A Letter to A Prospective Foster Parent...

This is an email that I sent to someone asking me about fostering. She and her husband are considering becoming foster parents. I thought I'd share it with you.

Since we live in NC, I'm can only tell you about the process we went through here. However, I do have some friends who have gone through the process in AZ and have both adopted a few children over the years. I can hook you up with them if you'd like. I know they'll be happy to share any information with you.

As for our experience, which I'm guessing is pretty close to the AZ experience, has so far, been pretty easy. Long and sometimes tedious, but easy.

We are going through a private agency rather than Social Services. Our eventual goal is to adopt and we feel like an agency is a better fit for us to be sure we find the right fit for our family. From what I understand, Social Services is typically desperate to place children and may not be completely forthcoming with information. Also, because of that desperation, they have a tendency to not worry so much about a good fit for the child or your family because they are more concerned with finding a place for the child/children to stay. This may just be a NC thing. Like I said, I'm not familiar with how AZ does it.

Another plus to working with an agency is that because they are privately funded, they tend to have more resources available and offer more support.

For our situation, we went through 30 hours of training- 3 hours per week for ten weeks. We had an initial home visit with the social workers at about, the 8th week. They just came in, took a look around, checked out our bedrooms and told us how many kids we could be licensed for. After we were done with our training we had a fire inspection and another home visit to finalize paperwork. We started this process in June and we're still waiting for our license. It feels like it's taking FOREVER!

Our training was incredible. We went over so much information about children, parents, foster scenarios, issues that the children deal with, issues the parents deal with and the issues that we, as the foster home will deal with. The main goal was to teach us how to be loss and attachment experts since these are the two biggest concerns for all involved. The children losing their parents, their home, friends, school, etc.. The birth parents losing their children and us potentially losing the kids that we will mostly likely become attached to.

There was A LOT of paperwork, A LOT of homework and A LOT, I mean A LOT of self discovery. It was extremely emotionally draining. I struggled with several issues that I didn't even know I had due to my own childhood while working on my profile packet which asked LOTS of personal questions. In the end, it was extremely helpful, allowed me to come to terms with things I hadn't really acknowledged, and in the end, gave me an invaluable sense of peace.

For our home, we had to create a fire evacuation route, get the CORRECT fire extinguisher (that took a few tries) remove all of our extension cords ( we live in an old house with few outlets so we had to get creative) and basically childproof form the floor up. We don't have any kids of our own so our home was well, not childproof at all. :)

I have a correction to make. I just got off the phone with our social worker and it turns out that she did not get the email I thought I had sent her about the beds we bought, so she hadn't sent off our paperwork. She's actually doing it today. Looks like it might be closer to February now. Oh well!

Do you have any specific questions? I'd be happy to answer any questions that I can help with.

What are your goals? Long term foster? Respite? (weekend care, very temporary) short term? Adoption? Do you have kids of your own? Where are you in the process right now?

One thing that I have noticed is that this has really been an up and down experience. There has been lots of excitement followed by lots of doubt, but thankfully our family and friends have been so supportive. A good support system is vital if this is what you plan to do. People will think that you're amazing and doing "such a good thing" but it's important to maintain a serious sense of realism as it's easy to get caught up in what some will see as charity. I don't know how to explain it any other way-- but I know what I mean. ;-)

Please let me know what I can do to help! I can't wait to hear about your journey!

The latest in the reproductive saga

I know, I know, it's been a long time since I mentioned anything about my reproductive organs...I'm sorry. I'm sure it's been driving you crazy not knowing how my ovaries are doing. So here's an update.

First of all, the reason I haven't written about this stuff in a long time is because, well, it just hasn't been much of an issue. This is a good thing. Brett and I finished our foster parenting classes and are SO close to getting our license. Working on that has been a nice distraction from stressing about ovulation. We did our 30 hours of training, prepared our house with fire extinguishers and outlet covers, moved all of our cleaning supplies to our utility room, installed a new locking door knob on the utility room, installed blanks in our unused circuits on our circuit breaker, got all the animals their rabies vaccinations, bolted the big bookshelf to the wall and replaced all extension cords with surge protectors. It was quite a feat. We've passed all of our inspections with flying colors and now we're just waiting on our background checks to come through. THEN we can send off our paper work to get our license.

We also traveled a bit- went on a cruise, spent 10 days in Chicago and I, of course, went to Panama for business. So you see...we've kept ourselves very busy!

All in all, things have been really great. It's been nice not worrying about what was going on with my ovaries. What's even better, is that I'm still not worrying...well, mostly.

Back in August, when we went for our physicals, required by the state for fostering (I forgot to mention that check mark) I saw a different doctor than I usually see. (My normal doctor was ironically on maternity leave) So, anyway, the new doc asked why we were fostering and I told him that it was just something we'd (I'd, but Brett has been down with it since the first time I mentioned it) always wanted to do and that since we may not be able to have children, it is a good option for us that will hopefully lead to adoption. That started a conversation about my ovaries and which led to him recommending progesterone therapy.

Long story short, I started progesterone therapy in October and have had my first successful period. It was pretty fricken rad. It was light, only lasted four days and came all by itself- no nasty provera (the period inducing drug that requires me to stay home bound for several days).

While all of this progesterone talk was going on, I got an email from a friend of mine who works at the hospital in Charlotte. The email was regarding a study that's taking place where she works testing two fertility drugs on women with PCOS. At first I resisted. I sent her a reply that said something along the lines of: thank you for thinking of me, but we're not planning to start trying again any time soon. And that was that.

Well a few weeks went by and the more I thought about it, but more I began to change my mind. Brett and I had decided that we would start trying again after the first of the year anyway, and well, it just kinda made sense to give it a whirl.

I called the number listed in the email (which I had saved, just in case) and talked to the intake specialist. She asked me a series of questions and then said that someone would contact me with more information. That afternoon I got an email saying that it appeared that I was a good candidate and that in order to move forward in the process I need a clean pap smear and HSG. A pap I could handle, I was due for one anyway, but an HSG? What the crap is that? Thanks to Google, I quickly found out exactly what it is. I'll tell you in a bit.

So I immediately schedule my pap, which I had to schedule as an emergency pap, because I had just started the progesterone and didn't know if it was going to work or when my spontaneous bleeding by reoccur. Fortunately, the doctors office, after some negotiating, scheduled me for that week. While I was there, I told my GYN about the study and asked him if he would order an HSG, which by the way stands for hyterosalpingogram. (I just learned out to say it two days ago) He was happy to do it for me, and that was that.

This brings us to yesterday, the day of the HSG. Are you ready to know what it is? Okay, so...basically, it's a diagnostic procedure done by a Radiologist that entails, putting a catheter in your cervix, shooting dye into your uterus and fallopian tubes and then taking a series of X-rays. Fortunately the entire procedure only takes a few minutes, but that doesn't make it any less uncomfortable- it felt like an eternity. However, it was worth it. He was able to tell me right away that everything looks good. No obstructions. Fallopian tubes are wide open. Yay!

And that's that. Now if we can just get my ovaries to cooperate, and as long as Brett has good swimmers, we'll be in good shape! --That's next by the way. I got an email from the study coordinator this morning that said as soon as she gets my test results they will schedule the sperm analysis. He says he'll do it-- but that collection kit I told you about way back in March(?) is still sitting on his desk-- unopened. Hehe

So that's all for now. That's the latest. Won't know anything else for a while, until at least January at the earliest.

Oh and, just while I was writing this blog, an email came in from our social worker. Our background check came through and she's sending off our packet to the state! We will be licensed with in 50 days!!

Until then, we have our trip to Phoenix and a trip to San Fransisco (I have to go for work, but Brett is going to come along) to look forward to!

Life is good!