Detour

It’s been quite a while since either of us have posted anything new.

We were both pretty upset. and things haven’t really changed, but we decided to make a change. After visiting our friend that has recently taken in a foster child, we decided that foster was the right path for us as well.

We attended the foster orientation class about a year and a half ago, and at that point we thought that it wasn’t really the best option for us. There is too much risk involved, having a baby placed in our home just to have him or her taken away and put back into a shitty situation with the birthparents… after they had supposedly gotten their lives back together.

After the recent crappy turn of events, we decided that maybe fostering a child was the best hope for us. We have heard both good and bad stories. The child is placed, and removed a week later. The child is placed, lives with a family for two years, and is sent home. And the rare good story: a child is placed in the home and the foster family is able to adopt them later on.

I don’t know if I can handle having a innocent baby (saved from his/her birth family) placed into my home, only to have them ripped out and sent away, but fostering is the quickest (and cheapest!) path to adoption.

We went to the orientation again this last Tuesday. We then called the agency that our friend went through and then got set up to start the foster classes Saturday. The program supervisor asked us what type of child we want placed in our home.

And yes, we are being picky(ish)  about what type of child we take in. We can choose if we want special needs or not, what gender, age, and race. We don’t care about gender and race, but we have specified that we want a newborn to 3 year old, without serious special needs. We understand that many if not most of the children we will come in contact with will be born feeling the effects of drugs and/or alcohol, which will cause some problems, and while some people would consider that to be special needs, we can handle some  things, just not serious special needs like spina bifida or feeding tubes. Phew, what a run-on sentence.

We went to our first class this Saturday, and boy was it boring. I was hoping that we’ll be able to enjoy the classes and learn a thing or two, but no. It was b-o-r-i-n-g. And oh yeah, one of the trainers is a weirdo. She (a white lady) said that her foster son is her “chocolate kiss.” Totally bizarre.

So. This is where we’re at now. We filled out our paperwork. We got fingerprinted. We have 9 weeks to go for this program, and an additional 2 weeks after that because we want a 0-2 year old in our house. Let’s see what happens next.