Lowering the expectations, and preparing for the inspection.

So far, our adoption classes are going great.  We learned this past week, that we should not go into this with any expectations—which is kinda hard.  How do you do that? How do you expect nothing, when this means everything to you?

We have found several different sets of children in which we are interested in, but none of their social workers are interested in us until we finish completely, and are licensed fully by the state…and so, we press on.

Now we are preparing for the fire marshal’s inspection. We have to have our fire extinguishers’ mounted; ensure that no beds are near windows; make sure all batteries in all smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are new; we have to make sure all exits are clear of clutter (guess I have to move that chair I keep by the door—just kidding); we must have exit routes clearly marked in a central location of the house and on the back of all bedroom doors (seems futile to me, since in the case of an emergency, who really has the time to look on the back of their door to see where to go??); and the most expensive of all preparations for the fire marshal, is that we have to replace all of our power strips and extension cords with UL approved surge protectors – those things are EXPENSIVE!

At any rate, in case any were wondering, we are still in the game, we are still going through, and it is indeed a very long process!

I think the hardest thing we have to do in preparation, is what I told you above: get rid of all of our expectations. I think this will be hard because as stated, it is very difficult to turn off those emotions.  When you have wanted a family for so long, and it finally comes to fruition, you have so many dreams and hopes, and wishes that you want…you have dreamed about ways to improve the lives of these children, and expose them to better things they may have never experienced before. So with this in mind, it really does boggle my mind as to how do we lower our expectations?

I –I do not know about my hubby—but I am now afraid of what to expect.  I mean, I have prayed about this, and I have prayed that God send us the kids he means for us to have, but I do worry.  We heard in class where one person said that her friend adopted, and that she had to tell the child, “When you are ready for me to be the mom you want, you tell me.” Wow. That was powerful, and I wonder if I have the strength to do this? I wanna be the mom they want then…I mean, I’m not crazy, I do know that I won’t be “mom” right away, but will I ever be?

What if they are never ready? What if they never call me mom? This is my fear…I must now try to find it within me to lower my expectations, un-plan all that I have planned, and wait for the unknown, and pray that everything works out.

Adopting---Life is FINE!

I am so excited! I got a check this past week that was totally unexpected! After ensuring it was legit from payroll (I didn’t want my feelings hurt later), we went SHOPPING for our future kids (SN: We have found another sibling pair of three girls we are thinking hard over)! 

Looking on the internet at various furniture stores, I found the cutest STACKABLE bunk beds I have ever seen! 

Whereas they came in colors like espresso and cherry, we settled on the pine (even though I have a passion for cherry), because we knew that pine would be easier to match up in color as far as when it comes to matching and mixing other pieces. 

For so long we have been agonizing over what exactly would a child sleep in! We didn’t want regular bunk beds, because they cannot come apart, and what if we adopt these two year old twins we saw? How would we accommodate them in a bunk bed of all things? How would we secure the child up top, didn’t wind up down below?

However, when I saw these bunk beds online, and saw that they are STACKABLE, our knew my prayers had been answered! With stackable, we are ready for ANYTHING! We can have two year olds, and just put those little rails on the sides of the bed as I saw in Wal-mart, and bing bang BOOM, we’re set, or if we adopt older kids, we can either have them tucked in bunk style, or twin style! YIPPEE!

Not only did we get the bunk beds this past week, but we also got the mattresses! Come to find out that Sam’s Club sells Serta mattresses for twin and bunk beds for only 99 dollars! This was such a sweet deal! 

We commandeered my daddy’s pick-up truck, and moseyed on out to Wal-mart and Sam’s!

Then, as if we had not run around enough this week, we saw a fabu sale going on at Value City Furniture, were they had youth chest of drawers marked down for their Columbus Day Sale---of course we snatched up two!

I tell you! This has been a most amazing week! We have finished furnishing the bedroom for our future children! 

Now, as I sit here typing, I giggle to myself as I listen to the grunts of my hubby and daddy upstairs putting together those massive bunk beds.  LOL.  This is too cute, and I think my excitement has suddenly come back! I mean hey! If Stella could get her groove back, and others are bringing back sexy, I figure I sure can bring back my excitement!

Continue to pray for us!

PS An additional word about our social worker:  she has been Johnny on the Spot responding to our emails since our first adoption class began.  I have gotten more information from her in these past few weeks, then I ever did leading up to the beginning of our certification classes.  Life….seems suddenly good right now.  To put this past week in the words of the immortal Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes…Life…is fine!

Maybe it IS all in who you know -- the first adoption class.

           Maybe it is all in who you know? We completed our first adoption class just recently, and it was great! I must admit, at first, I was very leery, and not at all happy when we walked into the building to see a lady checking people off on her list, and taking money for a class!

                I was seething, thinking, “Please, not another blunder!” The woman made us step off to the side to “deal with us” once she had checked in the others who were in line.

                Standing there…seething, I mean, seriously seething people (you’d have to know what has transpired in the past few weeks---too much to try and type), thinking, and about to cry because I was just that pissed because my hubby has made so many deals to work his schedule around these classes, when who should walk around the corner, then someone I work with (referred to as the Class Leader)!

                Come to find out, this person I work with, is a teacher by day, and a social worker by night (not really, but you get the picture). She is the trainer for our agency.  I never knew! I see her all the time, but never knew that she was a social worker full time in a former life! Just goes to show you why you should not go around burning bridges!

                She looks at me, and says, “Are you the __________ from my list?” I laughed and nodded, still too stunned to speak. And guess who was walking with her? That’s right! OUR social worker! This was too much!

                Come to find out, the other class that that rude person was checking names off for, was a court appointed parenting class for people who have gotten in trouble with the law dealing with their kids, and have been mandated to attend and pay for these classes. As the Class Leader put it once we got to our classroom, those people where the people who unfortunately, we may end up adopting their kids, or fostering them until they can get them back.

                At any rate, class was wonderful. It was really a lot of fun, not at all what I thought it was going to be. We all introduced ourselves, and I must say, we are in class with a lot of real characters! We did role play, and we seriously cut up, so it made the time for the class go by really quickly!

                We even all bonded together talking trash about another person in the class who literally texted the entire time we were in class! When we had a break, and she walked out of the room, everyone turned to one another and asked, “Exactly why is she here?” and, “How rude can one be?” It was kinda nice, everyone finding common ground on which we could unite. 

                Also during the course of the class, the Class Leader and I were constantly relating material she was teaching about, to some of the students we have known in the past…this made me feel really good. LOL. I know, I’m bad, huh? But you just don’t understand, we were seriously thinking about giving up until this class began! We were just that tired of feeling that we were not “important enough,” to deal with!

                And guess what? How about all of the stuff that my social worker has been promising me, but forgot to give me, and had yet to give me, was all in the inbox of my email account the next day! Huh! Maybe it IS all in who you know!  

Adopting--It's all in who you know!

Ok. So for those who do not know, I am a teacher.  I went to school, and was just talking with the school social worker, and I asked them about the agency that I am using.  If you will remember, I told you that I decided on this agency, because it is the agency my godparents used to adopt.  

My reason for being curious, is because when I told my cousin in Florida the name of the agency I was using, she said as a former social worker, that this agency did not have a good reputation there in Florida.  So, any who, I decided to do some investigating.

The school social worker said that from their experience, my agency had the reputation of being the type of place, where your adoption, and its speed, etc, depends on who you know in the agency, and the pull your contact has!!!!!

Gosh gee whiz, and some other words that are not very nice! Why had I never heard this? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if I did not so SOME investigating beforehand, but in all honesty, the information I found on the web on adoption agencies, really doesn’t give you inside information like I got from this person.

This makes me feel that maybe there should be some way to rate adoption agencies! I mean, why not? If we rate teachers and their performance and effectiveness, then why not rate these agencies who are responsible for finding loving homes for society’s children that have been forgotten? Lord knows they make you jump through amazing hoops…why not make them so as well? Return the favor?

This is something I may try to work on…once I get my adoption finalized. 

My adoption blog--My deepest apologies.

              My deepest apologies for not blogging in so long. We have been through a lot, even some days wondering if it is worth the hassles.  I have said this before, and I say it again, if you have been blessed to have your own children, then be thankful, because the battle for those of us desiring adoption, is long and tedious.  The pitfalls seem to be many, the walls thrown up seem insurmountable at times...I can't help but shed a tear as I think of how down trodden I feel at times. 

                We got really truly down a few weeks ago when we were informed that we had to basically turn our lives topsy turvy to prepare to adopt.  We had to find ways to secure all medications, and while this may sound easy to the average person, most new homes today are not built with medicine cabinets, so we have always just stored our medications under the bathroom sink.  And then once my friend’s hubby built us an a moire, we began using part of that for our medicine cabinet. 

                With this in mind, we didn’t know where we were supposed to all of a sudden put all of this medication! For weeks I fretted, because every solution I came up with, was shot down.  I even thought of the cabinet safety locks, but that was shot down because eventually the kids learn how to manipulate those and get what they want.  Soooo, things had to be padlocked, and we had no clue how to do this!

                Finally, we came up with the idea of purchasing three toolboxes –one toolbox was for the household medicines like NyQuil, that will be padlocked, and placed up high on top of the cabinets in our kitchen.  The other two toolboxes are to be utilized for our prescription medications – one for my hubby, one for me.  We have to padlock these, as well, to ensure that the kids do not ever get into our medications! They will then be placed in our closet, and then we will place a type of child safety thingy on the door handle that makes opening the door almost impossible--even for adults!

                Then came the next daunting task—securing all household chemicals.  NO CLUE! We had no clue what to do. We were instructed that bleach had to go up top and be locked up….well, our bleach is up high in the washroom, is this good? We were told no, it too had to be locked up along with all other household chemicals. 

                We agonized over this for about two weeks, even mulling over, as stated earlier, that maybe we should just give up and just accept that we would not have children, that our dog Sage would be our child, but just as we were about to give up, a friend of ours who works at Home Depot stumbled across a Rubbermaid Storage cabinet that could be padlocked in her store. 

                We purchased this cabinet, came home, put it together (it stands over 5ft high) and then began the task of gathering all chemicals from all over the house, to place in this storage cabinet, which by the way, we placed in our kitchen (where else can we put it???).  You should see it, kind of looks like a smorgasbord of chemicals, a convention where they can all mingle together and laugh at the foolish lengths to which we are willing to go to and through to have that which the average person has without thinking –a family.

                So, we are still in it, still trying to keep our spirits up, because the other point of strife – is our social worker.  Mama has already said she doesn't like her. To me, she doesn’t seem to be really interested if that makes any sense. She says email is the best way to get her (after we left her messages), and still she doesn’t seem to respond to the emails either. 

                We have decided to stick with her though, because our certification classes are coming up very soon, and my hubby has done a lot to be able to be in attendance with his work schedule.  We are hoping that maybe once this first class begins, maybe we will see some spark in our social worker, that may be encouraging.  If not, as soon as the last class is over, and we are State certified, we may have to begin anew, and go in search of another agency.  

Please keep us in prayer, as we continue to try and run this race with endurance.