darling husband or friends who vouched for us. Just a bare bones (actually kind of dull) read portraying a forty something couple with a teen 1/2 time child.
I guess it is like any relationship you are trying to get into - its not good to look desparate, right?
I read over the home study and thought "well yeah, I want a kid to come live with us forever and ever, but hey I have everything I need. Why mess up the staus quo?" If I was a social worker hunting for the perfect home for a child wouldn't I want to see more passion? Or does that read "crazy." Are we supposed to be objective? Stick to what ever is best for the child, regardless of our personal feelings?
How many objective mama's do we have out there? Let's see some hands . . .
Really? don't even try to tell me you don't go all "Mama Bear" if someone tries to get between you and your baby!! So how are we supposed to form a family with this new child and stay open to the idea that the child might have to go back to birth parents who hurt them in the first place?
If that's not crazy talk then I don't know what is. People are in this process everyday - I guess I will have to trust the unknown and our ability to deal with it.
So officially we could get a kid in our house any day now - or it could be months from now. Stay tuned.
2 comments:
Coming over from your comment on my blog. Enjoying reading yours, but not completely filled in yet. Are you able to specify a level of legal risk that you're comfortable with? Like for you, the hardest part for me was the idea of losing a child back to the birth family that hurt them. However, after attending a legal risk workshop at an adoption conference, I felt a bit better about the chances of a child staying with us in the end. In my state, once a child's goal is changed to adoption it's exceedingly rare that TPR isn't granted. It happens, but is unlikely. One of the women to whom it happened gave me a list of questions to ask to get a sense of where a case was heading. She lost one son back to his family, but later ended up adopting another little boy. Her first son is on the radar again and likely to come back into care.
I know not all states have preadoptive placements like mine; placements for which the goal is adoption. Does yours?
Either way, I hope that crib is filled soon.
Hello Karen,
Yes our state does "concurrent planning," to find a forever home home children unlikely to reunify. So yes there is risk, and our agency has a very low return rate. We also choose our agency because they only do adoption, they do not have a division for foster care only.
I am actually a public health nurse and I work for the county I live in. My job is to assist social workers with the health issues of the children they have in foster care. So I have seen too much! I am not eligible to adopt from the county I work for, but our agency works with all of the counties in the region and the state, so hopefully something will come along soon.
I would like to see the list of questions to ask.
Next week we are going to a "mixer" for placement SWs to meet available families. Should be interesting and akward!
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