It's been longer than I had intended since I last wrote anything or updated everyone on what's going on in our house...but I think we needed a couple of weeks to process everything and figure out where we were supposed to go from there. And in all honesty, I wasn't quite sure where to begin, how to adequately explain everything that had happened, and writing about it made it real and meant we had to accept it. This story is so long that I'm going to split in to more than one post...so stay tuned for additional updates.
Let me back track about a month...
The very first placement call that we got was for a sibling group of 3 kids, and we received that call before we had even become officially licensed. The kids were a little bit older than we had planned, and we had planned to only take 2 kids. However, we told the agency that we would think about it (with every intention to tell them no). The next day we received another phone call asking if we'd take a new born baby from the hospital and pick him up that day. We said yes immediately, and we waited for 2 long hours to find out if we had been approved to take him. After two of the longest hours of our lives, I received a text that another family had been chosen, but they wondered if we'd be willing to take an 8 month old baby. We were filled with a mix of disappointment about the first baby, but also with excitement for the possibility of the 8 month old. We said Yes, and then were told that we would hear an update the next day after the court hearing. Yet again, we waited. Finally, mid afternoon the next day, I received another text that we had not been chosen as the family for this second baby. Really? This is definitely not how we thought this process was going to go.
Fast forward a week and a half, and we received another call asking if we had thought any more about the sibling group. Parental rights had just been terminated and they needed to be moved into a foster to adopt home where the family would consider adopting them. We told them again that we'd think about, and we were put in touch with the case manager. We spent the next week asking and answering question after question about the kids, pouring over paperwork and information and speaking to multiple people including the case manager and current foster mom. We wanted to learn everything we possibly could about these kids before we could decide if this was the direction that we wanted to go. The case manager finally suggested that we have a trial week with the kids and see how things go. We knew there would be transition visits if we decided to take them, and this seemed like a great way to get to know them before making a final decision.
So, we rearranged furniture, bought some toys and activities to do with the kids, made plans of how to spend the days and anticipated the week ahead of us. The kids arrived, and we felt indescribable fear of "what if we don't bond with them?" and "what if we get too attached?". The first day was absolutely crazy and it felt like the whole day was spent trying to avoid disasters. However, by the second and third day we had developed a routine and gotten very comfortable. And we got so attached. Somewhere over the first few days, we forgot that we were supposed to keep ourselves distanced, and we bonded with these kids and started thinking about the future. Everything began to feel so normal, and I think we were surprised and how easy it came to go from 0 kids to 3 kids.
We prayed and we prayed and we prayed, and told the case manager that we'd make a final decision by the end of the week. However, by the end of Thursday, we knew that we wanted them. So, I called the case manager and she was so excited.We began talking through a tentative transition timeline and school plans for the fall and other little details. The case manager ended the call by saying that she needed to talk to the foster mom and see what she wanted the timeline to look like and when to set up some additional respite weekends.
Again we waited...
A week went by and we continued to wait...
We missed the kids and we were anxious to start this new phase of our lives. If we had been allowed, we would have adopted them on the spot and skipped the required 6 months of fostering. I called and emailed the case manager several times and heard nothing back. I knew that she was busy and there was a lot to talk through with multiple different people, but it was frustrating to have so much time pass without a single update. I didn't like the unknown of what was going on that we weren't being told about.
Then finally after almost 2 weeks of no word, we received an email that completely changed everything...
Eee on pins and needles!!! Can't wait to hear the next update
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