Here We Go Again...

   Our temporary placement that I mentioned in my last post was supposed to last for three days.  At first it seemed that the agencies involved wanted the existing foster home to reconsider, but when that wasn't possible, they frittered around long enough to make us wonder if they were trying to persuade us to take her permanently.  For a variety of reasons, that just wasn't possible.  They did finally find a more permanent solution but only after they were closing in on three weeks (instead of three days) and only after my wife made it very clear that our schedule made it impossible for us to keep her any longer.

   Then a little more than a week ago, we heard that another placement was possible and asked if we might be interested.  This time a school aged boy a bit younger than our kids.  We didn't get a lot of information at first because he was not a part of our agency but to one of the local county agencies.  As we learned more about his background we became more willing to consider it and so, starting with a one-day "trial", last week we began a new long-term placement.  Things are going reasonably well so far, but that is not to say that there has not been some friction.  Another person in the house changes many things and not all of us deal with change in the same way.  There are loner lines for the bathroom in the morning, our schedules are different, there is one more person for whom to organize care, doctor visits, prescriptions, etc.  I am certain that his stress is spiking as well as he moves to a new foster home and a new school and tries to learn new rules and adapt to new family customs and values.  All in all, none of this was unexpected but, at the same time, is a source of stress for many family members.  For this to happen in the middle of the Christmas season hasn't made things any easier.  I hope (and I believe) that things will settle down in a few weeks as we grow accustomed to one another and to our new routines.

First (Temporary) Placement

    It’s been too long (again) since I posted an update here.  For the last few weeks we have just been plain busy.  Patti has been preparing for, and then actually being a part of, a weekend of Kairos prison ministry at the Northeast Pre-Release Center, a women’s prison in Cleveland and, as always, there is a lot going on at church.  During this time, we also continued to work on our Aunt’s house and have moved some of her furniture to our house.  Moving furniture, particularly beds and dressers is the biggest part of what we had left on our “to do” list before we felt ready to accept a placement.

    

    A few weeks ago, we discovered that we were ready before we knew we were ready.  Knowing that we were very close, one of the folks from Guidestone called us and asked if we would consider taking in two boys from a neighboring county.  We agreed to talk about it, but at our next training meeting a few days later we discovered that as soon as we had said we were willing to talk, they had submitted our file to the county for consideration.  Nothing ever really came of it, but we realized that we were ready.  

    Then last week it happened.  A Guidestone foster parent had some trouble with a high school aged girl that had been living with her.  We knew them both and they knew us so, at least in the short term, Guidestone asked if she could come to our home for a few days of respite care while they searched for a new, more permanent, placement.  We said yes.  The girl was supposed to stay with us for just two or three days but we are already approaching a week.  Everything has gone fairly well so far.  The worst part for us has been that her schedule is dramatically different than ours of our children’s so it has been something of a challenge for one of us to be around when she is home.  Today she is meeting with her county social worker so things may change but we don’t yet know what will happen or when.

    I suppose this means we should also finish up that last bit of paperwork too…

Now it's Our Fault

Well, now the shoe is on the other foot.

    For months we were waiting for paperwork to wind its way through the halls of bureaucracy somewhere, but, as I noted a few weeks ago, we finally had the official piece of paper.  Now, we have had a couple email exchanges and a phone call with folks at our agency, Guidestone, who want us to meet and discuss what sorts of children we are able to parent, as in what sorts of disabilities we can cope with, and so on.  the problem at the moment is not the agency, or the county or the state.  It's us.  We knew that we were almost ready months ago but then we inherited a house full of furniture from our aunt and we've spent nearly every weekend there, cleaning and repairing things. 

    Part of our being "almost ready" has been that we had room for new kids but not necessarily beds.  Since each of our kids had their own room (this is the first house we've lived in where they could do that), our plan was to add one more bed to each room.  To do that we needed to buy a new mattress for our bunk beds but we needed one more bed as well.  Since we inherited our aunt's furniture we thought it would be a shame to sell off her nice beds and keep some of the cheap beds we bought when out kids were younger.  That meant cleaning at Aunt Gladys' house had to reach a point where we could get beds out of her house and moved to ours.  As of this week we're nearly there.  One bed was moved a couple weeks ago and a second one moved this past weekend.  Now we need a new mattress for the new bed and the bunk bed and we're almost there (our children have some major room cleaning to do, so we will have to find ways to, um, motivate them properly).  After that, the only thing left is for us to fill out one more form (the one where we sort out what we can cope with) and we're there.

We originally thought that we'd get this all done in time for the new school year to start, but obviously,  we were a little overly optimistic.

The other weird part is that we still haven't managed to tell our parents about all this.  We might just end up breaking it to them when we introduce our new (foster) children to them. 

That could be interesting.

Still waiting, but...

    Well, there isn't much to report except that a few weeks back we finally got a piece of paper that said we had finally received our license as a therapeutic foster home. Beyond that, nothing has happened.  On the other hand, we told the folks at Guidestone that we would not be able to accept a placement during the summer while our family was traveling for vacation, church camps, and other activities.  As of now, with the start of marching band season and cross country season, we are still running but are now staying pretty close to home.  I let our liaison at Guidestone know that we were home, but maybe it just hasn't sunk in yet.  In any case, we're still waiting.

There's a finish line around here somewhere... I think.

    Well, last week we finally heard that our license had finally transferred from Belmont County to out new agency, Guidestone.  We still don't really know for sure if our license 'upgrade' from 'foster home' to 'therapeutic foster home' has been accomplished or not.  I really need to ask our contact at the agency again when we see her.

   You would think that we would be more insistent that this get squared away but right now our summer schedule is booked solid.  We've thought about getting a new dog and have put that off until fall (at least) and there is really no way that we could squeeze in plans for an extra family member at this point.  Our hope now is to get all the paperwork completed, T's crossed and I's dotted, over the summer so that we will be ready to accept a placement in late summer or fall.

    Meanwhile, I've begun to occasionally look at the children (and their biographies) on AdoptUSKids.org again.  It breaks my heart to see all these kids without parents.  Sometimes you just want to take them all but there are just so many...

    One more thing, two weeks ago we attended some additional foster parent training that was put on by the Cuyahoga County department of Children's Services.  While there we attended a session that was taught by Detective Bobby Grizzard.  It was excellent and frightening at the same time.  I am hoping to have Detective Grizzard do similar presentation at our church, both for the community and for our youth.  You can find my thoughts on his presentation here: Sexual Predators: the Hunters and the Hunted.

Everything is Done... Except the Waiting.

   We got word on Wednesday of last week that our agency had finally made contact with the last of our references and all the paperwork was then forwarded upstream.  What that means for us I'm not exactly sure.  Does that mean that our file has not yet been sent to, and reviewed by, the folks in Columbus who will, ultimately, have to issue our new foster home license?  Is Columbus already done and now we are only waiting on our agency to dot the "i"'s and cross the "t"'s?  Does that mean we will have our license this month or a month from now?  Honestly, I am utterly clueless.  All I know is that we will continue waiting.

   When we finally decided that the time was right to begin the process of another adoption from foster care, we knew that it would require classes and training, a new homestudy and all that goes with it.  We've been down that road before and much of it is familiar territory.  The weird part of this was, and is, how messed up the whole thing became when we found out we were moving.  Don't get me wrong, this had been a great move for us.  We love where we are, the church where I serve, the school that our kids attend, and the people that we live and work with.  We just never expected that transferring our homestudy to a new house (which is what we thought was going to happen) would take as long as it has.  Here we are, eight months later, and we still don't even have our license, let alone a placement.  Heck, without the license, we can't even be too serious about looking through the listings on AdoptUSkids.org. 

    I'm not blaming anyone.  It wasn't any one person's (or agency's) fault.  I know that the delays are an accumulation of choices that we made, as well as the choices of our new county and our new agency.  Moving delayed things.  Deciding we didn't like the county agency in out new residence delayed things.  Moving to a new agency and upgrading our license delayed things.  And on top of that, we lived through the loss of our Aunt Gladys who, generously, left us an inheritance.  Her gift to us is a fabulous blessing (of that I have no doubt) but the time we have needed, and will need for the next several months, to handle her estate, home and belongings, makes it somewhere between difficult and impossible to accept a placement right now, even if one were available.

We're hoping that life will calm down toward the end of summer and we will be ready for a placement.  Will one be available?  Will our agency need us to do respite care for someone amidst the chaos that is our summer?  Will a placement be available when we're finally ready?  To these questions, and others, my only answer is, "Who knows?"  In truth, we will do as we have always done.  We will continue to lean on, and trust, the wisdom and love that God has for us.  It's our lives, but it's his plan.

Meanwhile... we wait.

One Year and Counting

    Looking back at this blog I realized that we started our pre-service classes in February or March of 2012, which means that we've been chasing this rabbit for over a year now.  I guess technically, we were done at the end of last June but then everything got interrupted when we moved from Belmont County to Stark County.  At the moment, as far as i know, everything is done except that our agency, Guidestone, has been unable to contact one of our references.  I don't suppose it's the fault of anyone in particular, but just a sort of perfect storm.  First, someone waited to call our references after all of our additional required training was completed (because we are upgrading our license to a therapeutic foster home) and in doing so, managed to try to call one of them while they were out of state for a wedding and then away on vacation, then, when they returned and called back, no one answered and they left a message.  And then no one returned the message, until they were out of town again... I think.  Anyway, everyone is at home again so I hope they can quit playing phone tag and "Git 'er Done."

    In the meantime, our lives have taken a few turns as well.  Obviously, we moved and changed churches/employers last July and so unpacking and readjusting to new schools and a new community has been required, but there have been more adjustments as well.  In December, our Aunt Gladys passed away after a long battle with cancer and named Patti (my wife) as the executrix of her estate.  The legal hassles and the hours of work that this has drawn Patti into have been considerable and daunting.  We thank God regularly for good financial advice, a good attorney, and an employer that gives me a lot of flexibility.

    Since Lina will be 18 this fall, and therefore 17 years since we brought her home, we thought it was time for her to get a chance to see her homeland.  Therefore, on top of everything else, Patti and Lina are planning a heritage tour to China with Holt International, the folks who pioneered international adoption and who helped us bring Lina home to our family all those years ago.  As before, we are finding that the Holt folks are thorough, professional and just plain great.

    On top of all that, we are planning for my ordination as an Elder in the United Methodist Church in June, a family vacation in July, and my attendance at the National Association of Rocketry Annual Meet (NARAM) in Aurora, Ohio this summer, as well as various trips to summer camp, band camp, regular summer training runs for our student athletes and cross country camp.

    In essence, what I'm saying is that while Guidestone would like for us to just give them another reference so that can stop playing phone tag, our lives are currently spinning so fast, that we (at least me) don't really mind if this slows us down just a little bit.  While we would like to be "done" and have our license in-hand, I don't expect that we'd be totally available for a placement right now.  Could we squeeze in plans for one more child?  Probably, but as fast as we're spinning at the moment, they would have to run pretty hard to get on this crazy ride with us.