Fingerprints :)
Oh, it was a happy Friday. The licensing social worker called me back on Friday (after a 6 day vacation) to let me know my prints cleared and that she had entered me into the system so I can take emergency placements. Her supervisor will be in the office Wednesday to sign off on my paperwork and I can expect to receive my license in the mail within 2 weeks. WooHoo!!!! Good news. Theeeeeen, I called my adoption social worker (who is out of town until the 3rd) to leave her a message with all my updates and I look forward to leaving her an email on Monday and another phone call Thursday afternoon. I know I have very little that needs to be done so I want to get some feedback from her so I can get some form of time-line (even if it’s nothing more than I already don’t know). I haven’t looked so forward to the new year is quite sometime, but thankfully I can say (with ultimate positivity), “I will have my kids home in 2008!” I have a ‘waiting video’ I made months ago, I need to figure out how to post that. It’s sort of a tear jearker. Well, it was for me at the time.
Boiled Nipples
I thought that would catch some attention. I am in the middle of a nasty cold and nesting like crazy. I can now say for sure that I will (likely) have a placement in the next few months so I want to be ready at the drop of a hat. I finished washing, folding, organizing and sorting all laundry 0 months-5T (’cause you never know how old or rather what size your child is going to fit into), and today I boiled all the nipples of the bottles and pacifiers I have. I realized I simply had them in packages and it would be nice to be prepared and know that I could have a bottle ready in just a few moments instead of knowing I had one more thing to do before I could even prepare the bottle. I still feel completely unprepared in some respects especially since my age range in 0-4 years. There are so many developmental milestones that a child could be at by the time they come home, so not knowing is now slightly more stressful than the waiting. I guess I’ve become so accustomed to waiting that not waiting is actually a little scary right now too. I have been waiting for years, years I tell ya so not waiting is actually a little foreign to me and I don’t know how I’ll do with that. More prayer I guess.
On a slightly different note: I called the licensing social worker Tuesday about my fingerprints and she hadn’t heard anything so she told me to call back Thursday or Friday. I called Friday morning around 10 (no answer, so I left a detailed message) and, since I was sick I forgot to call back and nag her around 5. I really have started to dislike Friday in the adoption world. No answers by Friday means no answers for two more days, because my people don’t seem to work on weekends in my behalf. Annnnd since Tuesday is a holiday and many of the social workers work Tuesday-Friday I likely won’t hear any news until Wednesday IF they are in the office and not taking some tropical holiday while my paperwork and case sits all cozy-like on their desk. On a good note, my references received licensing forms that are similar to background checks but ask questions about my character and the like. I sent in almost all the paperwork needed by my adoption social worker, but I need my fingerprints to clear before any of that even matters. I had my prints done almost 3 weeks ago, but gladly they didn’t get kicked back so, albeit slowly, they are processing. I’m hoping and praying I’ll hear grand news about my prints clearing no later than Wednesday and from the time they clear the licensing social worker can transfer my certification from my old agency to county and then I can receive a placement. That’s why this means so much to me. The only thing I need to complete for the adoption social worker is my physical (which I would like to be over my cold before I get that done), and last years taxes (I usually do my taxes every 3 years, strange, I know, but it works for me since I rarely owe). Once the prints clear I’ll call my adoption social worker and start the nagging/butt kissing, whatever works to keep myself glowingly present in her mind for any upcoming cuties. My friend/neighbor said I should make a preference for the cute ones. I told her as soon as I know they are likely to be ‘mine’ they will be the cutest children I’ve ever seen. I know that sounds sappy, but I wouldn’t be surprised it that’s how it played out.
My next question and/or topic is, how do I plan a baby shower? Since the children are likely to be a sibling group and the adoption may not be finalized for a year do I wait until it’s finalized to have an adoption finalization party or do I wait until I know parental rights are terminated and then have a gathering of close friends to celebrate that event (which is celebratory to me, but may not be the best news to a child who doesn’t get to live with their bio family) or do I just plan some type of congrats party (as soon as they arrive home) and welcome all the gifts and love and well wishes and just treat their placement as any other referral where once your child comes home they wouldn’t leave (even those they might, but likely wouldn’t)? I’m so confused on this. I know my friends and family want to celebrate and I do welcome gifts and necessities from those who want to share in my joy, I just don’t know the etiquette on this type of situation. I am so going to have to google this.
I’ll post more as soon as I know it. Come on Wednesday!!!! Come on good news!!!
Fingerprint, Visits and Waiting, oh my!
Fingerprints:So I did these (for time #9 or 10, I can’t remember anymore), the day before Thanksgiving. I drove 45 min. away to the only place open (some stinky photo shop spelled “foto”), and then I noticed some funky wording on the fingerprint form. The lady doing the prints asked what she should write, since I was unsure and no one at county was answering their phones, I told her to copy it just as it was printed on the form. It was printed on the form by someone other than myself. When I finally got a call back on the Monday after Thanksgiving I was told, “oh, everyone just writes over that and puts in foster care.” So I had the privileged(read with dripping sarcasm) of waiting until they got kicked back which was on this Monday and then I had them re-done at the police station 3 min. from my house. I had to pay another tiny fee and now I return to what feels like a permanent waiting position. The licensing gal told me that she completed everything else and that once the prints clear she will be able to issue me a foster care license from the county. That is exciting news, well, it’s half exciting news. I think I should hear something by next Wednesday about them clearing. By now I just want it to be January so I can start a new year with memories and a family and not frustrations and an empty house. Oh, and when I complained about the idiot stick who typed out the form incorrectly the lady at county said,” oh, I’ll have to look into that.” Which I took to mean, “sure thing, hun! When my work load takes a time trip to sometime past never then I’m all over having someone I’ve never met reprint a form that doesn’t truly affect me even though my job is in the social services fingerprinting department.” So chances are if you’re getting your prints done in San Joaquin County, you better fill that part of the form in yourself.
Visits: My adoption social worker came by today and I was so nervous. You would think since this is the 5th social worker I’ve dealt with in the past 2 years that I would be a pro by now, but I had been calling her (well, I’ve been talking to her machine) for a week and a half to have her send me some of the paperwork ahead of time so I could get started on it. I knew I was going to have to make a doctors appointment and I wanted to see the form so I could know what needed to be done. I am so over waiting, in case you couldn’t tell, so I wanted to be able to get a jump on whatever I could before she arrived. No such luck! I did, however complete about half of the forms she needed and I mailed them out within a few hours of her leaving. She said it takes a good two weeks to start a file on me and get it back from the clerks office, but she did have slightly good news. Since she is the one who will be referring my children to me as soon as I have my foster care license I am eligible for a placement. She has been working at her job for 20 years (gosh, I admire her stability), and she matches children based on how much they look like the adoptive families. She said she has had families wait just a few weeks and before she can schedule her second visit, she finds a good match for them, and she has some with very specific requirements that have been waiting more than 3 months. I think I can still hope, pray, wish and want to have my kiddos by Spring, but things could turn out really well, and it could be less than two months. I would be over the moon if I knew who my children were by the end of the year, but I’ve made it this far, I can endure another couple weeks.
Waiting: I think this topic has been well addressed. I feel slightly less hopeless this week, or rather today, or rather this minute, but life is life and sometimes it’s terrific and sometimes it’s not. I take it day by day, or in the case of social workers with 4-day work weeks, Tuesday-Friday. And then all over again.
My Thought for the Day: Here I sit, complete with the past, grateful for the present, hopeful for the future. And tired of waiting, or maybe I’m just plain tired!
