The day has finally arrived! We're officially licensed for foster-to-adopt! After all the delays and frustrations, we've made it!

Looking back over our timeline, I see that we attended the agency on 30 March and it's now 8 November. So, it took us 7 months and a week to jump through all the state hoops to get licensed. For those of you considering adopting through the state, I'd encourage you to get started now because it takes quite a while!

So, now that we're licensed, we agreed to be put on the "Open Call" list, meaning the agency can call us day or night with emergency receiving or foster-to-adopt placements that meet our requirements.

When I learned that we had become licensed and Oronzo told me to call the agency back to let them know whether or not we'd like to be immediately put on the Open Call list, I must admit that I hesitated. It's not that I've changed my mind, it's just that my nerves got the better of me for a bit.

Placing that call meant accepting that our life is about to change in a drastic way. It could happen tonight or 6 months from now but if we stay on this course, changes are coming our way. We'll be opening our home to many strangers (foster care rep, case workers, lawyers, etc) and we'll be at the mercy of many more strangers. We'll be falling in love with a child (or several) and probably experiencing the pain (at least once, possibly more) of having to return the child to the parents. We'll be chugging away through the bureaucratic red tape of the state.

Life is really good right now. Snuggle Bug has our undivided attention, he's a great laid back kid, and things are fairly uncomplicated. I couldn't help but feeling nervous about disrupting all of that.

Thankfully, my excitement overcame my nervousness and I made that call! I let the agency know that we'd be willing to accept calls, starting now! Our state requires that we do 240 hours of strict foster care before we can be eligible for a foster-to-adopt placement so we're accepting emergency receiving calls to fulfill that requirement.

So, now we wait and watch the phones! Wish us luck and I'll keep you posted.

Labels: adoption #2, adoption paperwork, foster-to-adopt, fostering, Homestudy, licensing

Yes, you read the title of this post correctly! We've received our first placement call yesterday morning, and we're not even licensed yet! Let me back up a bit and explain.

To begin with, I hadn't gotten around to telling you all that our application reveiw has been put on hold a second time due to incomplete information! I got an email last Friday from the state employee, Martha, who's reviewing our application. She explained that there were three things our licensing agency didn't provide her with and also that there's a Federal Law, The Walsh Act Check, that our state has suddenly decided to enforce! What this means is that we have to have another background check done in the state that we lived in 3 years ago, in addition to all the checks we had done in our current state of residence! We were told this can take 3+ weeks to get this information back!

This past weekend was a rough one for me. I was feeling angry, frustrated, and down right discouraged that our licensing agency had dropped the ball yet again, causing us unnecessary delays! I shot an email off to the director of the agency expressing concern over the way our application has been handled, outlining the facts of the delays, and I asked for her response.

Monday, I got an email from the Program Director we'd been working with telling me that she'd taken care of everything on Martha's list, except for the additional background check. For that, she emailed me the form and instructed me to fill it out, have it notarized, and send it to another state employee. That was all done by yesterday morning.

I got an email back from the director on Tuesday, basically apologizing profusely for the frustrations we've experienced and telling me she'd be looking into it further with her staff.

Now for the good part, at about 10:00 a.m. yesterday morning, I received a phone call from our agency. A foster care specialist, Amy, who we're meeting for the first time tomorrow was calling. I immediately suspected the worst, that she was calling about something else that was going to cause us even more delays.

Imagine my shock when she told me she was calling about a foster-to-adopt placement! I quickly grabbed a piece of paper and started jotting down information as she shared it with me.

Now, obviously I can't share many of the details of this case with you, but I will tell you that the call was for an 11 month old girl who's been in foster care since she was 2 months old. The foster family she's with now is only willing/able to handle straight foster care and now that this little girl's mom has stated that she wishes to relinquish her rights (she's denied the visitation rights that she was given) the state is moving her from a foster only to a foster-to-adopt case plan.

Amy warned me that there'd be a lot of homestudies submitted for this little girl because she is young, Caucasian (we could care less about that but it's important to others), and has shown no signs of developmental delays. She has some dietary restrictions but they're pretty minor. That's it.

Amy also warned me that our homestudy could be set aside because we're not yet licensed (although we may be licensed by the time a decision is made on this little girl) and we haven't met the state requirement of 240 hours of foster-only before being eligible for foster-to-adopt. Amy did say that sometimes they overlook that requirement so it could happen, but no guarantees.

I made a quick call to Oronzo and asked him if he wanted our homestudy submitted for this little girl and he said, "absolutely!"

I called Amy back and told her to go ahead with submitting our homestudy. We know it's a long shot but Amy thought it was worth the effort. She said that even if this one doesn't work out, it gets our homestudy out there for review by those that make the decisions on placements so that the next time around they'll be at least a little familiar with us.

So, now we continue to wait. We wait for the additional background check to be done. We wait for the review of our application to be finalized. We wait for our license to come through. Most importantly, we wait to hear news on this little girl. Amy said we probably wouldn't hear anything for a few weeks.

Oddly enough, now that we know we can receive placement calls even though we're not totally licensed, I'm feeling better about the waiting.

So there you have it, news of our very first placement call! Your prayers would be appreciated. Yes, this situation is a long shot, but miracles do happen. We have a little miracle named Snuggle Bug tucked into bed safe and sound right now, so there's hope in this case as well!

I'll be sure to keep you all posted as I hear more. As always, thanks for your ongoing support!

Labels: adoption, adoption #2, Homestudy, placement call

Just thought I'd let you know that absolutely NOTHING has transpired with our application since I last updated you all on our process.

I was lead to believe that our licensing agent was putting the finishing touches on our paperwork and her Homestudy report and was just about to turn it over to her boss for review when I spoke to her on 7 August.

Apparently that is not the case. When I hadn't heard from her in over a week, I emailed her and asked her if her boss had reviewed our application and forwarded it on to the state yet.

She emailed back to tell me that she was getting ready to turn everything over to her boss for final review.

So, for the past week and a half our application has been sitting in limbo. Ugh!!! I wonder how long it'll take for the agency to put their stamp of approval on it and get it turned in to the state? It takes 30-60 days from the time that the state receives it to approve us (as I hope they will), so we still have a lot of waiting in store.

This is the frustrating part...we've done all we can do and now it's out of our hands. I guess all that's left to do is pray.

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

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

Yesterday I posted about our upcoming home inspection which Oronzo was having to deal with himself, since I'm here in Florida.

Well, after it was done Oronzo called to say we did not pass it! That's right, despite the fact we scoured our house from top to bottom, read and re-read the checklist and the other detailed literature of details about what we should expect from the inspection, and even having our agency licensing agent walk through last week and give us the thumbs up, we did not pass the inspection yesterday! I'm just a bit frustrated with the whole deal!

There were three pool-related things that the State rep told us we need to modify in order to pass inspection:

1) Get locks for the gates of our pool. We have self-latching, self-closing gates that have the latch 5 feet off the ground, where no small child can ever reach them, even standing on a chair. We ripped out the old ones and replaced them with sturdier, safer new ones when we moved into our house. But apparently that's not enough and we need to purchase locks for the gates.

2) Snuggle Bug's window must be secured so that it cannot be open more than 4" without the use of a tool (like a screwdriver or a drill). Snuggle Bug's window faces our back yard (the pool is in the back yard). His window is outside of the pool gate, so even if he were able to climb out without breaking a leg, he still couldn't land himself in the pool! In the literature that we were given, all it said is that a foster child may not have a bedroom with a window that had access to the pool area. Well, the room the foster child will be in faces the side of the house, not the backyard, so we thought we were fine. Apparently not.

3) The sliding patio door that we have in our bedroom leading out to the pool area must be closed off altogether. The fact that this door has a lock (with a key) at the very top of the door that stays locked at all times is not enough (contrary to what our licensing agent told us during her walk-through). We must seal off the door entirely! I'm not sure how we're going to accomplish that without removing the door and walling up that entrance, which I'm not willing to do!

I understand that the State is very serious about a child's safety and that a pool is considered a high-risk situation. I get that and that's great! What frustrates me (and Oronzo) is that no where in their booklet of detailed instructions or their checklists did they mention the specifics any of these requirements that we're now being told we have to adhere to. Instead, they'd rather a lady drive 2 hours to tell us these things in person!

And what about our agency licensing agent? Surely we're not the first family to have a pool. Why didn't she warn us of these things? She warned us of other things. How could she not know of these major things?

Oronzo thinks that he can manage to make the necessary modifications this weekend by purchasing and installing hardware at Home Depotm (thank goodness he's handy like that). Our licensing agent is scheduled to be at our house on Monday afternoon to do our final interview (together, as a couple). She told us before our inspection that if for some reason we didn't pass (but she assured us that she saw no reason why we shouldn't) that we'd be able to make the necessary modifications, she could inspect it on behalf of the state, and then confirm with the state that we were in compliance so that we could be approved. All I can say is that this better be the case and this better not hold things up an unreasonable amount of time or I'm going to be even more frustrated!

I have a call in to our licensing agent. The message I left her is that we didn't pass inspection and that we needed to talk.

Needless to say, our licensing agent and the State is going to get some feedback from me, letting them know that they need to be more forthcoming about their requirements for those of us that have a pool! It needs to be spelled out in black and white so that families don't have to try to guess at what they're looking for!

Ugh! Oh, and did I mention that one of our cats died a mere hour before the inspection (he died of old age, we suspected it was coming soon) and that after the inspection when Oronzo dropped Snuggle Bug off at daycare Snuggle Bug sobbed like crazy. Oronzo called me on his way to work to share all of this with me and said he'd had the worst morning ever! I feel terrible that I wasn't at home to help Oronzo deal with all of this.

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

In about 3 hours, our home will be inspected by a State representative!

Since I'm currently in Ft. Walton Beach, FL on business, Oronzo will be handling the inspection on his own.

We spent this past weekend cleaning and finishing the final touches for this home inspection so we're hopeful it will go well. We're both nervous about it.

I feel bad that Oronzo has to do this walk-through alone but, since it's so hard to get a date scheduled with the State within a reasonable amount of time, when they suggested this date I snatched it up without argument!

If we pass this inspection today, we're one step closer to being placed with a child before the end of the year. If we don't pass the inspection today, we'll be given the opportunity to fix any issues that the State representative sees and then our agency licensing agent will be able to come back and verify that we've made the necessary modifications.

Wish us luck! I'll post the results later today when I get the call from Oronzo!

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

We're plugging right along on getting everything done on our certification checklist. Let's see if I can remember what's been done thus far:

• 20+ page family profile (check)
• online application (almost done)
• 10 weeks of PS-MAPP training classes (check)
• CPR class (check)- we do the First Aid class next Monday evening
• Proof of income (check)
• Copies of drivers license (check)
• Copies of car insurance & registration for each vehicle (check)
• Copy of homeowners insurance policy (check)
• Home evacuation plan (check)
• Fingerprinting clearance cards received (check)
• Copy of immunizations for Snuggle Bug (check)
• Signed & notorized criminal history declaration forms (check)
• Combined interview by licensing agent (check)
• Individual interviews by licensing agent (almost check- mine is done, Oronzo's is scheduled for this Thursday)
• Physical & physician's statements (almost a check- mine is done, Oronzo's is scheduled for next week)
• Signing numerous agreement forms (check)
• Initial home inspection by agency licensing agent (check)
• Six reference provided by us and letters sent out by agency (check)

I think that's close to everything. We still have a few items left before we can be officially licensed. The biggest hurdle we face now is getting our "real" home inspection done by a State Inspection Agent.

Our agency licensing agent requested an inspection date for us 2 weeks ago and hadn't heard back. We got a packet of info in the mail from the state, explaining in layman's terms what the process involved (I though that was nice). The best part is that there was a number to call if we hadn't received a call from anyone scheduling an appointment for us within 30 days of the submitted request.

Okay, it hasn't been 30 days but I'm not always a patient person. I called the toll free number and left a very polite message asking someone to call me back. Amazingly enough, I got a call back in less than an hour and I got a inspection date scheduled, thanks to my call! I love it when things go my way!

Our home will be inspected on 31 July, a day when I will be out of town on business. Oronzo is going to handle the walk-through. It's probably better that I'll be out of town. I'd be a basket case if I were here, driving Oronzo crazy with my mad efforts to once again scour our house from top to bottom right before the inspection.

If all goes well with our inspection, we'll only have a few things left go get done to be certified (perhaps we'll be done by mid-August). Of course, we'll have to wait on our references to mail in their letters. Hopefully everyone will be prompt with that! We'll also have to wait for our licensing agent to write up her homestudy report but I get the impression that she's on the ball about all of that.

Wish us luck with the rest of the licensing process! We're starting to get nervous and excited, all at once!

Oh, one quick question, does anyone care to share some ideas on cute crib sets for little girls that incorporate the colors purple and sage? Store links would be appreciated! I find myself pondering over little girl crib sets now! :)

Labels: adoption #2, adoption paperwork, foster-to-adopt, fostering, home inspection, Homestudy

I haven't updated in a while how we're doing with our process of getting licensed for foster-to-adopt through the state, so here goes.

Thursday evening we attended the 9th of the 10 required MAPP classes. Although you think we'd be done with one more training class, you'd think wrong.

One of the things that has frustrated us about this training is that they seem to keep adding classes! We have to attend an extra "Nuts and Bolts" class next Wednesday evening and then our 10th MAPP class.

There's more. Since we have a pool, we both have to attend a CPR and a First Aid class (7/17 & 7/23) as well. We know these classes are important and we really don't have a problem taking them, we just wish we'd known upfront exactly what classes were expected of us!

So, when all is said and done, we will have attended 13 separate nights of classes! That's a lot of classes, especially considering we didn't have to take a single class to adopt Snuggle Bug. This process is so very different from adopting privately. We'll be glad when all these classes are done!

We're still waiting to have our official home inspection done by a state inspector. We did get a packet of info from the state that put into laymen's terms exactly what they're looking for, so that was nice. Better yet, they've given us a phone number to call to schedule an appointment if we haven't heard from anyone yet. You can bet I'll be calling them on Monday!

One unexpected thing that we learned during our class last week is that anyone we ask to babysit our foster child has to be fingerprinted before they can do so! I understand that they want the children to be safe, but this seems just a bit over-the-top to me. I sure hope our family members and close friends don't mind us asking them to take the time to go get fingerprinted if we need them to babysit for us! I'm not sure how one goes about delicately making that request.

Well, that's all for now. Check back on Monday if you're interested in participating in my very first Pay It Forward book exchange! I have another good book to give away! Thanks to all of you who seem to be in support of my idea! I can't wait to see how it goes.

Labels: adoption #2, adoption paperwork, foster-to-adopt, fostering, home inspection, Homestudy

Yesterday we had a Licensing Agent (to be called Jessica) come from the agency that we're working with to get certified for foster-to-adopt through the state. She was at our house to do a preliminary walk-through of our house to see if any improvements needed to be made before our actual homestudy home inspection was scheduled.

I'm happy to say that we had almost everything in order! We carefully reviewed the list that I've attached to this post (click on the image to enlarge) before she arrived, so that helped.

There were a couple of suggestions that she had and I'd like to share them with you, in case you ever go through this yourself.

1) The plastic Safety 1st cabinets and drawers locks we had will not pass inspection with the state. She recommended that we get magnetic Tot Loks instead because those will pass inspection. I must confess, I've never even heard of these. Jessica said we can find them at Home Depot. I'll bet they're sold at Babies R Us too.

2) We're not allowed to have any extension cords used in our home. We can use surge protectors, as long as they are plugged directly into a wall outlet (not into an extension cord). Apparently extension cords are too much of an electrical fire hazard.

3) We need to purchase a carbon monoxide detector, especially since we have a fireplace. Oops, we forgot that one on the list.

4) We have to get a shepherds hook and ring buoy for our pool. Guess we'll be making a trip to Patio Pools this weekend.

5) We have to sign up for CPR & 1st Aid classes, since we have a pool. We've been meaning to do that anyway, now the state will pay for these classes.

Here are a few things I found interesting:

1) We had to check to make sure our water heater had the hot water temp set below 120 degrees. Thankfully, ours was fine.

2) We had to check our fire extinguisher and make sure it was at least a 2A, 40 B C (ours was a 3A, 80 B C).

3) We had to check our dryer vent hose to make sure it was aluminum, not the papery material that I remember having on our dryer growing up. Since our dryer is fairly new, that was no problem. Apparently they don't make them with the papery material any longer.

4) All the plastic outlet covers we had were not necessary. Jessica said for some reason they don't care about those anymore. Strange.

5) Dog's have to be have their rabiew shots up to date, cats do not. I wonder what the reasoning is behind that. We don't have a dog so it's not an issue, more of a curiosity.

I must say, I really like the agency we're working with right now. Everyone we've dealt with thus far (and there have been a lot of people involved already) has been professional, compassionate, and encouraging. Having Jessica over to our house felt like talking with a friend. She was so relaxed and laid back about whole situation.

What amazes me most is that Jessica said she thinks she can have us licensed by the end of August, just in time for a possible fall placement! She confirmed with us that we'd prefer a girl, newborn to 1 1/2 years old, that we'd consider a sibling group of 2 as long as they fall within that age group, and that we'd certainly consider a little boy if he were part of a sibling group that included a girl (can you tell we really would love to have a girl).

She reminded us that we had the right to say "No" to any situation we didn't feel comfortable with. In fact, she said she'd rather we were honest and said, "No" instead of accepting a situation we were really worried about and have it end in a disrupted placement for the child.

So, Monday morning Jessica is going to schedule our real home inspection. She said it can take several weeks to get an appointment. In the meantime, we'll finish the MAPP classes, allow her to interview Oronzo and I separately (on July 16th), and get the rest of our online application and paperwork completed. Whew! We still have a long way to go before we even start getting placement calls. That's okay! This feels like it's going by a lot quicker than I expected.

It's hard to believe that we might have a second child in our home by the end of the year! I'm excited about that thought!

Labels: adoption #2, adoption paperwork, foster-to-adopt, fostering, home inspection, Homestudy

It's been a while since I've offered up an update on how we're progressing towards persuing a second adoption through the state.

Let's see, this Thursday will be week 7 of our PS MAPP class. That means after this Thursday we only have 3 more classes left! Hooray!

The classes have been interesting. We've learned a lot about the "system", some good and some bad. Let me share a few details.

We've heard a lot of PC talk that frustrates us, like..."Yes, the parents may have burned their children with a cigarette but they're not bad people, they just need our help. They really love their children."

I know that it's not fair to say that all parents with children removed and placed into the system are bad people. I do believe that there are many that just need services provided to help them learn better parenting/life skills. Oronzo and I both struggle though when we're told that we're not only there to provide a safe and loving environment for the children, while it's determined whether or not the parents can get back on track, but we're also expected to try to mentor the parents. We're very protective of our privacy and the safety Snuggle Bug so we've made it clear to the trainers that, although we're willing to meet and interact with the parents for the sake of the child and the state's goal of reunification, we're not willing to do it in our home. And we don't want any of our contact information shared until we feel comfortable enough to decide how much to share.

Some of the exercises in this class have been very effective in putting us in the shoes of the children and how much loss they feel at being removed from their homes. Even when things are bad, the children love their parents and most often don't want to leave. It'll be our job to help make that transition, whether temporary or permanent, as smooth as possible. The classes have given us insight and techniques on how we can accomplish this daunting task.

Overall, I think the classes have been a lot more beneficial than I expected them to. I'm learning new things, I'm forming relationships with some of my classmates in the hopes that we can support each other along the way (we've exchanged email addresses so far), and I'm getting one step closer to becoming licensed. Oronzo thinks the classes are a waste of time and views them simply as a means to an end. He's going and he's doing the required homework, so I'm not complaining.

This Friday we have a licensing agent, from the agency we're working with, coming out to do an initial walk-through of our home. This is to share tips on how we can make our home more safe before the actual home inspection required as part of our homestudy. I'm actually happy to be having a "trial run" of the walk-through! Of course, I've been cleaning like a mad woman every night, driving Oronzo crazy, but that can't be helped.

We've filled out a lot of paperwork, I've gotten my fingerprinting card in the mail (hooray, I passed), we've turned in our emergency evacuation plan, and we're about to turn in copies of paycheck stubs, home/car insurance policies, copies of our drivers licences, and much more! It's an extensive list of things we have to provide!

So, I thought I'd mention that if you have specific questions about this process and our experiences with it thus far, leave me a comment and I'll do my best to answer them.

Stay tuned, later this week I'll post the generic letter we've been asked to write to the parents of the future child we might have placed with us.

Labels: adoption #2, adoption paperwork, foster-to-adopt, fostering, Homestudy