We have been home study approved for just over a month. I am learning patience is not my virtue as this month has seemingly taken approximately 3 years to pass. Up until today the most recent referral we had was a very challenging set of 3 that also had a child older than our oldest (a parameter we are not willing to budge on).
We were called on Friday about an emergency placement. We are not on the list of families for emergency placements, but our worker wanted to see how we felt about this concept and decided to share with us. Three little girls needed immediate care until at least Tuesday. These cases are nearly always temporary and do not generally lead to permanency. They are the opposite of what we are looking to pursue, yet I felt a very strong resolve to say "Yes". I conferred with my hubby, sharing all the details that were shared with me, and he was on the same page, so I called back and confirmed that we were willing.
Our worker then shared what we should expect with emergency placements - late night or middle of the night arrival, check for lice, bathe, wash all clothing, provide pjs, feed them, prep bedding for accidents and have spare sheets ready, prepare for emotionally traumatized kiddos and the behaviors that may follow. This dose of reality was hard to swallow. Not that I was unwilling to do these things or care for these kiddos, but that this is what their night was going to be like. I took mental notes before we hung up and was thinking through how we would rearrange sleeping quarters when she called back. "The county has declined this placement because you are located too many miles away from the placing county". She had prefaced our initial conversation with this possibility, but I was still taken aback. I had felt so strongly that I was being led out of my comfort zone and now was being shut down.
Talking with my sister later that night she said, "maybe that strong feeling of resolve was a push toward foster care" (vs strictly adoption from foster care). This ran through my mind over the weekend and conversing with another friend with experience in the field made me consider it more. After chatting with my hubby about it, I called our case manager this morning and asked about foster care versus adoption from foster care. We discussed some of the ethics of pursuing both avenues at the same time, and settled on continuing to pursue adoption as well as concurrent, (or pre-adoptive) placements, and adding our names to the emergency placement list. We spent a lot of time talking about how to prepare for emergency placements, what items to have on hand, and after we were done talking, the kids and I began making lists. Stuffed animals and blankets for them to snuggle up with, plastic mattress protectors and spare sheets, pulls ups and diapers in various sizes, jammies for various sizes and both genders, bags with a drink and snack for placements that we would drive to meet halfway, and maybe another twin mattress and boxspring.
I was really in this mode of thinking throughout the afternoon and when I missed a call from my worker and received a text asking me to call her I got butterflies in my stomach. Of course we had to play phone tag for a bit before I actually got ahold of her, but when I did, she said she needed 15 minutes of my time and that I needed a pen and paper.
Over the next 28 minutes she shared with me about an adoptive placement that had just been listed. It is early in the game yet, but I feel like this was "the call"! Adoption is never simple and straightforward, so I hesitate to share anything yet, but if you felt like shooting up a few prayers on our behalf - I would be grateful!!
