It's really hard to describe what the last month has been like. Last time I posted, I talked about the decision my husband and I had made to try and work to adopt a child currently in foster care. We went through the painstaking process of reviewing the profiles of dozens of kids from the state website (which in itself is a process not dissimilar from searching for a pet on petfinder.com) and narrowing our choices down to the top 5 for both of us. We figured out which kids matched for both of us, and submitted a request for a sweet-looking 9 year old girl. While we waited, we told friends and family, bought furniture (generic, just in case) and steeled ourselves for the news.
It took three weeks for us to learn that the girl's worker didn't think we were a good match for us. We didn't get a lot of reasons, just a vague sort of reply. Not having any interaction with the girl or her worker means we don't really know if it was her or us, or just one of those things that happens, but it was pretty devastating all the same. We talked with our worker, and she encouraged us to apply for several kids at a time, so that we might have better luck. Within a few days, we'd gone through the process again (quicker and with keener eyes for "buzz words") and resubmitted for six kids (two of whom our sibilings). It's been two weeks since we did that, and are still waiting for replies.
In the mean time, our worker talked to us about two little girls that will soon be in need of adoptive homes. They were younger than we've been looking, but we were definitely interested so we set up time with their current foster parents to meet them. Unfortunately, we had to go through hard decision after our meeting of deciding whether we'd be the right home for them, and ultimately we were planning to say no. However, due to other circumstances, in the two days it took us to make a decision, we found out that the girls would need to be taken separately, which while sad, was good news for us.
I was on the phone with their foster mother, my worker and my husband, all in an effort to see if we could find a way to make it work for us to take over the fostership for the youngest of the two girls before she was taken from the current foster family. Unfortunately, there was no way for my husband and I to actually finish the process in a time period that would've worked for her, or for her social worker. And she's been removed from one foster home and placed with another in the past few days. It's a long-shot, but our foster worker has said that she will try and keep in touch with the girl's worker, and maybe when she's available for adoption in a few months, we'll be able to try again. However, that's not stopping our current forward momentum.
We've had family over in the past week to help us clean and organize and move our whole house around so we can finish up the foster care process. Not being able to take that little girl is heartbreaking, and knowing that we could've changed that had we already been licensed -- well, it's a giant kick in the pants to stay motivated.
