Beginning

We went to that Foster Care information session in September and sent in our application in October. I emailed shortly after that but hadn't heard anything back. I decided, since we're still torn on the direction our family building should go, that we should leave it up to "fate." If we get a call back, we'll pursue this. If not, we won't.

On Thursday afternoon I missed a call, and the caller left no voicemail. I assumed it was another debt collector for the person (alegzandermishaw as the digital voice says) who used to have my number. Friday afternoon at 4:58pm I was sitting around and decided to Google the number, just to be sure.

Turns out the number belongs to the intake lady at our county Foster Care system.

So I called back this morning, figuring she could be calling about any number of things. We could be rejected, we could be accepted, we could be asked questions, we could be asked to re-apply, we could be asked to come to another session, etc.

The lady was very nice and told me that they'd been holding back on my file as I'd put that our primary reason for wanting to do Foster Care was adoption. She said that they weren't sure if they should send me an invite for the MAPP classes or send me the info of an adoption agency. So I told her our thoughts, how we would indeed like for this journey to end in adoption but we know full well the risks, which is why we'd held of on taking the plunge so far. We feel we have a lot we can offer and that we'd be open to any number of situations (such as respite, emergency foster, week long foster, etc) but we wanted to attend the MAPP class first and find out more information. Right now our primary concern is the well being (physically and emotionally) of our children and we will make all our decisions in regards to placements in their best interest.

And so we are being sent the invite and we'll be starting classes in a month.

There are 10 classes, 3 hours each, over the course of 5 weeks. It'll be a rough month, and with Nik having a major deadline at work at that same time... yeah, it'll be crazy.

But we have a set start and end date so I can handle that kind of craziness!

The whole licensing and certification process can take anywhere from six months to over a year, but I'm hoping that we'll be ready to go by mid-fall, when the kids are another year older and hopefully sleeping in the same bedroom. This will give them a lot of time to grow and to process what our family is about to do, and will give us time to prepare physically (new car? More beds? A crib set up in the nursery? Another car seat installed? Maybe learn how to make a bottle of formula, which I've never done?). And it will give Nik and I time to build up a support team, to connect with other, more experienced foster and fost/adopt parents as well as the professionals involved.

So 2012 might just be our wildest year yet. Here's hoping it all goes smoothly!