Changing our Minds

Since the second half of that family assessment, the one in which we talked about communication constantly, we've continued to talk about the process at home and with our friends and family.  And my husband and I came to a decision that we might want to adjust our thinking, adjust our plans.

When we first started talking about Foster and Adoption, the idea was to do Fostering first.  I have a heart for older kids in Foster Care that often get overlooked because of their age.  It breaks my heart to know that a lot of these kids are never adopted, and are just sort of left to their own devices after they turn 18 and graduate high school.  There are programs to help them make the adjustment from kid in Foster Care to adult out on their own, but they're underutilized, and I think with reason.  I can't imagine that if I'd spent the majority of my childhood in the state system, that'd I'd want to stick around for advice on how to be an adult from that system.

Anyhow, so, when we first started talking about Foster Care, it was with those older kids in mind.  Granted, we want to get licensed for kids 0-18, because it's not all about teenagers, we just want to help kids that need homes and parents.  But, those teens have never been far from my mind.  And the second half of that family assessment, in which our worker asked us question after question about how we'd parent a kid in our home, questions we had no real answers to because we've never been parents before...those have stuck with us in the past weeks.

It's made us reevaluate the process, and the path we thought we'd decided upon.  So, after a little bit of research about in-state adoption of kids in the foster program, I sent an email to our worker to ask what the adoption process really entails.  Our thinking now is that while we still really want to do the Foster program, and finishing up the licensing to be foster parents, we might want to go the adoption route first.  I'd always thought that adoption - no matter what the age/situation of the child - might cost tens of thousands of dollars.  After a little digging, I see that might not be the case (though I'm waiting for confirmation from our worker about that).

If that's true, the fact that we're at the point in the process where we could start looking for a kid to join our family now?  Well that's pretty exciting.