So so so blessed!

Sorry this has taken me a little bit longer to update everybody on my major praise that I mentioned on Facebook late Monday night. I was so exhausted for some reason by the end of that day that I literally crashed that night - still fully clothed, flopped down on top of all the covers, and with over half the lights on throughout the apartment I felt a little sheepish waking up the next morning and realizing what I’d done!

Yesterday was better but still distractable with putting together ***drumroll, please*** my praises of both a regular toddler bed and a convertable bed that transitions from a crib to a toddler daybed to a full-size bed frame!!!!!!!!! Granted, they aren’t the twin-size bunkbeds I had been eyeing at Walmart for almost $200, but God blessed me with these as gifts from a complete stranger who had heard of my hopes and dreams of wanting to foster adopt. I still need to get a crib mattress for the second bed (the lady was only able to give me one of those) along with some bedding sheets and bed wetting pads and one more pillow but God has helped in covering the more major expense of the beds themselves! I was just a little hyper with the happiness from receiving them that night before I crashed!

Other unexpected blessings have included a large bag of miscellaneous toddler to early-gradeschool-age toys, a large bag of childrens clothing that ranged from size 18 months all the way up to size 12, and a small toddler-sized ride-on toy. The bedroom is looking a lot more like it belongs to two little girls and the living room is looking pretty chaotic! My next chore is getting that one back under control

As far as the PRIDE training sessions, last Saturday we had a double seesion day (6 very long hours) and covered the topics of strengthening family relationships, both those with the biological family for possible reunification and with the foster family in learning it’s OK to make new attachments as well without the child feeling guilty in doing so. We also discussed discipline; learning the differences between discipline and punishment and methods of discipline that may of been different from ways that we were brought up with but that are recommended for working with children who have suffered trauma from abuse and neglect since physical punishment cannot be used under any circumstances with these children. Last night was session seven, continueing family relationships, which leaves us with only one more regular session before our final session which is going to be done up very differently from the rest with a whole panel of speakers who will be sharing with us and allowing a good bit of time for questions and answers. Session eight is going to be tomorrow night (Feb. 19th) and the final session will be Monday of next week (Feb. 23rd). After that will be a second attempt at having Orientation (Feb. 28th) since the first attempt got snowed out on us; it still feels wierd having Orientation last

Beginning stages of the homestudy

Sing the wondrous joys of home study,
Sing the wondrous joys of stress,
Through the paperwork and inspections,
I’ll prepare for them a place!

I am absolutely convinced that you’ve got to have a sense of humor about these things! The inspections have yet to start but the paperwork has definitely begun. In the pre-service training we’re calling it “homework” but the importance of completing it has been made quite clear to us. While our individual papers aren’t being looked at and discussed in class, we’ve been told that our home-finder will be wanting to see and discuss them as we work through the paperwork for the home study.

Last week, the two visits with my family doctor were done and my physical completed. Today, I’m going to try and turn my rough draft of a genogram (basically, a pictorial version of my genealogy) into a nice, neat final copy. I’ve also begun working on what they call an ecomap which shows a pictorial view of my connections to other individuals and to the community. And there’s still lots and lots of case studies to work on, charts to fill out, a million questions to answer, and chapters of reading yet to go. I’m feeling like I’m back in school again and never been more excited to be so!

I’m also spending part of my days going through the apartment doing a lot of sorting out, some discarding, re-organizing, and trying to figure out how to redo furniture arrangements to turn a one-bedroom apartment into two-bedrooms while still trying to feel like I have a living room. My preference would really very much be to have an actual two-bedroom first but I’m also dependent on HUD for my housing and they are being quite stubborn on the issue that I need to have a child already living with me to move up to a two-bedroom voucher. Oh, the joys of HUD as well! (Though I can’t be too hard on them; I couldn’t have my own place without them.)

The latest news...

So far, we’ve watched a couple short videos in each PRIDE training session and also have short descriptions read of different types of abuse situations that children have possibly had to endure before they entered the foster care system. In all but the first training session, we’ve taken time to discuss them as a group. I’ve struggled with these in a couple different ways. They tend to both stir up memories of abuse that I endured as a child and, as I get to listen to the others who share their thoughts on them, I struggle with feeling so different from the rest of the group.

There’s only one other woman in the group that’s made it known that she came from an abusive background as well; she was adopted out of the system herself. So many of the others have expressed disbelief that people could actually treat children in some of the ways that are acted out in the video scenes and most of the time I’m sitting there feeling what I had thought was numb and not normal because it seemed so opposite the response of what almost everybody else seemed to be having. It bugs me. I’ve been thinking about it and I guess it’s not really numbness as it is having lived through it first-hand versus someone who grew up in a loving, nurturing home life that probably definitely wanted the kids that lived there. I guess things aren’t as shocking to me on a TV screen after having lived it in 3-D every day for the first 28 years of my life.

The training sessions are required to help us in learning more about how to work with and handle children who have been traumatized by abuse but they also seem to be having the extra benefit of understanding different ways that I used to be in my own reactions and behaviors as I was growing up and even a little as an adult. It’s really the first time for me in a number of areas that I’m finally understanding some of the reasons why I turned out the way that I did and why I had so many obstacles to overcome in the last several years. Both sessions three and four are on meeting developmental needs; last Monday’s was on attachments and tomorrow night’s (Thursday’s) is going to be in how losses affect that.

I learned something new while meeting with my worker at the HUD office earlier this week. She also has gone through the process for foster care and adoption and let me know that actually you can go ahead and have a child placed with you even though you’re living in a one-bedroom apartment. The only problem is I have to be willing to sleep in the living room and give the bedroom to the child since one of the requirements is for the child to have their own space and privacy; apparantly, it’s not required for the adult caring for the child to have it though. Hummmmm… it has me wondering. Once I have a child placed with me then I can qualify for a two-bedroom voucher so it wouldn’t be a long term situation so maybe it could actually be tolerable for a little while; it’s going to take a lot of thinking on how I’m going to be able to rearrange so much stuff though. I really wish this apartment came with some storage space

One short, final note: I had my physical yesterday and that went really well. The only special note he made on it was for children two years of age and older ONLY. But I already was expecting that. Outside of going back Friday to have the TB Tine test checked, and possibly a chest x-ray since I’ve been known to come back with “false positives” on that, my physical is complete. That’s one more part of the homestudy process that I can check off the list!

FINALLY :)

OK! After two weeks in a row of announcing that we were finally getting started with all the PRIDE orientation and meetings, just to have them being rescheduled for one reason or another, I really hesitated this week to say anything to anyone about them without actually meeting first Well, we finally met last night and now I’m not even sure where to start. There are so many things jumping out at me from it.

The meeting did go pretty good, I think, though I wasn’t expecting such a huge turnout. There were roughly about 30 people there and the room, even though it was a pretty large conference room, still felt packed. The main speaker let us know before the end of the meeting that there was a chance that we might have to split everyone up into two groups instead, just because we’re supposed to have a good bit of interaction throughout the sessions and get to know each other in our group pretty well and that is just a little hard to do in a group the size of what we had last night.

One of the things that surprised me was that there were at least three couples who stated, during our “introductions” time, that their partner was their boyfriend/girlfriend rather than a spouse. From my understanding, both single people and married couples qualify, and even gay couples, but even couples are supposed to have been either married or, for the last category, together, for a minimum of three years; it’s supposed to be to insure stability in the relationships before bringing other children into it. None of the three couples I’m referring to introduced their partner as a fiance/fiancee but boyfriend/girlfriend. To me, boyfriend/girlfriend relationships do have the potential to lead into more serious commitments like engagements and marriage, but they can also break up next week. Since only those living in the home with the foster child have to be approved, and since both halves of each couple were there to become licensed as foster parents, it leads me to assume that the couples plan on living together as boyfriend/girlfriend. My biggest questions on that, was how that one was going to work out and what happens if the guy and girl break up? Do they decide whose going to take responsibility for which kid or would it guarantee every child in the home being completely uprooted again and placed in new foster care homes? How does the state department look upon dating relationships among the foster parents, especially assuming that they’re living together, as was my assumption last night?

After the introductions we had a short break and then came back to take a 30 question multiple-choice pre-training test. For me it seemed easy but I’ve also taken college courses in child and adolescent development; raised two children for 7 and 9 years; read various baby, child, and adolescent materials for the last decade and a half; and researched numerous foster care and adoption subjects over the last couple years. I think I struggled on two questions out of the entire thing. I’m a research freak when it comes to subjects that really matter to me and this time it showed, I guess. There are two sides to almost everything in life.

After the test we took another short break, then came back in and received our PRIDE training notebooks; a good solid-inch thick, 297 page bundle of wealth that is going to be one of my guides in beginning this process. We weren’t required to read more than the info for the first and second sessions but I’ve had a hard time making myself stop and am over halfway through, though with plans to go back and reread the first two sessions worth just before the next session meeting to remind myself of where the class is supposed to actually be. But this binder is just so packed with information that I’ve had trouble putting it down! It probably also doesn’t help with it that I feel like I can finally start moving forward again and can’t wait to do so!

We also spent probably 20 minutes working out a schedule for the next eight sessions that the majority of the group were willing to agree on. It wasn’t the easiest task with that many people and that many schedules and a couple people seemed to have problems with no matter what we chose.

Finally, we ended with a half hour video called “Making a Difference.” It presented foster care and foster adoption from the time when possible problems within a family are first spotted, to the child’s being removed from the family and brought into the system, to including the possibilities of both reunification (returning the child to the biological family) and also foster adoption. It also included a few scenarios of what kind of emotional and behavioral problems the child may present to the foster family resulting from their sudden removal from the only family they’ve ever known and that may result as consequences from surviving different types of abuse and neglect. It was a little bit of a reality check on working with children that are in the system while also introducing how the program is supposed to work. My only regret was that we were pushing it on ending the meeting on time and I think a little bit of discussion time might of been beneficial following the video.

For the most part we’re going to be completing the rest of the sessions at roughly twice a week and have training session two scheduled for next Tuesday; January 27th, also from 6 to 9pm. It’s going to be about Teamwork Toward Permanence; learning about working as part of a team to bring about the best possible (hopefully permanent) solution for the children and their families that are being served by the foster care system.

Calming the Seas

Matthew 14:24-33 “But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased. Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God.”

I don’t know if that passage truly fits this situation, and hope I’m not stretching it any, but it’s what keeps coming to mind on all of this right now. I’ve gathered a little bit of controversy on the issue of my adopting as a single person and I keep telling myself that it’s to be expected; though, where I feared expecting it in the Christian realm of things I didn’t expect it so much in the secular realm.

So far, most of the people I’ve encountered have been for it and think it’s wonderful. Both my rheumatologist and family doctor have given their ok on it. People at both my church in Ripley and my church in Prosperity are backing me. Even a few at the Bible college are excited and eager to know how this is progressing for me. The numbers of visits to my adoption blog (nearly 600 in just barely two months time - and it doesn’t count my own visits) tells me there are a lot of people keeping up with what’s going on with this; how many of them agree or disagree is completely undetermined. I have four out of the five of my required references attained and will hopefully acquire the final one this Saturday; one is my pastor here in Prosperity, two others from the same church (one of whom also is connected through the Bible college), a second also from the Bible college, and the final one from my church in Ripley. My mom was going to also be a reference but I learned tonight that you can’t use family.

My mom has already touched on the subject of adoption with my two nephews that I helped raise for seven and nine years to try and help prepare them for the hopeful possibility of my adding a new member to our family. With their autism, even though they are now 15 and 13, it’s still best to gradually prepare them for changes that may be happening. My landlord has let me know that it shouldn’t be a problem in helping to find me a two-bedroom house and is fine with me caring for children from the state; not all landlords ok foster-parenting in their rental properties. He has even assured me that my security deposit will transfer to the new property which will cut down a great deal on actual moving expenses for me and allow me to put the money that I’ve been saving towards a bunkbed and dresser instead, making it easier to better prepare for whatever child is brought my way. I also am receiving tremendous support on a very regular basis from AdoptUSKids when originally I had been a little afraid that I would be making my way through this journey feeling pretty alone.

So very much seems to be falling right into place, as if it’s meant to be. I think I can honestly say that I’m even feeling peace from God on this. But then someone stirs up the waters and my boat gets rocked a little…

… like at the end of my last doctor appointment when I was scheduling a date for my physical for next month. The family doctor had specifically written on the paper that the physical was going to be done because of foster-parenting requirements and the receptionist suddenly went off on the issue. She questioned me on how many people lived in my home, emphasizing off of my answer about there not being a husband and how single people shouldn’t be allowed to foster-parent. She asked me how much I’d get paid for each child, what did I do for a living, exactly what was my total monthly income from my disability, if I was disabled how could I care for a child, why was I really wanting to do this for? I felt like she was really crossing some lines and was tempted to ask her what the heck was her problem?! But I didn’t, though it doesn’t mean I didn’t fume over it for a short while as my friend and I ate lunch afterwards.

That hasn’t been the only time but I don’t feel like trying to describe different instances and will let it suffice to say at least it has only been a few times in comparison to the backing and support that I’ve received and am continueing to receive from friends and family.

Probably the absolute biggest area of controversy has been over my singleness and it has really irritated me a few times. I do agree extremely strongly that the ideal situation for a child is within a two parent home. However, because of my mother’s childhood, I feel that sometimes the ideal situation isn’t always possible and, when that’s the case, I feel that a child having at least one person in their life that loves them truly as their own and wants to be a permanenet part of their life is far better than a child having absolutely no one at all. Give me a minute to explain please.

Very few of you, I think, had any idea of my mother’s childhood situation. Her father was killed on the job one month before my mother turned three. My grandmother, who it’s been suspected had learning difficulties and below-level coping skills, was widowed with three children ages four and under and pregnant with the fourth child. At about 3 1/2 years old, my mother, her sister, and two brothers were removed from their mother’s care and placed into the foster care system where my mother and her sister remained until each of them aged out of the system at age 18. At one point a very caring and loving yet single individual inquired about adopting my mother. That person had no criminal past, made enough income to more than support themself and a child, had already formed a loving bond with my mother as a neighbor, and wanted extremely much to love her as their own. The state could not find a single fault with the person outside of two facts: it was a man and he was single. Up until he expressed interest in adopting my mother he had been allowed access to her on numerous occassions and never once gave anyone a reason to question his motives. But, once he expressed interest in adopting her, any chance of him being allowed to show any interest or love towards her was forcably cut off by the state.

Personal opinion here: being male or female does not disqualify a person from parenting, neither does being single or married, and neither does being fully healthy or disabled. What can disqualify a person from parenting is being so disabled that they can no longer physically care for a child themselves and there isn’t a remaining spouse in the home who can.

I have no control over the fact that I was stricken with one form of arthritis at age 14 and an even more severe form of arthritis at age 26. I had no control over the sexual abuse that lasted from ages 4 to 8. While I have been able to work through and overcome the majority of my struggles that resulted from that abuse, the one that I have never been able to really get a hold on has been a fear of men in general and a strong distrust in them. Even though I have lived through it and learned ways to deal with the abuse and the consequences of it, it still takes me a tremendous amount of time to place trust in a man. It is not that I don’t eventually, I do but it has sometimes been known to take anywhere from a year to several years, and I have yet to date a single guy who has held that kind of patience and understanding.

As far as my physical disabilities, yes, they have the disadvantage of putting some limitations on me, hence why both doctors have clearly stated to me that I am to take in no children younger than two years of age. Would I like a baby? Yes! I think there are a lot of advantages to adopting a baby over top of an older child but, do I think I can love an older child just as much as I could a baby? I have absolutely no doubts on that! When you have strongly desired your own child for 15 years at least, waiting, wondering, and praying, I have found it easier to trust God in His wisdom in presenting to me whichever child is His gift to me! As far as a major advantage in being disabled, I get to be a full-time stay-at-home mom; that is something that even some two parent families don’t offer their children. This child certainly won’t have all the wealth that a five or six-figure income might bring in but she will have all that she may ever need and all the love that God has enabled me to ever give her!

Yes, my boat has been rocked a little, but MY GOD has helped me in regaining my balance and direction! Tomorrow night, from 6 to 9pm, is supposed to be our first P.R.I.D.E. training session out of ten. I’m nervous, I’m excited, but most importantly, I’m READY! I’ve hoisted my anchor and I’m setting sail!

Thankfully, a very rare one.

Every now and then there comes a day when all I wish I had was a friend to wrap their arms around me, to hold me close, and let me know the day was going to be alright. One to not expect me to even have to explain but be accepting of my silence and just fill the temporary need of wanting to simply know someone who loved me was there. Today is being one of those days.

P.R.I.D.E.

One of the steps required for me to foster parent and adopt through West Virginia’s foster care system is attending their P.R.I.D.E. pre-service training program. It occurred to me that many of you reading my blog probably may have had nothing to do with the state’s requirements for working with children in the system so thought it might help a little if I explained some what this next step is I’m getting ready to start on.

P.R.I.D.E. stands for Parent Resources for Information, Development, Education. It is a competency-based program consisting of 10 three-hour sessions, and covers topics ranging from attachment issues, loss issues, discipline, effects of abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, and the effects of fostering and adopting on the family. It is taught through a co-trainer model that consists of an agency trainer and a foster or adoptive parent trainer and is designed to train prospective foster and adoptive parents together.

My first session is scheduled for this coming Thursday; January 15th from 6-9pm at the Beckley DHHR office. The only thing I know we’re definitely doing is getting fingerprints taken and presenting picture ID to begin background checks because the letter specifically stated it. Other than that, and probably a lot of listening and note-taking, I simply won’t know until it happens, but I’ll keep ya posted