Rob and I have been on the fence about having a second child. About six months ago, Rob brought it up and was really interested in adopting again. I was much more hesitant. So after a couple of days of me FREAKING out in my head, I got used to the idea. More than used to...I was off planning everything in my head. Of course, that meant that Rob came to me a few days later to recant. Said he must have lost his mind, that we needed to be saving money, blah, blah, blah. I was pissed. I went from blissfully unaware of any potential new child, to completely freaked, to sad, angry, and bereaved over a kid I had already placed in our family. Yes, I am crazy. And Rob does know this, but he dangled a carrot and yanked it away anyway. Sadistic bastard.
So, I got over it. Was resentful enough to make him pay for it for a few weeks, but had let it drop after that, and moved on.
Then a month or so ago I started thinking of fostering. It's something I have always wanted to do, but always figured it would be after my own kid(s) were older, and we had a much bigger place. But here we are, Cam at 13 months old, living in a two bedroom place, money tight, and I am thinking "wouldn't that be cool if we could do that?!?!" I kept those thoughts to myself. I thought maybe it was a phase. Maybe, like so many other things, my ADHD was hyper-focused on one thing, and it would eventually look less appealing to me. After about three weeks, I was ready to lose my mind. I couldn't stop reading or researching. I figured if I told Rob, he would talk me down, burst that bubble. Life could continue on, hunky dory.
Except Rob didn't try to tell me I was out of my tree. He thought it was a good idea. If anything, I thought for sure Rob would balk at going the foster care route because of 1) bureaucracy; 2) getting attached to a child that would be returned to family. My husband will do anything not to be hassled, and going out and volunteering for the GOVERNMENT to effectively run a good portion of our lives, is something he would normally be abjectly opposed to. As we sat talking about it, part of my brain was engaged in the conversation, and a bigger part was saying "NO WAY. NO WAY HE IS AGREEING WITH ME. NO WAY IS HE SUGGESTING WE DO THIS. GET THE FUCK OUT OF TOWN."
That day I filled out an online inquiry, and the office contacted me the next day. Our county is in desperate need for homes. Mostly they need homes for elementary to high school aged kids. The social worker tried doing the hard sell. I asked her about transracial children, and again she started in with the older kids. I have nothing against older kids, in fact, I would love to foster older children at some point, but because of our tiny home, and Cam's age, we need ages 0-2. Social worker was polite, but told me the county doesn't place babies. Almost never. She then went on to tell me that the babies they do place are from the hospital and are drug exposed, and drug dependent upon birth. Bingo! Soon as I said that is what we are looking for, her tone changed and she was much more chatty about babies/toddlers.
On Wednesday, Rob and I attended an informational meeting the other night for our county's Foster/Adopt program. There were only four other people in attendance. Before we decided on an agency adoption back in 2009, we attended the same meeting. That meeting was PACKED. Practically standing room only. I was kind of exhilarated (in my very own Type A competitive way) and saddened to see so few people there. The lady who ran the meeting recognized Rob and I from the last time, and was very helpful. She of course talked almost exclusively of teens, and slightly younger kids. I was shocked that no one even mentioned babies or toddlers. As if I were guarding a very good poker hand, I didn't say one word. I waited until after the meeting to ask the social worker about using our home study from the agency (can't), to see if we could skip some of the PRIDE training due to some of the classes we took from our agency (nope), and to see how quickly we could get licensed. Seems they do the training and home study at the same time, so we could be licensed by August.
Oh, and the PRIDE class does not start until June 1st. Of course, had I opened my mouth about all this when I started thinking about it, we could be sitting in the classes that started this past week. Sigh. That really got my goat, and had the control freak inside me screaming every dirty word it could think of.
Bottom line: it's a new adventure. So excited, a bit hesitant, but mostly excited.
yeah girl!
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