The Start of A Foster/Adopt Story

         For the last year I have been searching and searching for information...blogs, vlogs, books, anything on adopting through the foster care system.  Sadly I have not found much.  Soo, I have decided to start blogging about my journey in becoming a foster/adoptive parent.

My husband and I first started talking about adoption about 2 years ago.

 Unfortunately getting pregnant was/is not happening, and I don't know if it ever will.  Anytime some celebrity would announce that they were pregnant, or I would see a pregnant lady/teenager, I would get mad, angry and sad all at the same time.  I would always say (jokingly...sorta) to Nick (my hubby) "They're just rubbing it in".  Sweet Nick would just look at me and smile.  He didn't have to say anything, it was all in the way he looked at me, telling me he was there for me and we are in this together, and no matter what, it will all work itself out....And it will.

 I decided to look into Private Adoption, just get some information, see how much it would cost...too expensive for us.  Next, we started looking into adopting through the foster care system.  Hubby and I talked about it and felt this was the right path.  I feel everything happens for a reason and there are so many children in the system that need a home a family.  A FOREVER Family, and we want to be that forever family to a child who needs a forever family.

So that being said, it has been a little over a year since we first started the process to become resource parents (the official name of a foster parent).   Here is a time line of what it was like becoming resource parents in LA county.

• May 15, 2012- Orientation

  ~ After orientation you then have to enroll in a PS-MAPP class which is 6 weeks.  You can choose to go 2 days a week for 3 hours each day, or Saturday for 7 hours with an hour lunch.  The classes fill up fast so we were not able to enroll until August!

• August 11, 2012 - September 22, 2012 - PS-Mapp Class ~ We went on Saturdays for 6 weeks.  I thought the classes were a very important part of the process but a bit too long.  During our class we had our home inspection with the state, Community Care Licensing (CCL).  Things you need to have ready for the inspection;

1. The baby room- Crib or bed (depends on the age you want to foster/adopt), dresser, and car seat.
2. ALL knifes and cleaning products locked up
3. Smoke/Carbon Monoxide detectors in every room
4. First aid kit with thermometer (they also look for tweezers and scissors)
5. Infant/Adult First Aid Certification
6. TB test
7. Paper work from your doctor showing you are healthy
8. Live Scan

• October 10th 2012 -Licensed with CCL for 1 child 0-2 ~Yay! =)

From October 2012 - December 2012 we heard nothing.  Mid December I decided to email the social worker who was in the PS-Mapp class for some advise.  She replied the same day and the next day a supervisor contacted me to let me know who our social worker was and that she would be calling us soon ( she was on vacation).  We heard from our social worker in February of 2013 and were told we needed to get live scanned again through them. We called for 3 weeks trying to set up an appointment, leaving tons of messages and calling multiple times a day.  (we never heard back from them)  Finally our social worker contacted us and told us to just show up, long story short, we finally got live scanned.  Shortly after that we got switched to a new social worker to complete our home study with. 

• April 2013 We had our first interview scheduled with our new social worker...it was cancelled
• May 2013 - First interview/house inspection
• May 2013- Second interview (individual interview) They get pretty personal but not too bad.
• June 2013 - Here we are, waiting for the approval through social services, waiting for the call when our CW (case worker) tells us we are approved and ready for placement.

After putting the timeline in writing I feel like it was not as long as it felt.  The hardest part of this whole process is all the waiting.  There at a thousand things to do and everything moves at snail pace.  It takes months to get anything done and right now we are waiting again.  This is a game of patience, a marathon not a sprint. 

I hope this helps those of you who are thinking about fostering or adopting through the foster care system.  Please come back as I will continue to blog about my Journey to adopt...This is only the beginning!