Mkay.. Guess I forgot bout the bloggy blog!!

I haven't blogged in about 10ish days.  Hmm well nothing has really been going on. We are in a new phase of waiting. Oh, yeah so that means we got our license! Woot!  So now we are back into waiting, buuuttt a different form of waiting. Er, ok that sounded lame, but you know what I mean. We are waiting to be contacted by a cw-either ours or some other worker who matched us with a child.  So we will sit and wait, and work on patience!    Oh also so my winner of my giveaway is my3sons!! So since I think I know who this is, I will contact you via fb to see what you want-a tea sample mix or a starbucks gc!!  Oh and for those that may be wondering, we received our licence 10/25, but it was post dated 10/19 :/  Oh well.  Oh also, hope to photograph/video record the kids room so y'all can see what it looks like :) Alright, I'm off to bed!

Um... great....

So we have possible/probably another week and weekend to our selves. Sent a quick note off to our guy this morning asking if we need to both be home to get the license since hubby has a sh*t ton of over time this week. His reply about an hour ago says that "unfortunately he developed an infection and "should" be back in the office next week".  Humph.  Maybe I am to over excited or maybe I am sad at how long this process has taken to get to here. Either way I am going to take a que from a fellow foster blogger friend.  Guess the date closest to the date we actually will get our license and I will mail you a selection of tea from Fava Tea Company ( I like their carrot cake & cinnamon roll teas!) or a gift card for Starbucks.  Sorry I am not a coffee drinker...so I don't have a favorite one!! hehe!  Ok so comment below!  Oh and I may have a surprise for anyone who guesses the closest date to call (whether we say yes or no)  and/or placement.

Seriously...

Gah! Ok it seams like it has been one delay after the next on the state side of getting our license.  Today's delay is um our caseworker had to have emergency surgery on sunday and is out for the week. Great... I guess another relaxing weekend shall be had. He "should" be able to get our license printed off to us on monday.  So this rebrings up a fear of mine. It's not a fear fear but something I have been thinking about.  And I guess I can't really put a why by this fear, just something I guess I am worried on how I will handle it. So I am affraid that we will get placed with a child like a day or two before a holiday (halloween, thanksgiving, christmas) or their birthday.  I know it may seam like I am worrying about silly things, but that is how it is now...  

Preparation

So I have heard people talking about how pregnant they are with this foster stuff.  I am not sure if I relate to this saying much, not sure why... But I would say I am worrying the way a 8-9 month preggo person would be. I am worrying at my skills. How I am going to be viewed by my choices to raise this other persons child, such as Cloth or disposable diapers? Pacifer vs. no pacifier. Fun toys or learning toys? Starting early learning at home through pre k activities?  Gah! And I am still nervous at the actual unpreparedness material wise.  I mean there is a good chance that we will be matched and have some time before placement, but there is always a chance of getting a recently detained child who will auto be on the adopto track because of family situations... (its hard to explain...)  So in that case it could be a matter of a few hours between call and placement. So I am worried that I am gonna be stuck at home, not be able to get things until that evening when hubby comes home. But even then only one of us may be able to go, if the kiddo is smaller than we planned car seat wise (we just have a high back booster)  I guess I need to get a support person. SOmeone from my fam/friend group that would be willing to run out for me and get the stuff we need. I think I would ultimately have a hard time with that as I try to be fairly self reliant... Ah well only time will tell. I can't beleive how close we are getting to getting our license then placement... :)

Update... I wish

There isn't really much to update. I am still waiting for word that our license is done. I contacted our guy a few days ago and he seamed a little piturbed that I contacted him... Hmph.  I was excited at getting our license done maybe by the end of September but it sounds like there is absolutely no possibility of that. He will "shoot for october". Great.... that means most likely end of october.  I am kinda upset that it will be even longer. I hate this waiting game. Some people I have talked to are surprised that we are still waiting for our license completion since we sent our initial interest forms in early april.  I am hoping to relax a little on a trip next week. We are taking a little trip to northern Wisconsin. I am looking forward to it.

Status Update: Still Waiting...

Yeah we are still waiting. Havent gotten any calls/emails from our guy asking stuff he forgot. So fingers and toes crossed it is going as it should.  I plan to shoot him an email in a few days asking about status. I dont want to be a pest since he is busy but I also dont want to seem like all of a sudden I'm not as interested. Dunno.

Other news the hubbs and I are planning to take a trip up north - Ladysmith to be exact. I am so excited about it!  I havent been to my old stomping grounds since right before my wedding when we met up with the pastor who was going to do our wedding.  So excited!!! Hoping to meet up with some friends from my college days, but I nothing is planned yet, so who knows. I would be fine just checking out how the town has developed and taking some hikes and stuff.  I am excited but also feel like an ass in some ways.  First off we are leaving the day my cousin in NJ is getting married. We said no to their wedding because it would be to much money for us-easily close to $1000 for plane tickets and resort room rental. Hrmph. I would have loved to go because I am actually closer to those cousins than the rest of my ousins. I went out to his sisters wedding two years ago (also my cousin, obvs!) but the trip was pretty much paid for by my aunt & uncle.  I am sure their wedding will be beautiful though!  My parents are going, since their at the cape now anyhow, so I am sure I will see pics.  One other thing I feel like an ass about is not going to my sil's shower.  I have gone over why I am not going, but at some aspect I feel like a turd for not going.  But  know it would be in my best interest to not go.  So I will be spending one of our last childless weekends enjoying ourselves up north.  That is also when we should get our license hopefully...

Oh also one other thing- we picked up a dresser that Hubby's aunt repainted for us. It is nice! A lot of small drawers and some regular sized drawers. The room is shaping up. Got an "eh ok" lamp from mil. it doesnt match our style or anything in the room really but I feel bad giving it to GW.  She also gave us a cute teddy bear and some other "stuff". I want to get some shelving for the wall to maybe display pictures on and get/do art work for the room walls.  Eventually hubby is going to redo the closet with shelves and stuff, thats down the road though.

Finished...sorta

This past Tuesday was our last visit with our CW Chris. Well our last until our license is approved. Then there is a monthly visit, pretty much to insure that our house is still a safe environment. They will check smoke detectors, etc.  So now we are back to the waiting part....I hate the waiting parts. At least now I have a contact and will be able to check with him to see what the status is.  Next step is for Chris to write a report based on our home study and submit it for approval to his boss.  He tells us he see's no issue with it passing and us getting approved. He says he is 99.99% sure we will get it.  Great... I am freaking out about that .01%.  I know I shouldn't, but failure is a thing I think about along with everyday things, so why would this be any different.  Other thing that worries me is that he still freaking didn't give us a date of license finalization.  Grrr. He said he will try his hardest to get the report done by the end of September, but he only works three days a week, goes to school and has other couples he is working on home studies for. I am hoping that he gets it done by then. So in recap:

- Signing 100ish papers... Done!
- Home study Meetings...Done!
-State mandated pre-license classes...Done!

Now we just have to wait for the license and final approval and then placement!

-Oh side note for those interested: we did end up saying yes to all races, 0-6 age range and up to to of same gender. We also said moderate on emotional/behavioral and low on physical issues. Mostly due to fact we have stairs and we do not have a very handicap friendly house.  Ok so that should wrap this up!

Class

Today we completed 6 of the 9 hours of classes required to get our foster license.  We covered some obvious things from the rule book ( can't spank kids/no corporal punnishment, must feed the kids, no locking them in a closet, stuff like that (really they have to say that? Well I suppose, otherwise the kids wouldn't be in foster care)) and breafly went over big rules.We talked in depth of how a child moves through the system. We covered some other things includeing confidentiality. No FB posting allowed, not even an announcement, so...um yeah that sucks. I do see why and were they are coming from, but it kinda sucks. I cant even say "mother's of three year olds, tell me what I need" SOOO I guess I am going to have to rely on the interwebs for what a three year old needs (or whatever age our lil sprout is!).  Other things about confidentiality kinda make me nervous. You are also not supposed to "point out" or make it known unless needed that the child is a foster child. So it is kinda hard, I mean it will be obvious and evedent to many that they are.  Also what am I supposed to tell my MIL?? She doesnt know how to keep confidentiality. I mean the neighborhood grocer probably knows bil & sil are pregnant, and that hubby and I are IF.   So really even if we go with the basics the whole world (Ok, I know...) will know we have a foster kid....  We also talked with the two ladies running the meeting. Many people talked about their concerns with the process ect. Hubby (we found out) was not alone in his fear of the birthparents finding out where we live. He is afraid of familial retaliation. The only thing with that is if a family tries to retaliate (which is extremely rare) you can get that maked on their file, mentioned at court. So really it hinders them to mess with you.
We also found out about that rights that birthparents have when you have their child. Like the parents can choose to refuse a haircut, a permission slip, out of state travel, and even religious beliefs.
Over all the class was interesting, but LONG. In ways I wish we would have taken the three seperate classes instead of two.

Some things we are not looking forward to for 2012 are the possible recertification due to how the state is reorganizing. Usually the county runs the foster system for that county, but because mke county is a lawsuit county (a foster parent brought a lawsuit against mke co for the children) it is now run by the state. It is confusing. But I am nervous for getting certified in this reorganizational year.  I guess it will be ok in the end.

So this week we have our next appt with Chris. I am so happy we keep truckin along on this journey.

Risk

Yesterday we saw Chris our CW again. We did a little more paper shuffling (we handed him a PILE of financial copies, he had us sign more stuff). He did a home walk through, really didn't suggest we need to do much safety stuff, we already had smoke/co detectors installed, already bought a fire ext and a fire escape ladder. So I need to do cab locks on the under sink cabs in the kitch and in the half bath, and put outlet plugs in our downstairs rooms (fam room, kitch lower outlets, dr & lr) but other than that we seam cool safety wise. Oh but we do have to work on our fire escape plan thing that we have to post in our kitch.  The meeting also included a lot of talking. We talked about my parents, his parents, my sibs, his sibs and how we all relate and such. How we all communicate. We also talked about our pets and how they act around people...great i thought... Our big cat loves people-just not necessarily my mom, sister, bil or niece nephew... he hisses at them. We had to tell the truth. The guy asks, but he doesn't act out to them, like biting our scratching, right? Thank goodness he doesn't...  We also started to talk about us having to think about and eventually nail down what kind of child we wanted. That led into him further explaining their "pool of names" and their process. (We are lucky i guess cuz he is able to answer more q's than most cw I guess you would say. Apperantly he doesn't do intakes normally, but because the department is loosing people and will soon be undergoing reorganization, he has to do some intake families.  So ok back to risk. That is kinda what I am bloggin about today.  So we started to talk about what we are open to. I explained age wise that we are open to under three but that the guy presenting at the info session made it seam like you were forced to say 3+ if you wanted to adopt. So we said our range is 0-6 (orig was 3-6) and then we talked a little about what race we were interested in. I am ok with any race, hubby is not. So he is really going to have to nail down what he absolutely is not open to.  I kinda know he is against African american just because he doesn't want the "stigma" of first impression being that the child is adopted. He is also concerned that we wouldn't be able to provide the cultural aspects of that spacific race. I agree with him on that, but at the same time disagree. How are we able to provide cultural support to an asain or mexican child but not an african american. So we need to sit down and discuss that. And then we all talked about risk and how much legal risk we thought we might be interested in. Then he went into describing the process after placement, there is apparently a juryed court hearing to see if it is substantiated, if yes, it goes in front of judge. If he finds that tpr should happen, the parents have a chance to (i cant think of the word) but they can dispute it. That trail can take months apparently. That scared me, well that and the fact that our CW said most parents dispute it. Great... so not only do we run the risk of having to hand the child back because the parent is doing what the judge says they need to do, but we could also loose them if they win the court dispute thing. So that appearantly is considered medium risk. So we have to decide how much risk we are interested in. But we keep trucking along at a somewhat fast pace-yeah! After all the waiting on the state I am glad it is moving along. We have signed up for mandatory classes, so buy the next time we will have taken 6 of the 9 required pre-license classes. Ok, well I am off, yeah!

Monday Blues...

So I have kinda been in a blah mood today. Probably still re-cooping from the party, but then again dunno.
I have decided to go to the meeting/support group. I am freaking out y'all. Some of you know that I chickened out for the meeting two months ago, and chickened out for last months meeting. I had a book club on the same day with girls from church and told the host I would be going to the support group instead. I was all ready to go too, but i didn't. I chickened out again. I know why to. I am a shy person soo that doesn't help, but my biggest fear is the people in the group saying I don't belong there or something along that line since my situation is different. I have not been ttc'ing for years and years, and have not had tests done, and have not had a lot of other things IF ladies have gone through. My IF is because I have a medical condition that I was born with so it is odd... But I am going, already told the lady I will be there. Also their group must be small, since she had sent a meeting cancelation announcement at the same time I had sent my rsvp to the meeting, so in the next few minutes the meeting went from on to canceled to back on again! so the three of us ladies will be meeting...I am so nervous...........
Also I am cleaning up from the party still, my mom and friend of MIL, and friend of fam and I did dishes, ok well all of them did dishes and cleaned tables, I just put dishes away. Still got to vaccuum and sweep and maybe mop the kitch. Possible steam clean my carpet in the LR since someone dropped cake on my carpet! :) We were both all laughs and smiles about it, it was actually kinda funny! Oh, so why I am I having to clean again? Chris is coming over again tommorow night :) yeah! So he plans to do a walk through and start the interview.   Oh I forgot I still need to make a fire escape plan and copy some papers for the guy... well better get to that! I will post a recap of tonights meeting so you know I didn't skip out again!!

Success!!

So after my freak out day on monday, I had to calm myself before Chris came over on tuesday. Well I did, not sure how but I wasn't as nervous the morning before he came over.  So we met with Chris for the first time, and I think I like him. We haven't had much time to get to know him, but he seems nice enough. So our first meeting included going through some paperwork, signing ALOT of paperwork, being handed some stuff to read, including the state statute (rules/law) about fostering...yeah that's a fun one to read :)  We set up an appt to see him again, he is going to come by next tuesday to check out the house and begin the interviews.
Chris went over a lot of info that I had read about already, but some info was new. I did not know that they take what they learn from us and our home study and write up a 10-15 page report that they use for matching us with a child.  Also he went over the matching process briefly,it sounds like it will be similar to what I have read in a few books were it is a multi step process. They match you up and if you ok it then you meet the child a couple times, eventually a few sleep overs and weekends and then they are placed full time until adoption hearings. So it isn't quite the same as if you were a foster only parent, in those cases they call with a match and if you approve a sw brings the kid over that day.  

In other news, I just got fingerprinted today. Oh yeah, that is a requirement...  It was really interesting actually-lol! I have never been to jail or had a criminal history so the only fingerprinting I have seen is the ones they show on tv shows. Usually they show with ink and stuff like that. Well this place is INK FREE!! yeah! It was almost like they scanned your fingers. It is hard to explain-but the machine looked like a mini scanner. Very cool. Although it took her a few tries on some of my fingers as i have dry skin :( oh well.

Oh and my house is still frickin clean! Holla!! I am excited for the party this weekend. It should be fun!