Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Foster Care Pause Button

Remember that time in November when y'all asked how our foster care process was going and I posted saying "It's not", but really it still kind of was?  Well, some of y'all have asked recently how our foster care process is going and the answer is once again "It's not", but this time it's really not.  We are officially on pause.


When we got word in mid December that our agency's Waco office was closing down, we took a while to try to scramble and figure out what we needed to do.  We did some research, talked to some people, made some calls.  We heard from some people that told us we MUST work with an agency and not directly with DFPS, that it is essential to have that support network and buffer.  We heard from others that told us we should NOT work with an agency and should work directly with DFPS instead, cut out the middle man and therefore cut out the potential for information getting lost in transition.  

We mostly ended up really confused and discouraged.  So we decided to just enjoy Christmas.  Which we did.  

Then we moseyed back to our foster care mess and landed on a decision.  We are on pause.  You see, we had it totally worked out to where we would finish at least most of our paperwork and in-person training before the end of January, if not all of it.  But now we are back to square one and staring in the face of me working 55 hours a week for tax season and Trent working until 7:30 or 8:00 during the upcoming spring ministry semester.  That doesn't jive well with house inspections and home study interviews during the day time and training classes that all start at 6:00 pm.  We could stress and and not sleep and annoy our employers by being randomly gone and be ready for a child in April, or we could pause for a few months, then push to get certified pretty quickly after tax season and be ready for a child probably in June.  That's not a huge time difference.  

For those wondering, yes we have asked ourselves the question "If we don't have time to get licensed and ready to take care of a child during the spring, how will we have time to actually take care of a child during the spring when this busy time rolls around again?"  Believe me, we've asked ourselves that question a lot.  We don't entirely have an answer to that other than we will have about half a year of experience caring for said child or children by then.  People in accounting have kids. People in ministry have kids. Those kids have appointments and get sick and need their parents at random times.  It's part of being a family.  Our kids will have court dates and birth parent visits and will need us at random times.  Our family won't look like most out there, but we'll still be a family.   


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