Last week I posted about our FAILED home inspection which Oronzo had to deal with himself, since I was in Florida on business (thanks for all the supportive comments, by the way). Well, we passed the follow-up home inspection!

This past Saturday Oronzo went to Home Depot and got the hardware required to make the required changes.

Tues morning our agency licensing agent came to our house and confirmed that the changes had been made. She initialed those areas on the checklist left by the state inspector and took the paperwork with her to submit to the state.

Tuesday evening, Oronzo undid everything that he had done to pass the inspection because we refuse to violate fire code and put our family at risk by blocking our exits in 2 bedrooms in case we are trapped because of a fire! Thankfully, our home won't be inspected again for another 3 years.

So, now that we've passed the follow-up inspection we're in the waiting stage.

We've done everything we could do to complete the process of getting licensed. All of our paperwork has been completed and turned in. All background checks (financial and criminal) have been completed. Oronzo and I have had our doctors give us physicals and sign off on the Physical Statement form. Our 5 reference letters have been sent in to the agency by family and friends. Our home has passed inspection. Our interviews have been completed and the licensing agent has written up her home study report.

All that's left is for our licensing agent to submit everything to her boss for review. Once her boss approves everything, it all gets forwarded on to the state. We're told that it can take 30-60 days for the state to decide whether or not to license us. I guess that means we could be licensed by end of September.

Once we're licensed, then we are required to complete 240 hours of strictly foster care before we can even be considered for a foster-to-adopt situation. This is a new state requirement.

We can get those 240 hours by providing respite care to foster children for foster parents that need time off or are traveling and are unable to take their foster children with them. Or, we can accept an emergency receiving placement (where very little info is known about the situation of the child that is placed with us).

I think we'll probably accept an emergency receiving placement because a situation like that could turn into a foster-to-adopt scenario, whereas a respite care placement would not.

So, there you have it. We're waiting. I'll keep you all posted. Your prayers would be much appreciated!

Labels: adoption, adoption #2, expanding our family, foster-to-adopt, fostering, home inspection, Homestudy