Christmas in July

I consider myself a pretty private person, especially when it comes to social media.  And here I am going to put something quite personal out there for the world to know.

This year has been somewhat of a whirlwind to say the least and it doesn't seem to be slowing down at any point.  I thought I had a cyst and convinced my doctor to order me an ultrasound, the tech turned the screen to me and said, "I don't know how you are going to react; but, I feel like I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't tell you that you are pregnant...".

So here I am writing this weeks (okay months) later and still not knowing what to say or how to react.  I’m high risk when it comes to pregnancy for a multitude of reasons and we have been somewhat hesitant to get overly excited because it is so unreal and something that we had written off as just not going to happen for us unless we adopted.

Whether you believe in God, Buddha, or no deity at all, we would appreciate all the prayers, good juju, positive vibes, fairy dust, etc. for our little rainbow baby to continue to grow, thrive and stay healthy.

Merry Christmas in July:

Boy or Girl, God only knows.

Fostering Experience

Recently I've had a few friends come to me about our experience with fostering kids.  It dawned on me that I never really gave an update on how it was going and why we ended up closing out license, thus a blog to make it easy to share with everybody.

We chose to foster in hopes of adopting, it was a huge gamble; but, the cost of adopting through foster care compared to adopting through an agency was astronomically different.

Going into fostering we were pretty excited and quite a bit nervous because we didn't really have an idea of what we were getting ourselves into without having kids or knowing anybody that had adopted through foster care.

Let me start out this with saying:
1.  Each and every case is different
2.  Each and every experience is going to be different
3.  Research a crazy amount and talk to people who have had both good and bad experiences

Our experience started out really well with our licensing worker and then slowly crumbled into the most stressful and frustrating thing we had experienced.

We were licensed for infants through 4 years that were only going to have the possibility of leading towards adoption.  It took a few weeks to get a call about kids needing a home.  The call we received was for an emergency placement of siblings.  We initially said "no" for many reasons.  After the fourth call from the workers we hesitantly agreed to take in the youngest two, a boy and girl.

The kids showed up just after 1 in the morning.  Little dude was 18 months at the time, they had him dressed in a 6 month romper with one spare infant diaper and that's all he had - and he was a big boy.  Little girl had just turned 3 about a week prior to coming and she came wearing summer clothes (in winter) with mismatched shoes and that's it.  We were nervous about getting them in the middle of the night and having them wake up in the morning not having a clue where they were and who we were.  There were no problems at all with them waking up in the morning in a strangers house with people they didn't know.

We had a good week or two before we met their case manager... their case manager hated us right off the bat.  She didn't like that she had to drive so far to come to our house.  She didn't like that we both had jobs.  She didn't like that we asked her for advice when it came to the kids' hair routine.  She literally walked into our house with a preconceived notion that we were awful people and that she did not like us and was not going to even try.  To top it off, she was horribly awkward with the kids.

With kids in care there are tons of rules.  If for some reason the kids get injured while in your care you are required to take them in to be seen by a doctor - even when the treatment was a bandaide.  Note: we also learned that if the kids got injured while at daycare or in the care of their biological parents we were also responsible to bring them in to the emergency room to prove that the slightest scrape happened the way it was said to happen - let's just say we got to know our urgent care doctor very well.

Visits are ordered by the court and are not up generally up for discussion... meaning they don't care if it is during nap time, past their bed time, or if you had made previous plans.  It took three months for me to convince the case managers manager to get their one night a week visit to two separate shorter visits a week.  The kids case manager had moved to get weekends with dad very quickly and we welcomed having a couple weekends alone again.

It was when visits with dad stopped that all sorts of behaviors started to come out from the kids - particularly the girl.  She had gotten violent - with us, her friends, and even started hitting her teacher.  She would get so worked up and nothing would calm her down even when her dad was around - she was 100% a daddy's girl.  We brought up concerns many times to their case manager and her manager only to be told by both of them that they "ignored our concerns" and "didn't take our concerns seriously".

Things went downhill after about the third accusation their case manager put out against us.  An accusation is essentially saying that you believe the kids are being harmed in their current home.  All accusations that never went anywhere and we only learned about after the fact.  We made a really tough decision to have the kids removed from our home and placed in a treatment foster home.  We believed that the little girl needed to be in a treatment home based off of her behaviors but also because a treatment home was going to have more training handling difficult cases.  This was such a hard decision to make because we loved the kids - we just knew that for their sake and ours the best thing to do was have them move to a treatment foster home.

After the kids had moved we actually chose to switch agencies to one that had better reviews and try again.  Just before we were finalizing our license the new worker had informed us that there were going to be big changes when it came to cases.  Foster parents were going to be required to teach the biological parents essentially how to parent their kids.  Between the new changes required in placements and another accusation from the kids social worker - after we hadn't had the kids in our house for months and the accusation had dragons and magic in it - we decided the best thing for us would be to close our license and wipe our hands clean of everything.

Having accusations put out against you is so frustrating and heartbreaking especially to think that somebody believes you are hurting the kids you love.

Our overall experience was pretty crappy to say the least when it came to things outside of loving the kids.  I believe that had we been able to do our training online before receiving a placement and getting a case where the case manager cared about the kids and their well-being that our experience would have been drastically different.

If you are interested in doing foster care my advice would be:
1.  Do your research!!! - We would have gotten licensed in a different county had we known ahead of time everything we learned in 9 months
2.  Talk to people with both good and bad experiences
3.  Know that each experience is different and each case is different
4.  Take into account that your schedule will revolve around what the courts order and you will have little to no say in changing it - also get used to not having communication within your case
5.  You will have your heart broken over and over again - wishing that there was more you could do to protect the little ones in your home

Would I do it again?  Probably not but that's because our experience was a bit horrendous to say the least....

BUT...

The hugs, giggles, cuddles and love made our days brighter and we will forever be changed by the memories we have with the little boy and girl who captivated us.

FTA Licensing Update

We had to complete 9 hours of pre-placement training prior to getting our dual license.  Thankfully the classes were only 3 hours at a time.  Beyond the frustration of actually getting to the site, the training was a mixture of very repetitive information, information we already knew, and some helpful information.  We went in with an open mind because we weren't sure what the training was going to be like and really found one and a half of the sessions to be beneficial.

For us we were primarily hoping to discuss what we need to do once we actually get "the call".  There are doctor appointments needed, dentist appointments, figuring out daycare/school, etc.  This was the most beneficial information to us as it was something that would actually help us in preparing for children coming into our home.

We still have the rest of our 33 hours of training we need to complete; but, we have two years to complete the training.  We also have two different training sessions we must complete with our agency; but, in order to register for all of our training we need to be actually licensed.

Speaking of getting licensed, we have our final walk-thru tomorrow!  Our licensing specialist will stop by to verify we have working smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, fire exit plan, etc.  We will be doing an exterior safety check as well.

So far the licensing process has been pretty smooth and our licensing specialist believes we should have our license within a month(ish).  And then it is just a wait for us to get "the call" and we will be on a crazy adventure!

Getting Prepared for Littles

We have been so grateful to everybody who has offered to donate gently used things or even brand new things in order for us to prepare for having littles enter our house.  Since most of the stuff is coming from MN it means that my folks get to transport it to us (haha, sorry m&d).  They recently made a weekend trip out to bring us a couple cribs along with some other smaller stuff that would fit in the small areas of the Flex that weren't being taken up by cribs.  Being given two cribs was kind of a blessing as it means that we could take in a baby and a toddler at the same time as well as an older child if need be.  While my folks visited they did a lot to help us prepare the rooms for littles from swapping dressers around to fixing a drop down crib to a stationary crib to going through clothes and putting them in the dressers.  It is nice being a little closer to family, just wish it was easier for all family to come visit.

One of many bins of clothes before organizing them into drawers.

 My mom ended up keeping quite a bit of clothing from when me, my brother, and sister were babies.  In addition, Derek and I have three nephews and two nieces who.  My brother and sister-in-law have generously donated clothes (and toys still in bins) to us.  Being the youngest child in your family, you get used to hand-me-downs and really kids grow so quickly it makes more sense to go through hand-me-downs unless something specific is needed.  For us it really makes sense because we are not sure of what littles will be entering our home, the ages, sizes, or even season.

As this doll was lying down, Derek said it was creepy because the eyelids open and close.  Boy, is he in for a treat if we get a girl or girls.

 As a kid, I didn't play with dolls very often.  To be honest, I thought they were ugly and there was only one Barbie doll I did like, the one that was "Asian" even though she was Hawaiian.  When I did play with dolls, I wanted to pretty ones, which didn't include the standard blonde hair, blue eyed doll.  Plus, the chances of us having an African American child is so great, I would prefer to have a wider variety of ethnicity shown through their toys (and really, when is it a bad thing to teach any child about diversity). 

Homemade doll clothes my mom made.

 My mom has made so much doll clothes it is crazy.  She used to make clothes for my dolls when I was younger and always thought they were so much prettier than the store bought stuff.

One of three car seats, this one from our licensing worker.

 Besides beds, the other thing that was required for us to have in order to become licensed was car seats.  With our age range being 0-5 (8 at oldest), this meant we needed an infant car seat, convertible car seat, and a booster seat.  Our licensing worker surprised us by giving us one of the three car seats we have and thankfully none of them are pink!

A zebra rug, you know to hide the stained carpet from the previous owners.

With the exception of a few minor things like hanging paintings, for the most part the rooms are done (*only photos of one room because the other is pretty boring with just a bed and dresser).

Drop down crib no more!  This crib held three of my second cousins on one side of my family.

Choices for seating.

 My grandpa made this rocking horse and even won a ribbon at the state fair for it.  And that little yellow rocking chair was a gift for my 1st birthday!

Toddler bed which we could double into another crib if needed.  This crib held two of my other second cousins from the other side of my family.

 Derek thought I was absolutely nuts when I told him we were getting two cribs.  He wasn't convinced they would fit in the room; but, I of course had a plan!  It worked out pretty well to have two cribs so one could be set up as a toddler bed, especially since this one has a drawer underneath.

How cute are these sheets?!

My Aunt had kept some sheets and I instantly fell in love with these!  Seriously, these are the best.  And my sister-in-law had a Bob the Builder quilt that while we can't use yet, works perfectly folded in half for a toddler quilt.

One of two dressers WITH clothes in them.

 This dresser is a bit on the smaller side; but, holds plenty of clothes for boys, girls, or neutral for either.  The dresser in the other room is quite a bit larger that has plenty of room for additional clothes.

Goodwill finds.

 Have you tried to find a good night lite lately?  It is a pain in the neck to find a good one (a.k.a. motion activated).  We haven't tested these out yet to see if they actually work; but, they were too cute to pass up.  And granted if they work should provide a little comforting to littles if they become scared.

If we get an infant.

It is hard to get a good variety of stuff when we have such a "big" age range.  We luckily were gifted this along with a space saving high chair for the dinner table.

Pregnant women "nest" and I can understand the feeling.  Getting the rooms set for the most part has given me a bit of ease in feeling we are somewhat prepared for the future.  It also has made us more excited in knowing that our family will be growing.  Monday (or Tuesday, because I can't remember) will be our final visit with our licensing worker before she hands us off to the next person.  She will be completing our home study with her boss and will just be waiting upon our out-of-state background checks.

What comes up next for us?  We have 9 hours of training coming up in February (yes, I realize that is tomorrow) which is also required before getting licensed.

FTA: How can I help & Other important information

Many of you have asked how you can help or to let you know if there is anything we need.  The answer is a little bit more complex than anything straight forward, so here it goes.

Physical "stuff"

Unlike a couple expecting their first child and getting prepared through a celebratory baby shower, we must purchase everything ahead of time ourselves.  Because we will be open to foster/adopt children or sibling groups from birth to 8 years old, we need to be able to provide something for each gender within that age group.  Those of you reading this can only imagine how much "stuff" that really entails.  And when I say "stuff" I mean so much stuff that I honestly do not want everything parents "swear by" because our house has to be able to hold all of that "stuff" and store all of that "stuff".  I'm trying to do a lot of research on products so we can purchase items that serve more than one purpose, is gender neutral, and most importantly is compact.

Oddly enough the only thing that is absolutely required before we get our homestudy complete and approved is car seats.  We have been told multiple times that our licensing specialist will be required to actually see and examine the car seats we have before they can complete the homestudy.  They have specific standards that we have to follow along with the state laws pertaining to car seats.

It has been recommended that we "start bringing in beds".  While we have a trundle bed for our guests (and older child if we are placed with one), it doesn't serve and infant or a toddler.  Here comes another "problem".  We don't have the space to have both a crib and a toddler bed in one room.  I mean we could do it; but, more or less it would be really crowded.  So therefore, the previously mentioned that the "stuff" we are researching has to serve more than one purpose.  To be honest, I am seriously holding off on the whole crib/toddler bed until we make room for the one I want.

We have been blessed to be given TONS of hand me down clothes for both boys and girls from birth all the way into around age 7.  Other essentials we still need to purchase are mostly for baby items that make more sense to hold off until we get a placement.  It just doesn't make sense to spend all kinds of money buying baby stuff if we are placed with a 2 year old.  Though it is odd to "baby-proof" a house when we don't have any babies and don't know if we will be placed with a baby.  And we have indeed began to "baby-proof" in a way so I don't have to have child-safety locks on everything.

Because if you are tall, you can get away with this style of baby-proofing the kitchen.

In all honesty, it feels strange to ask people to provide physical things or gifts because there is so much uncertainty within who our placements will be, the age(s), or even how many children will be place with us.  If a placement does reunite with their family, anything that was purchased for that child is to go with the child which includes clothes, toys, books, or anything they have grown attached to during their stay.  With each child that gets placed with us, we will receive a monthly stipend (and we have been told over and over that WI is the absolute lowest paying) that is to go towards clothes, food, toys, and entertainment for the child(ren) in our care (which we have also been told will rarely cover everything).  So ultimately it is kind of hard to say, "hey we need this, this, and this" when we will be receiving some money after each month to kind of reimburse ourselves for things we have bought for our littles, if that makes any sense.

It is actually best to just check with me (us) to see if something is really going to be useful or appropriate if you honestly wanted to buy something.  Please be reassured though that we are really not asking for people to do so; but, just want to be honest that if we get a placement and a child gets attached and if being reunited, whatever it is they are attached to will go back home with them.

Understanding

One of the biggest things that we will need is actually understanding.  While many will want photos of our littles, it is more difficult than just posting a photo.  Children in the system are protected and publicizing they are a "foster child" is in one way "against the rules".  They are not to be known as foster children; but, simply children.  Their names are also protected.  It is absolutely imperative that if we share a photo with you, that it is not shared (I cannot stress this enough).

On the topic of them being protected, so is their story.  We are under no circumstances allowed to discuss anything about the child(ren)s family, or the reason they are in the system with anybody and this includes our own families.  Please understand it is really in the best interest of the child(ren) as well as their own safety sometimes.

Until we have legally adopted our child(ren), all decisions must be run by and okayed by the birth parents.  We will not be allowed to travel across state lines without prior approval from the birth parents, something not all birth parents are willing to grant.  And if by chance you would like to visit for more than a few days, you will be required to have a background check done prior to the visit (the softest of all the background checks).  A background check is also required if we want to leave our child(ren) with anybody.  This is for the children and their safety.

Punishments are something that shocked us more than anything.  Under no circumstance is anybody but Derek or myself allowed to punish our children.  Under no circumstance is anybody allowed to punish their own children with spankings in front of fosters.  Often times the whole background for a child is unknown until something has triggered a reaction.  Spankings are looked at as a trigger for fosters, especially those who have a violent home in their past.

Understanding and patience is really the number one thing I think Derek and I will need from others.  We are going into this blind and have no idea what to expect.  We have rules and regulations that we have to abide by in order to retain our license.  We understand that it may take time for our family and friends to adjust to our new life, but we are willing to discuss as much as we legally can to ease concerns and answer questions.  We need others to understand that the way we do things with our child(ren) may seem unconventional; but, you cannot raise a child who has been in the system the same way as one who has not.  We also may have to miss out on a few things in the next few years to come; but, we are looking at the long term goal of becoming a family

Foster to Adopt (FTA): Answering questions and concerns

Since things are quieting down from the holidays I thought it would be a good time to give an update.  Derek and I have been meeting with our licensing specialist each week for about the last month and a half.  Each week we go over and discuss new things.

Topics covered in meetings:
background checks
paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork
foster care policies
can and cannot do's
quick home walk thru
testing fire detectors
personal individual interviews
preparing for completing homestudy
physical exam and tb test

Each week is brought with so much information we kind of just sit for a little bit after each appointment to reflect and take it all in.  There have been some things that have surprised us which I will write about in later post.  But more importantly, I wanted to kind of clear up some concerns and answer some questions we have been asked about adopting from foster care.

What is adopting from foster care?
          The primary objective for foster care is reunification.  Wanting to keep families together is kind of looked at as what is best.  This is a pro and a con because it actually means that children in the system can remain in the system much longer than they should be.  Adopting from foster care is a lengthy process and not the easiest.  In order for a child to be up for adoption (and we are still in the beginning stages here so will will continue to learn more and more), the rights of the parents need to be terminated.  In WI, parents have on average 15 months to change their lives around; but, we have been told that it usually takes about 2 years for parents rights to be terminated.  The first opportunity for adoption goes to family members as the goal is to always keep families together.  If nobody in the family wants to adopt the child(ren), the foster family the child is living with is generally asked if they would like to adopt as long as they hold a dual license (meaning they are a foster to adopt instead of straight fostering).

What country are you adopting from?
          Since we are adopting from the foster care system we are actually adopting children who are within our own community.  Because the county we live in has very little need for foster care we are actually becoming licensed in another county that has a huge need for fostering.

Don't get a crack baby.
          First and foremost, the number one reason children are in foster care is due to neglect, which is also the number one reason parental rights are going to be terminated.  In the county we will be licensed they have seen in the past children removed from homes due to physical or sexual abuse as well as drug use in the home; but, these cases are very rare.  Ultimately, Derek and I have the choice to say "no" to any child whose circumstances we are not comfortable with.

Don't get a black baby.
          First and foremost, we will not tolerate any prejudice or racism when it comes to our children or our family.  If anybody has an issue with us adopting outside of our race, I'm sorry to say there is no room for your judgement in our lives.  It may sound harsh; but, ultimately we understand that not all family and friends will be accepting of our children and we want to ensure they are surrounded by people who will love them and not judge them because of the color of their skin.

Just some statistics in our area for age and race of children in the system.

Let us know how we can help or if you need anything.
          This is a little more complicated to explain so please read stay tuned for the next post.

Hopefully, this update has helped a little bit.  If anybody has questions or concerns I did not touch on, please do not hesitate to ask and I will do my very best to answer.

Button Fly DIY

I had a pair of jeans that the zipper broke on (terribly timed while husband and I were TRAPPED in an airport for three days) and decided that I would try to make a button fly on them as well as cut them into shorts for an upcoming trip since they are just a tad big and I don't want to spend money on buying new shorts.  This was so much easier than I thought it would be.

First things first, rip out the zipper as close to the existing seams as possible.

Since, I was cutting the legs off I cut a piece off for my new button fly the same width and length of where the zipper was before removing it.

After stitching up the sides, flip it to the right sides out.

I set it in place to determine where I wanted the buttons and button holes.

Serge up the open side, and sew your button holes.  Not going to lie I had to look up the instructions and use a Spanish book to remember how to do these because I cannot find my English instruction manual.  Thank you, Google Translate app!

I then laid out the buttons so I could mark where I needed them to be sewn on.  Note: sew them closer to the seam where the zipper was or your pants will look "unzipped" even though they are buttoned shut.  I ended up removing the buttons to redo this.

Pin the new fly in place and sew on jeans.  I ended up making the fly wide enough to where I just followed along the existing seams with gold thread to not make any new thread marks.

Sew your buttons on, either by hand or machine.  I recommend using a machine; but, then again I hate hand sewing.  You can use the same metal buttons that most jeans have.  I chose plastic buttons because I already had them and they were less expensive than the metal ones.  Note: this is before I moved the buttons closer to the existing zipper seam.

When all is said and done, this is what they will look like buttoned.

Proud that my on a whim sew job actually worked better than I imagined.  This is actually still before I moved the buttons closer to the existing zipper seam as you can tell they don't look closed as well as I had hoped; but, I assure you that they do after moving the buttons.