2016

Ok.. so things did get busy, but not in the ways we expected.. lol.. so I haven't had much chance too keep things updated.
Firstly, my computer had some issues.. it was mostly ok, except every time I'd open my browser and go online, everything would freeze up and crash..  which eventually meant switching browsers and a bunch of other craziness.. but I finally more or less have it sorted and behaving again :)
This made things a bit hard at times. We did get our homestudy completed, submitted and approved!!! We are home study approved (up to 2 children, ages 4 and under) as of early January 2016!! We are so happy about that. And we are really hoping we can find a match soon. We are still working independently, though we might later switch to an agency assist.
We have our profile booklets completed and one has been sent off for review. Will see if our consultants think we need to make any changes to it, but we have it done :)
We also had a bunch of craziness happen with our foster situation.  We still have the toddler, now 3, E. She is doing great. She had some serious developmental delays, SPD and probable autism and she was pretty much non verbal. We got her into an early intervention program at the local school and she has made huge improvements. She's now talking! She's still below where she should be, but it's so wonderful! She's about a year behind now verbally, but she's learning and using new words every day. We're now in month 8 with her and still no indication of when she will be going back. We know she will be, just not when.. at this point we are hoping to keep her through the school year so she can maintain her progress. Still need to work on potty training :) But she's doing so much better. We haven't had the screaming tantrums in absolute ages.
One of the things that made a big difference for her was that in mid November we had MK and R (now 8 and 6) return to our care, so now she has a big brother and sister closer to her age to play with her and encourage her. We are not sure what is going to be going on with those two. They had spent 6 months back on trial placement with their bio mom. In September we were contacted about the possibility of having them come back to us, but then they were placed with their great grandparents instead. They stayed with them for about 2 months, but their great grandparents just couldn't keep up with the kids, so we were contacted in November about them again. Of course we said yes and took them back. Sadly, the kids have some behavioral issues that they didn't have a year ago, but we are working on them with them and progress is slowly being made.
So we currently have a full house with 3 youngsters. My step daughter M decided that she wanted to finish out her schooling by doing homeschooling, so she is now doing that. At 17 she's capable of deciding and being responsible enough to make that decision, and it frees her up to help her older sister, B2 with her new baby. That's right, we now have 3 granddaughters as well. G is now 8, I is about 19 months, and ID was born last October, so when we do adopt, there will be lots of niblings for them. B2 also has 2 older step daughters, ages 7 and 11, so we've a large groups of niblings. (Nibling is an older term that T discovered. It refers to cousins, friends, nieces/nephews and other related individuals of a similar age. We like the term and it serves us well.)
So that's where we are. We are hoping to find an adoptive match soon, but until then, we continue to foster. We would love to adopt our fosterlings, but it doesn't seem to be their plan, so we search elsewhere. If you know of anyone looking to place a child, newborn or toddler, please let them know about us :) We're not concerned about ethnicity or gender and are willing to discuss health issues, potential or otherwise. And we're willing to work on finding a level of openness that everyone is comfortable with.
Thanks so much! 

2015 pt 1 (i hope...)

Ok, so it's been, like, forever, since I last posted anything... You know how it goes.. Lots of nothing, then things get all crazy busy, things don't work out, and things slow down again and you debate if you really want to bother rehashing it all or not, or if you even can because sometimes the wounds are just too raw..  There's been some of that.. there's also been a LOT of down, doing nothing time.. but I will cover what I can...

Late last winter, we made the decision to look into getting a private home study done. We didn't need one for foster care, and, in Alaska, if you wind up adopting from foster care, they do a child specific home study for you for free. But, we're 3 years in to our fostering, and time to get that license renewed, but we'd had no bites at all at adoption that way, so we decided we'd get this done, if nothing else, it would allow us to look at foster kids that might be up for adoption in other states. So we got started on that. We're still working on it as hubby's job has been extra crazy this spring/summer and he hasn't been home all that much to get all of his parts done.
Meanwhile, we continue to foster..  MK and R went back to their mother about the same time we decided to work on a home study. We'd had them for about 6 months. We are still in contact with them and are trying to be a support for them and their mom right now as they continue to work the program she is on. That has been hard on me in some ways, but good in others.
Then we got a little 16 month old boy for about a month. He was just adorable and a sweetie pie, but we only had him while family members were getting cleared to take him... then in May we got a call about 2 boys, a bit older then we usually take, one in first grade, the other in kindergarten. We were told that the boys had been in and out of care for 4 years now and they would soon be moving to terminate and that, if we took placement of them, odds were high we'd be able to adopt them. We were given a very brief overview of their background but were assured there were no major issues with either of them. I reminded them that they hadn't been wanting to place with us as we were getting ready to leave state in a few weeks (we had a family wedding to attend out of state) but they insisted that they would clear everything so the boys could go with us.  So we said yes. We were slightly nervous, but also hopeful. It wasn't quite the placement of our dreams, but, finally, here we had a chance. Things were hectic and crazy, and slowly began to fall apart. The boys had issues. More issues then we'd been told about.  More serious issues then we'd been told about. The trip was a disaster for us. They boys were very good at putting on a show for others, but when it was just us, it was just terrible.
It broke my heart, but we knew that, no matter what wonderful visions I'd had, no matter how much I was trying, this was just not going to work for us, and worse, was not going to work for them. We had the boys less then a month, and it had already started taking a toll on my health. So, we asked that the boys be moved. I have to hope that they found a place that was better suited for them. I never should have said yes to their placement with us, and if we'd been told the things we should have been about their issues, I never would have. But they had a brand new caseworker who didn't really know their file, and I allowed myself to be suckered in by the "if you don't take them, we might have to break up the siblings" plea... and they know we want to adopt.. *sigh*  It can be so hard to do this some times...
We took the whole month of June off from placements. We got several calls, but we turned them all down. I needed time. Emotional and physical. As  I mentioned, the whole thing took a toll on my health and I needed time to de-stress and recover..
We did accept another placement.. also one that was just supposed to be a few weeks while a family member got cleared.. though the family placement fell through, so who knows how long we will have her at the moment. A little girl, not quite 3. She is a little stinker, but cute as a button and, when she's not having massive screaming tantrums (*sigh*) she's just about the sweetest thing..
Meanwhile, we're hoping to get all of our initial home study paperwork done by the end of August, and, we've been in contact with an adoption facilitator/agency and they've agreed to work with us. They are based in California but work with families from all over. We have our first phone meeting next week. I'm very excited, and also very nervous and scared. It is starting to feel more real. Which is kind of scary. I still have all of those stupid fears and emotional baggage... What if we never find a birth mother, what if no one thinks I'm worthy to be a mom.. what if it just never happens...
But, I am trying to think positive, to be positive and to keep on swimming...
Meanwhile.. we're doing fund raising. Conventional adoption can, sadly, be very expensive, and, while we think we've figured out how to fund it, it would be very much easier if we had more money set aside for it. (We actually had a decent sized chunk set aside, and then, well, things happened.. some good - M got the chance to go to Japan with a school group for a few weeks, and we had the family wedding to go to, oh and we had some legal fees for finally getting M's custody changed so she is with us full time now - and some not so good - the water heater died on us this summer, as did a freezer and the washing machine is acting up- but, even so, we still have some set aside..) So if you can help at all, that would be great.. Passing word along is helpful too.. http://www.youcaring.com/tom-and-davina-stuart-399717#.VbaFuCn3hXs.facebook
Also, we will likely be  officially starting the birth mother hunt in the next few months, so passing word along about that would also be helpful. We should be getting a profile done in the next few months and I will post that when we do. We are open to all ethnic variations (we're all the same "race" after all - human) and genders and are willing to discuss levels of open-ness. And we are willing to travel, if need be, so we're not limited just to Alaska :)
That's our update.. Thanks all :) 

Etsy shop

I just started up an etsy store to try and help fund our adoption home study fees and, well, everything else.. :)  I've got a few baby quilts up right now, and am busy working on a few more to try and get those posted here soon, along with some other projects.  so please take a look and pass the word along :)  Thanks

http://www.etsy.com/shop/AccidentalPerfection

I've got a few little baby blankets posted in there right now, and am working on getting a few more done, and have a couple of other projects I'm working on as well and hope to get them posted soon as well.

So far we are still without a placement, so getting an adoption home study done might help a bit as it will mean we can look and think about children available in other states as well.
I do have another foster/adopt training day coming up later this month and that might help with networking.
I just hate the waiting

Changes... again..

Ok.. so it's been a while.. a lot of nothing has happened on the adoption or fostering front.. It's been a quiet winter since our "almost" Thanksgiving..
Hubby and I just finished a few adopting through foster care type classes. We've learned a lot and have started making some connections that might help us down the line. I will be attending another class in June, and we might be doing some other stuff in July.. we will see how all of that goes. I have a LOT of phone calls and emails to make this week.
It was also a bit depressing as we learned that part of why we haven't been getting calls for placement is because our name is at the bottom of the list, due to alphabetical placement. *sigh* That is always annoying to hear, as there really isn't much we can do about it but wait and hope.
Some of this has led to some possible changes we might be making, or adding to our quest to be parents. Years ago we had started talking with LDS Family Services about their adoption program. We had just gotten started with it when we moved and had some other things come up and it got halted, and then other things happened and we just never got back to them. Then Hubby deployed, and then, well, we decided to try adopting through foster care. But after some discussion today, Hubby said that maybe it was time to call them again. So that's another call I will be making this week. I've no idea how we will pay for an adoption from them after the set backs we've had this year (more on that in a bit..) but I am sure that, if it happens, we will find a way!
Now, as for those set backs.. About a week after my last post (so early December) I came down with a really, really bad case of whatever stomach bug was going around. It was nasty. I became severely dehydrated and my blood pressure dropped by at _least_ 40 points.. So early December was not a fun time for me as it was all wait and see if I'm going to wind up hospitalized.. Thankfully, I did manage to recover and all is once again well with the world of my health. No idea why it hit me so much harder then it hit everyone else, but so hope it doesn't ever come back..  Other things..  you may recall Hubby had gotten laid off late last summer. He'd found a job fairly quickly, only about a month of unemployment, but it was at a much lower pay rate then he'd been at previously. We managed, but things were tight. And then we had some trouble with our septic line, which ate up a chunk of our savings.. Anyway, 6 months later, just before Valentine's day.. Hubby got laid off, again. Very unexpectedly, very suddenly and at the very worst time possible. Just days before his company laid him off, another company laid off about 70 electricians, so the market was flooded. It has taken 2 months for him to find a job, but we are so happy that he is working again. It has been very hard the last 2 months. We've eaten through most of what was left of our savings and had to dip into some credit in order to keep everyone paid. Thankfully, we have a very well stocked and large pantry and food storage, so we've been able to not worry about where the next meal would come, and even have been able to eat "normally" with only a few items needed from the store here and there. Of course, now I need to restock! :)
He still won't be making his "big" wages from before his first lay off, but it is a good job, should be stable, and it is something he really thinks he is going to enjoy doing (because he will be able to pretend he's part of the Thunderbird team.. lol). He will be working mostly doing maintenance of equipment for an oil spill response team, though at the moment, most of his work will be in town, so he is looking forward to an improvement in the weather so he can ride his motorcycle to work.
Anyway, so that is where we are right now. We're still waiting, but doing what we can to move forward and try to make ourselves a better potential home.

We have a Placement!!

Ok, you might be able to tell, we're excited. After having our license for a month, and waiting, and waiting for a placement, Thursday I had a doctor's appointment in town (which was also, thankfully, in the midst of a break in the rain and storms we've been having.. early Alaskan hurricanes going on the past month..) and as soon as I walked in the door, there was a phone call from OCS calling to see if we would be available to take placement of a 3 year old girl. So, of course, I said yes and I went in Friday at noon to pick her up. We don't have a whole lot of information on her just yet. She is 3.5 years old and she has a younger sister and older brother also in foster care. They have been in foster care since last Monday and while at their emergency intake placement, she had been bullying her younger sister, so it was decided to separate her for the time being. (Of course, all new foster homes are limited to a maximum of 2 children in care at a time for their first year anyway, so there was no way we could have taken all 3 regardless..) She is very bright, already knows her letters and numbers and colors, full of energy.. of course, she's 3 so the word "no" is a favorite and we are having the usual "i'm tired but not going to take a nap/go to bed if i can avoid it" melt downs as we try to establish a schedule and all, but over all, the last 2 days have gone very well and we are excited to have her here. We don't know yet if this will be a short term or a long term placement. They are still trying to get in touch with family members to see if any of them could take her and/or any of her siblings. If so, she could go with them at any time. So we are trying not to get too attached or make any long term plans with her just yet, but it's so very hard.. lol.. and we're kinda doing it anyway :)

February

Ok, well, big news.. last week we went to our first orientation meeting for working with the foster system. We have several weeks/months of paperwork, background checks and waiting, but, we are going to be working with the foster system and hopefully we will be able to adopt via them.
Today we turned in our first round of paperwork and got our fingerprinting done. I am really excited. We are finally moving forward on something! Woohoo!

Changes

I have been giving things a lot of thought this past month, and I think I've come to a decision that will be a bit of a change in how we go about things. I think that I am finally ready to work with the foster system. There will be risks, as always, but I've learned that there are risks doing the more traditional adoptions as well. I have been afraid of dealing with the foster system because I didn't think I could handle it if we had a placement fail, but I've learned that I am stronger now, and a lot of things have changed, including my health and all of the things that were dragging me down and causing problems for me. Many of those things are already vastly improved and the rest are getting there, and I'm not longer as afraid of things. So, next month we will be going to our first foster to adopt class. I really want 2012 to be our year for this.