Adjustments & Questions

To say that the response to our "going public" with our intent to foster and adopt has been wonderful and overwhelming would be an understatement. Our fantastic friends and family have been literally unbelievable. We could not ask for a more supportive group of fabulous people in our lives.

I appreciate the questions that have come via email and conversations. I thought it would be good to post the questions as I get them so that we can share them.

I also thought this would be a great way to document the changes to our lives so we can capture them for the future.

We have never truly baby-proofed out house, so no better time than the present, right? These outlet covers are so good I can hardly get them off. Which I supposed means a 1 year old will be able to whip them off in 2 seconds flat.

As a requirement of our licensing we have to lock up all prescription medications and household cleaners. So that we don't have to keep a key somewhere and then hide it from kids, we decided to get a lock on our linen closet similar to our front door. We did this before our first home visit. We thought we might as well do it right away and start getting used to it. It actually hasn't been that big of an adjustment and is probably a darn good idea anyway, given we have lots of little people in our life.

This is one of our spare bedrooms that we have cleaned out and rearranged to accommodate our foster children. We are contemplating painting this room, but aren't sure yet. It's been one of three rooms in our house that's painted a color that I don't love. We already painted one which is my bathroom. This one will probably be next on the list.

It's a rule of foster care that you cannot allow children to sleep in pack-n-plays. I believe it has something to do with all of the recalls, etc and how they cannot be sure you are using one that is considered safe. If you want to take kids on overnights to hotels, camping, etc. you have to take a port-a-crib. It's about 35% the size of a regular crib. It's definitely not as convenient as a pack-n-play, but what do you do.....

My wonderful husband read well when he ordered the port-a-crib and saw that the mattress wasn't very good so he ordered another one that is much better. Sophie decided she wanted to check this thing out that the strange man at the door brought to us.

We also have to lock up our "outside" hazardous chemicals that you would keep in your garage or shed. A couple of weeks ago our shelf in the shed fell down and made this lovely mess that I hadn't gotten around to resolving in the 100 degree heat. I decided that before our 2nd home visit that I wanted to have this wrapped up and sent Brad to get a new shelving unit that we use to house all of our stuff and then put a lock on the shed.

The new shelf that Bradley put together

After a couple of hours and my stellar organizing skills, here's the new, improved, organized, hazard-contained shed. I am actually quite proud of my masterpiece. :)

Here are some of the questions that we have gotten since sending & posting our letter.

Will you be able to post pictures or use their first names?
I'm honestly not entirely sure. We haven't really talked about social media yet in our class, but I assume it's coming. I am going to guess and say yes we can do these things. Their names are not a secret, but their situations are private.

How many children will you foster at a time?
We will be certified for 2 children to start out with. This means we will only be able to have 2 at one time. However, if a sibling group was available that we decided we wanted to accept and there were 3 of them, DHS can issue us a variance to allow this. My biggest question was about what if we have 2 kids and then someone is available for adoption, how does that work. The answer is since we can only have 2 kids, we would need a variance to accept that 3rd child that we would be working to adopt.

Are you open to adopting many children?
We haven't landed on a firm number at this point. We are learning about all of the different kids and situations. For example, this week during our class and home visit, we talked a lot about kids who are 17 or so and are ready to age out of the system, but really want to be adopted into a family that they can share their life, holidays, and experiences with. They also need help with applying to college and for scholarships, etc. We hadn't really thought much about these kids since we are most interested in raising a couple of kids from younger ages. So I guess we'll see where this journey takes us.

How soon will this happen once you get your license.
We will be done with our class at the end of July and our licensing worker tells us that DHS is taking about 2 months to get all of the paperwork done and licenses sent out. After that, we just wait for a call and a child with a set of circumstances we take on.

How many kids will be placed at any given time?
Because we will be certified for 2 kids at one time, that's the amount we can have placed, unless we have a variance.

Will they be in daycare or will one of you stay home?
We will both be still working full time, but our schedules are quite conducive for this process right now. Brad works M-F and I work Sat, Sun, and Mon. We are currently working on daycare for Mondays and for any meetings/appointments I have during the week. I would say this is the part I am most unsure of at this point. I'll admit I'm nervous about being able to find someone what will be able to help us during the week at the times we need. And of course, I am going to have to be better at balancing work and that has already been quite the adjustment. :)

How long is the average stay time?
That actually depends on a lot of factors. We will get an initial estimate when we get the call about the child as to how long DHS estimates the child will be placed. It then depends on the situation with the family, are their other family members that can foster or want/can have the child placed with them. It depends on the court system and the length of time it gives the parents to be able to turn around their situation and whether or not they are making progress. It could literally be a couple of days or week up to more than a year. One thing we have learned through our class is that kids in the 0-3ish age range, they want to have a permanency plan for within 6 months-year and the older kids before 18 months.

If you get pregnant, will you continue to foster?
We plan on taking this one as it comes. We could very well have a child in our home and get pregnant. We have talked about how we would handle that and incorporate that into our life and the life of any child staying with us. I think it's fair to say that we may take a break or be more selective on what we would take on if we are able to get pregnant.

Will this affect family time or do they encourage being around extended family?
I would say the only way this would affect family time is the same way it affects people with their own kids. We may have to make decisions based on what's going on with the kids and our schedules like anyone else. As for being around extended family, the view is that the more positive, caring people that can be incorporated into these kids' lives, the better. We don't plan on stopping anything based on foster parenting, but more making the same decisions that other parents make based on moods, sleep schedules, etc.

Why the secrecy around the families?
This is for a few reasons. Think if you were struggling with an addiction or other problem and having your business public and people talking about you. Think about being a child who is already having a hard time being ripped from their parents, home, school, family, etc and then have people talking about your family right in front of you. There is a respect for the families and their privacy. I have to say I was pretty surprised about this and the farther we get in this process, I'm glad it's this way. No better way to teach respect then demonstrate it from the get go.