Adoption Day!

 

This post is super late- but that’s pretty typical around here! 

Back on May 16th we adopted our Zoe.  You will have to scroll back a year and I believe I talk a little about when we got the call to pick her up from the hospital as a foster baby.  We didn’t know much of anything when we took her home at 14 days old but we didn’t care- she was our baby for as long as the Lord wanted her to be!

So, after fostering her for a year, her parents rights were officially terminated and we became a number in a stack of paperwork waiting for the adoption.  There were a few things we had to have inspected at the house but mostly, we were waiting for someone to make a copy. 

 

Then, once we got “approved” for adoption we went to the CPS office and signed paperwork that basically got rid of CPS but we still had to wait for a court date.  Then a month later, we got court scheduled.

 

On your court day, you all go to the courthouse and stand in front of a judge and it’s official! 

We didn’t know what to expect at the courthouse or how long it would take.  I had asked for a lunch appointment because I really wanted to go to a fancy restaurant in fort worth to celebrate after (typically the adoption cases are first thing in the morning).  They had graciously accommodated my request and I think I made lunch reservations for 1.5 hours after we were schedule to be in court. 

 

 

So everyone goes into the court room and stands in front of the judges desk and he asked us a couple of questions about how we felt about Z and asked C a question about being a big brother and that was it!  We had already signed all the paperwork and so the judge just asked if we wanted pictures. 

He was so kind to take as many pictures as we wanted and never made us feel rushed (I believe it was his lunch hour) and stayed and visited with us.

The bailiff brought out a present for C- the piggy bank- and that just made his day!

 

 

Visiting with the judge.

Our attorney presented the information to the judge. 

We loved our attorney!  If you need a name of a great family attorney then let me know! 

 

Here’s our first official family picture!

 

Here we are with our amazing CASA worker and attorney.  Y’all, look into being a CASA volunteer.  It’s a great way to work with kids who need help.

 

And our caseworker for our foster agency, Mark with Arrow.  We highly recommend Arrow for a foster/adoption agency. 

 

So from start to finish- our journey from foster to adoption was 14 months.  It was a rollercoaster but I’m so glad we had that experience and I’m so glad we have Z.  She’s pretty much the coolest baby ever and I can’t believe we get to raise her. 

 

If you think you are not cut out to be foster parents or adoptive parents, think again.  It’s not about YOU.  You don’t have to have your whole life together.  You just have to be willing to let your world be shaken up a little bit.  So, pray about how the Lord wants you to help orphans.  There are so many different ways you can help!

Life of a Foster Parent

I thought I would take this moment to put off cleaning a bit longer, and give you a glimpse into our life as foster parents.  This is just a part about our monthly visitors.

So every month- we have approx 5 different people coming over to the house to visit baby J.  Therapist (times 2), CASA worker, CPS caseworker and foster agency caseworker.  Oh, and someone comes by twice a month to pick her up for a visit with bio parents.

Mostly everyone comes in to play with J  and stays in one room or a couple of rooms.  Once a quarter we get to have someone come over and inspect all the rooms for safety and to make sure our kitchen soap is not sitting out.  Wouldn't want someone to drink it and then poop bubbles or something :-)

So I've kind of gotten over having my house clean for every visitor- I mean- who has time to clean their house 5 times a month?  Not going to happen.  But I do feel like I should have it clean for our quarterly inspection.  And that's today.  So I officially have 5 hours to clean.  For a normal person that would probably be perfectly acceptable.  However, I am very bad at cleaning. 

Maybe I will take a before an after picture.  And if I'm not too embarrassed I will post it. 

What A Year!

I can't believe it's been over a year since I last blogged!  A lot has happened- though that's not really an excuse.

So lets rewind a year and I will give you a quick overview and then we can move on.

My sister got married at the beginning of September, two days later, we got our first foster kids!  We took in a 2 year old boy and a 9 month old girl bringing my total to a 3, 2, and almost one year old.  It was chaos almost instantly!  Having kids that close together is hard for almost anyone- at least I'm assuming- and having kids that have been raised in another home for a few years and then moved to ours made it extra challenging.  A challenge that comes with foster care and one of the reasons they need good foster homes!

These kids stayed with us for 4 months and then ended up going back home.  It was a hard 4 months.  Being foster parents can be fun and rewarding and challenging and frustrating and exhausting.  Sometimes all at the same time.

A few months later- we got a call for a little girl!  She came to us in March and we still have her.  She's a doll and a great addition to the family.

Unfortunately with foster care I can't give many details and can't show any pictures.  Trust me, she's cute!

Meanwhile I've been working hard building a business of Everything Design.  It's been a fun journey and I have seen so much growth this year- growth that I can't take much credit for because I haven't had time to advertise.  The Lord has helped me grow.

I really want to start writing about some changes we have been making in the family to our food and cleaning and just trying to live healthier overall.  So my goal is to add some tips and tricks to help you if you are looking to baby step your home to natural living!

Semi-Final Home Inspection

We had our final home inspection today... well final inspection from Arrow- we still have another one.  Everything went great and I think there's only one more thing we need to do in the house.  Just wanted to show another picture of the girls room because I really like how it turned out.

Yea! 

I do want to ask for prayer though- we were supposed to have our last class (aside from CPR) last Thursday and it was cancelled at the last minute.  That means that we will have to find another time that works.  After scheduling a babysitter and getting excited to be finished, it's discouraging to have to wait longer.  Also, there's a waiting list to get your home study done.  We really want to be done with everything by June 1st because summer is crazy around here.  Pray that we can get the last class in and get on the home study wait list asap.  

Thanks so much!

Fire Extinguishers, Smoke Detectors and other reasons why my house is a safe place to be

I have to be honest, I’m watching MI3… or is it 4 with my husband right now and I desperately want to zone out and do nothing but if I have a blog I need to actually write something on it every once in awhile.  Since I am watching a movie, you will have to excuse spelling, grammar and any run on sentences, like the first sentence I wrote.  Whew, now that that’s out of the way let me give you an update.

James 1:27  …take care of widows and orphans…

This verse came up in BSF this week and it reminded me again what the Lord has told us to do.  And not just “us” either, you too.  I know it is not possible for everyone to take children into their house but the Lord calls you to take care of widows and orphans- that’s going to look different for every person so I encourage you to seek the Lord in what that looks like for you. 

Okay, so here’s what’s been going on with us. 
We have one more class on Thursday to finish up all our training.  We have CPR the next Monday.  We have 2 online classes we need to complete, FBI fingerprinting we need to have done, some paperwork we need to sign and a home study to complete.  As I type all that it sounds like a lot but we are actually at the end.  Crazy, right?

A couple of weeks ago the Hurst fire inspector came by and toured the house.  We had some things right… like the fire extinguisher pictured below, and some things wrong.

I wish fire extinguishers came in cooler colors that matched my kitchen.
So after our preparation, we still have to put a smoke detector in every sleeping room.  We had only put one in the hallway because that’s what I had read somewhere.  We need a safety gas can for our lawn mower gas too.  Apparently the plastic ones allow fumes out which can spontaneously combust at any moment causing a fire hazard.  We can either buy a safety can or build a shed in the back.  Which is the most safe.  It is also the most expensive. 

Let’s see.  I had to get a box that locks to put every last bit of our medication in.  Safety First!

After all of the above steps have been completed we can get on the waiting list to get our first child.  I’m still expecting us to be finished around June 1st- at least that’s my goal. 
As we get closer to the end of the process I wonder why anyone that isn’t truly committed to taking care of children would want to become a foster parent.  It’s hard work! 

I hope to have another update soon!

Our Girl Nursery

The design for our girl nursery is coming along nicely.  More details HERE but I thought I would give you a sneak peak since I talked about it in my previous post. 

Is your house ready for inspection?

That's kind of the call I got last week.  Arrow want's to come back out to the house and see if we have made the changes talked out in November and if we finished construction and have a safe and appropriate room ready for our future foster child. 

Does this count?

And that's when I had a mini panic attack. 

You see, they came over in November and looked at the house and mentioned a few things we needed to correct.  We need a fire extinguisher, some smoke detectors, a bedroom ready for a child, a locked medicine cabinet, and the tools in the garage put away. 

From the November visit to last week we had accomplished one of those things... the tools in the garage are all put away... and I really didn't help with that. 

So they called and want to come take a look because 3 months is a logical amount of time to finish those tasks.  Isn't it? 

I went home to take a look around and snapped the picture above so I could prove to you my panic attack was reasonable. 

Then we got to work.  Finishing the bedroom is the first priority.  Sticking smoke detectors to the ceiling and putting in a fire extinguisher shouldn't be that hard so I wanted to focus on the biggest mess.  It was and is a long process of moving piles of stuff from one side of the room to another and from one room to another.  My mom came to help and moved more piles around.  Then I got tired and moved a bunch of stuff to the garage and told Mike to shove it in the attic.  I don't know what's up there, and I don't care.

The room doesn't only have to be cleaned out, it has to be appropriate for a child to live in.  A child who could be anywhere from 0-3.  That's a big age range when we are talking development. 

Planning this room should be easy for me, designing is what I do, after all.  But it has brought up a range of emotions I did not expect.  I feel rediculous buying furniture and decorations for this room.  It's silly really but I'm not pregnant and we are totally operating on faith that God will place a child in our home and it's hard to move forward on faith.  It just is.  I hate to say that because this whole journey has been on faith and it is so exciting because I want to see what God will do and I want to learn to depend on him and trust that he will provide everything we need.  I still DO trust that but it's still easy to let our human emotions take over.  I feel like people must think I am rediculous for picking out a bed and bedding and decorations but hello, I shouldn't care what others think.  Could I put a pack and play in a guest bedroom and call it a kids room?  Sure.  But I don't want to.  I want each of my children to have a room to call their own even if they are only "mine" for a temporary period of time. 

So the crib is here, the bedding is on the way and the room is almost ready to become a real nursery.  Hopefully I can post details of that soon. 

Half Way Done- Foster/Adopt Process

I’ve been saying we are half way done but that’s truly just an estimate on my part.  I don’t get a 1/2 way certificate or a high five or anything like that.  Some checkmarks on our list is all I have to go by.  We have done about 26 hours of the 50 hours of training and done about half the paperwork. 
There’s a lot of paperwork but it’s really nothing difficult.  I saved the difficult stuff for last.  Like now we need to create a floor plan of our house with all the emergency exit routes and location of the fire extinguisher.  Oh wait, I do that for a living so that shouldn’t be too hard! 
We also have the fire inspection left.  The city of Hurst fire inspector will come to the house and make sure everything is safe.  We are waiting to make that call until the new office is finished (long story) and we have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen and a smoke detector in every room.  All minor changes but all cost money and we need a little more time on that. 

The trainings have been good.  They are mostly trying to get us ready to work with children who are abused and neglected and how to make sure WE don’t get in trouble with CPS.  It’s heartbreaking to sit and hear about the level of abuse these children are coming to foster care with.  It reminds me of how broken our world is.  I don’t understand how someone could hurt a child so badly they may never recover.  It reminds me that we live in a sinful world, a broken world.  Thank goodness it’s only temporary!

It also reminds me why we are doing this.  Not in a “we are so great for taking care of children” way but a “who do we think we are that we can make a difference?  I can’t even keep my house clean, how can I make a difference?”  It’s hard and it’s heavy and it’s discouraging.  I guess we have to stay focused on what God has called us to do.  It seems so small and insignificant but that’s not the point.  We want to show the love of Christ to whatever child(ren) are placed in our home, our caseworker, CPS worker, bio parents, etc.  We want them to know that they are loved, valued and cherished and no matter what happened in their past, it does not define them.  It doesn’t take a super hero to tell a child that.  Just regular people like you and me… and thank goodness, cause I’m so far from a superhero!

Meanwhile we have started telling Cason he is getting a sister sometime soon.  He’s thrilled.  Okay not really.  He doesn’t know what to say about it.  I don’t think he really understands.  Right now he would really rather have a real racecar or a scooter or a trip to the beach than a sister.  Oh well, he has to learn the world doesn’t revolve around him at some point!

I’ll show you more of our progress around the house to get ready soon.  If you are on pinterest I have a pinterest board with the things I love for a girl nursery if you are interested.  More of that coming later….

Training for Foster/Adoption

We started our training last week.  It’s a lot of training.  So much that I only like to look at it one week at a time as not to get overwhelmed. 

Basically, there are about 15 different training sessions you have to go to- most are 3 hours long, one is 8 and I think one is 4 or 5.  This month they are offered on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6-8. 
The trainings are in south Arlington so for us that means leaving at 5:00- dropping C off with a friend, picking up dinner or taking it along- and driving an hour in rush hour to the training.  The drive home is faster but it still puts us back much past Cason’s bed time.  To be honest it’s exhausting- not counting the part where we sit in class for 3 hours.  The last two weeks have been class tues/thurs, church wed, something at church friday and saturday, church sunday and start again on monday.  Cason finally lost it on Saturday night on our way to dinner.  We are taking a break this week on the trainings to regroup because on Saturday we have an 8 hour class.

So far we have been to: Child Development, Communication, Separation Loss and Grief, and Sexual Abuse.  We are usually in class with a few other couples and it’s a casual talk and very open for asking questions or exploring topics.  It’s interesting but at the same time very dry- sitting anywhere for 3 hours is hard for me to do.  The grief class and abuse class were heavy. We knew that when a child has been placed in foster care it is likely they have some baggage; but when you really sit down and learn about what some of these children go through, it will break your heart.  But it reminded me why we are doing this in the first place. 

We also learned that when you have foster children that licensing can stop by any time and inspect your house.  So imagine your worst day as a parent- it’s 3:00 and everyone is still in their pj’s… including you, laundry is everywhere, dishes are in the sink, everyone is in a bad mood, you park the kids in front of the tv so you can get a break, the house is cluttered with toys and there might be some silverware from the kitchen and tools from the garage mixed in there somewhere too- and there’s a knock at the door and it’s someone wanting to come into the house to see if you are meeting all the standards for a foster home.  Now they understand that life happens- so dishes and toys and pj’s shouldn’t really make a difference.  But that’s the kind of day you don’t even want your friends to come over, having a stranger judging you as a parent… that’s hard. 

And that’s where praying comes in.  We knew this would be a giant leap of faith when we started.  That we had to fully rely on God to provide our strength and wisdom and patience and peace.  He would remove our worry and make ready our path.  Finishing the training isn’t going to be the hardest part of our journey, in fact, it’s probably the easy part.  Most people have 9 months to prepare for a child coming into their home, I always wondered what it would be like to have a child dropped off one day without that 9 months of mental and physical preparation.  God is providing that preparation for us now.  These 50 or so hours of training are allowing us to mentally and physically get ready.  Most importantly they are allowing us to spiritually get ready.  The Lord is teaching us to give it all to him NOW- the training, the scheduling, the fears, the uncertainties, the frustrations- none of it matters because we are doing what God has asked us to do.  He will take care of it all.

I have come to love this verse- it is on the wall of our training room:
Children are a gift of the Lord, like arrows in the hand of a warrior - Psalm 127

Becoming Licensed for Foster Care

 

If you missed yesterdays post read it first HERE or this one won’t make much sense.

There is so much we don’t know and so much we still need to learn but I’m going to attempt to tell you about the first few steps in our journey. 

Step 1: Find and agency to work with and go to orientation.

It’s possible that you can work directly with CPS but in our journey we chose to work with an agency. 

It was important that we found a group to work with that was not only founded on faith but lived out their faith in their everyday practices. 

We decided to work with Arrow Child and Family Ministries. 

We attended orientation in early November.  We immediately felt this was the place for us.  The founder was a foster child himself and is a believer and their commitment to the Lord was evident in all parts of the orientation.

During the orientation you find out more about foster care and adoption and fill out a basic information form that allows them to run a background check on you.  You can’t move forward without a background check.

Part of the information they want to get from you is what kind of children you would be open to.  For our family- we asked for a girl in the 0-3 age range.  You are also asked what kinds of disabilities (physical and emotional) you feel you are equipped to handle. 

A few weeks later we found out we passed the background check (whew) and they would like to move forward with us!

Step 2: Home Check

Well, step 2 is probably to start the training but with the holidays of November and December we might be a little out of order.

A week before Christmas someone from Arrow came out to our house to show us the checklist that would be used during the home study and see what we would need to do to our house to be prepared. 

Everything looked great at the house and the changes are pretty minimal.

The things we need to do in our house are:

• Put a fire extinguisher in the kitchen (do you think they come in cobalt blue?)
• Put smoke detectors in all sleeping rooms, the hallway, the living room and the kitchen.  So in our house that’s every room.  It’s going to be really annoying when the batteries start going out.
• Put a screen on the window in the kitchen that we ripped off the time we got locked out of the house.  Long story.
• Put any dangerous tools in the garage out of reach as well as fertilizers and other chemicals.
• Change this room

from whatever it is currently to a little girls nursery…. or toddler room.

And for the record, it only looks like that because we are converting another space into an office so we can make this room a bedroom.  Oh, who am I kidding.  It looks like this a lot of the time.

The last one is the hardest.  I mean, it’s easy because I love to decorate and I can’t wait to design a little girls room.  But hard because it is a serious step of faith.  We don’t know what age we are getting- zero means a crib, three means a toddler bed.  They have different toys and needs and it’s hard to know how to design a room with so many unknowns.  We don’t know WHEN- it could be three months it could be a year.  God could change our hearts.  We don’t think he will change our hearts for foster/adoption but he could tell us we need to take a boy… or an older child… or siblings… or any number of different things.  Starting to convert the room means we will be totally acting on faith.  A step we are excited to make, excited to see where the Lord leads us… but a tiny bit nervous too. :-)

Step 3:  Lots of training

Keep you posted!

Our Expanding Family

I think it took about 1 day after I had Cason for someone to ask me if I was ready for another one. 

Seriously?  I think I wanted to hit them.

Cason is almost three and I get asked that question much more often. 

When someone asks when we are having another child I typically say “no way”. 

But there is a little more to the story- so let me tell you now.

 

Mike and I have always wanted to adopt.  In fact, I think we talked about it before we even got married.  The thing we didn’t know was HOW or WHEN. 

We had Cason and I felt like my life was spinning out of control for a few years and more children was the last thing I wanted to think about.

This summer Mike and I were visiting friends in Houston and sitting in their church service and I felt convicted about saying we wanted to adopt but making absolutely no progress towards that.  We felt it was time to start researching our options.

 

One thing that really pulled at our heart was foster children.  Mike’s sister works for an agency so it has always been on our radar- but as we started thinking about how we would add another child to our family, foster care kept coming back into our hearts.

We are in the early stages and there are still so many things we do not know.  Here’s what we do know.

The Lord has called us to adopt and given us this direction.  Unless the Lord gives us a different direction, we will continue to move forward. 

Based on the fact that people feel compelled to tell me foster care horror stories every time I mention that this is what we are planning on doing, foster care has a scary reputation.  Here’s the deal though, the LORD is guiding this process.  There will be ups and downs.  We are not naive to think that it’s going to be easy, we know our hearts might get broken, but we are trusting the LORD to carry us through.

 

Can I have more children (a common question)?  It doesn’t matter right now.  We want to adopt whether I could get pregnant again or not. 

 

One night mike and I were praying about our decision to adopt.  I showed him a verse God led me to in Ephesians: He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—Ephesians 1:5.

A few days after that we found out that we couldn’t work with the first foster agency that we wanted to and would have to keep looking.  It was discouraging and was easy for me to start thinking that it would be easier to just wait a few more years.  That Sunday in church pastor started a new series and the verse he opened with was Ephesians 1:5.  I started laughing (almost crying) because I knew that was the Lord telling us to keep going.  Since then we have found an amazing agency to work with and we can’t wait to get started.

 

I’ll be keeping you posted with updates and timelines as we continue in the process.  I can’t wait to tell you all the details as we go along.

If you feel led to pray for us, please do.  Here are a few things:

• We had lots of training to do over the next few months- we need to find time to fit in the training and find childcare for Cason
• Pray for our future child(ren)
• There are a few things we have to do to the house to get ready.  Although adopting through foster care is not very costly, some of the stuff we need to do at the house will cost money.  Pray that the Lord will provide for that.
• The Lord gave us a very laid back son in Cason, perfect temperament to have a new sister arrive on the scene one day- but we know that with any change it will be an adjustment period.  Pray for his heart to be ready when the day comes.

Thank you- and stay tuned!