Figured I should update now that things are actually official...
After our last placements left in 2016, we took some time for our hearts to heal.. and then we just didn't get calls about placements (ok, we did get a call occasionally, but it seemed it was always while we were out of state, either on our way to or heading home from a family funeral.. so, we weren't in a position to say yes anyway as we were always at least 2 days out..) then, a year ago, shortly before it was time for us to consider renewing our license, my mother had some medical issues. She has MS and had severely limited mobility to start with. The MS had claimed her left foot and she couldn't support any weight on it.. and she'd fallen and broken her right foot in the past... well, last February (2019) she fell and broke that ankle again... while in the hospital for that, it was discovered that her formerly benign breast cancer had returned, this time it was super aggressive and was already fairly advanced.. Mom was also having issues with low oxygen levels and between that, the chemo and the stress of it all, there were a few times where she lapsed into a coma for a few days and we spent the whole year not sure if she was going to make it... So, we knew there was going to be a high chance I might need to travel out of state again at a moment's notice, so we decided to close our foster license. We had thought, at the time, that we might consider reapplying once things settled down, but, they never really did.. it was one thing after another with mom last year, and my sister, who had mom's medical power of attorney, just went out of her way to make things more difficult for everyone right until the end..
Mom was able to go home, finally, in December. She'd spent almost the entire year either in hospital or at a rehab facility. She had 3 surgeries on her ankle, but was never able to have it heal enough she could put weight on it, even with plates in there now. (She'd had pins in from the first break..) Her cancer proved itself resistant to any and all attempts at the chemo treatments, though most of them were interrupted by the comas... she just had really bad reactions to the chemo.. But she did get to where she could be sent home. On hospice care. Her doctors said they expected her to have a year, maybe two.. However, mom didn't survive the month and passed on December 30, 2019.
My sister continued to "be a pill" as they use to say.. and was absent from mom's funeral. She was extremely peeved that she was not also the executor of mom's estate. She had been living with mom (My brother and his family lived right across the street.. I'm 3000 miles away...) and actually managed to utterly trash the basement floor of the house (where she'd been living).. massively disgusting.. and I honestly think that if the home health people had gone down into the lower level of the home, mom would not have been allowed back home.. she'd have had to go over to my brother's.. she had not cleaned up after her pets for YEARS.. she had 2 iguanas at one point in time... they both died _YEARS_ ago... one of them was still in the giant iguana cage she had down there.. it was bad... and I only saw pictures of what was left after she moved out. This house was basically the only inheritance we were getting.. She also took all of mom's liquid assets, since she had access to mom's accounts.. anyway.. it's all been an extremely stressful year and it's still going...
This has all taken a toll on my health as well (and the fires that ravaged the entire state of Alaska all last summer didn't help any..) and we've come to realize that a few of my health issues are now deteriorating faster then we'd hoped (though I still can't get some of my doctors to take things entirely seriously.. we had to switch last year because of insurance, so I'm now starting all over...) so, we've made the decision that fostering is no longer really an option for us. So we will be staying closed. I've started giving away furniture and clothes and supplies.. once I get all of those things parted out (mostly to other foster parents) I will be dropping out of all the foster parent groups I've been in. This is still really hard for me, emotionally, but, it is really the only option right now. Some days I can barely walk, carrying a young child would be right out, and if we had older kids/teens, I fear they'd feel like we were only doing it so we'd have a caretaker for me... (I'm not to that point, though there are days where I am just not up to doing much...)
So we're back to only fostering dogs. The loss of a parent and the loss of a dream, all in one year.
Not sure what I will be doing with this blog.. I mean, not that I really did much with it anyway...
Friday, March 6, 2020
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
time warp
Ok.. well.. I hadn't realized it had been quite so long... but then.. life gets weird..
a LOT has changed in the past year and a half.. other then even more computer issues which played havoc with my bookmarks and part of why i simply forgot about the blog... oops..
All of our foster kiddos have left our house.. MK and R left at the end of September 2016 and went to another foster placement. Sadly, there were some on going issues and concerns that had developed in the time they had been back with their mom between their placements with us that we were not in a position to properly cope with and they had to be moved for safety concerns.. we tried very hard and likely longer then we should have, but we were just no longer the place they needed to be. Then E left us last November to go back to her mom's care. They seem to be doing well. We kept in touch and helped out once in a while for the first 6 months or so. It has been very hard having them all leave. I'm heart broken and missing them, but that is the nature of foster care..
We renewed our foster license again. Though this may well be the last time unless we get lucky with a placement. We've asked to be pre-adoptive only, so we may just linger and wait.. so there may not be a whole lot of activity at all here..
This summer saw B2 move back home for a month after breaking up with her fiancee.. She moved in with Boober (family nickname for her 1.5 yr old daughter..) and her big ole doofus of a dog at the start of July and then moved back out at the end of July and took her younger sister, M, with her.. M will be 19 in a month and we are really hoping that this move will help her get involved in her life.. lol.. she's been dragged along to help provide child care, but will also mean that she will need to find employment and socialize at least a wee bit. We're hoping it will be good for her..
So I'm doing a lot of cleaning out around the house, we're doing some minor remodels and repairs that always need doing. We're repainting the house, finally... T has spent 12 years saying he was going to repaint it because he hated living in a pink house... but things always happened and it just didn't get done... this year.. it's getting done.. we've actually got the front and 2 short sides of the house done, just have the back side to finish off.. when he's home and it's not raining... we've had a fair bit of rain this summer, so it's rather impressive that we've got that much done.. also replaced the septic system this year.. always fun, that... lol...
a LOT has changed in the past year and a half.. other then even more computer issues which played havoc with my bookmarks and part of why i simply forgot about the blog... oops..
All of our foster kiddos have left our house.. MK and R left at the end of September 2016 and went to another foster placement. Sadly, there were some on going issues and concerns that had developed in the time they had been back with their mom between their placements with us that we were not in a position to properly cope with and they had to be moved for safety concerns.. we tried very hard and likely longer then we should have, but we were just no longer the place they needed to be. Then E left us last November to go back to her mom's care. They seem to be doing well. We kept in touch and helped out once in a while for the first 6 months or so. It has been very hard having them all leave. I'm heart broken and missing them, but that is the nature of foster care..
We renewed our foster license again. Though this may well be the last time unless we get lucky with a placement. We've asked to be pre-adoptive only, so we may just linger and wait.. so there may not be a whole lot of activity at all here..
This summer saw B2 move back home for a month after breaking up with her fiancee.. She moved in with Boober (family nickname for her 1.5 yr old daughter..) and her big ole doofus of a dog at the start of July and then moved back out at the end of July and took her younger sister, M, with her.. M will be 19 in a month and we are really hoping that this move will help her get involved in her life.. lol.. she's been dragged along to help provide child care, but will also mean that she will need to find employment and socialize at least a wee bit. We're hoping it will be good for her..
So I'm doing a lot of cleaning out around the house, we're doing some minor remodels and repairs that always need doing. We're repainting the house, finally... T has spent 12 years saying he was going to repaint it because he hated living in a pink house... but things always happened and it just didn't get done... this year.. it's getting done.. we've actually got the front and 2 short sides of the house done, just have the back side to finish off.. when he's home and it's not raining... we've had a fair bit of rain this summer, so it's rather impressive that we've got that much done.. also replaced the septic system this year.. always fun, that... lol...
Saturday, February 6, 2016
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!
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!
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Submitted.. and now we wait
Well, after having my blogs all be pretty dead for a while.. things are picking back up and we might have a solid little busy spurt again...
This week we submitted our home study application. Just waiting on the FBI print background check, which we know will come back clear.. but other then that, I think our home study writer has everything she needs. We will be scheduling our home visits and interviews with her for after Labor day as T is out of town until the 10th anyway for work. She has another case she is finalizing and some court dates coming up for that so she wasn't really going to be free before then, so it worked out for both sides.
So now it's a bunch of hurry up and wait.. and wait.. and wait...
Also submitted our contract with the adoption consultant agency.. They won't match us with a Birth Mother, but they provide kind of a "college class" on how to find your Birth Mother, how to write up your profile, how to spot and avoid scams, etc.. so soon we will be starting that process, too... though, until we get the Home Study finalized, I can't actually start posting our profile anywhere or doing any actual "active" looking...
It's all very exciting, very nerve wracking, and, for me, very panic inducing.. which, for me, leads to questioning myself and, as hubby puts it, self sabotage.. But I'm trying to work on that, and to stay focused on the positives..
Meanwhile, we still have our little foster child.. she's going to be starting up with head start soon, and hopefully they can get her some of the therapies she needs. Her mom should be finding out what the "case plan" is this week, so we can better judge how long she might be staying with us, though I know she's been working very hard already to get the things done the judge told her she needed to be working on previously, so I suspect it won't be all that much longer. A few months more at most.
We would still love to adopt from foster care, but I can't put all my hopes in that one area anymore. We've decided to give this all another 2 years. If we don't have something in the works by then.. well, then I will just have to move on and try to accept that I won't be mommy in this life. It will be hard, it will be sad, and I will be a mess for a while, I'm sure.. But, if that time comes, it will be faced..
Meanwhile, I'm hoping for the best, planning for the day we get our baby, and just waiting for the next step in this process. And cleaning.. and trying to come up with fund raising ideas.. and looking for good photos for our profiles.. and...........
Please keep us in your prayers, and if you hear of anyone considering placing a child for adoption, please keep us in mind.. I'll soon be getting a dedicated email address set up, and eventually a phone line. And please, if you could forward our fund raising page along.. you never know :)
http://igg.me/at/dg6BFdr06TU
This week we submitted our home study application. Just waiting on the FBI print background check, which we know will come back clear.. but other then that, I think our home study writer has everything she needs. We will be scheduling our home visits and interviews with her for after Labor day as T is out of town until the 10th anyway for work. She has another case she is finalizing and some court dates coming up for that so she wasn't really going to be free before then, so it worked out for both sides.
So now it's a bunch of hurry up and wait.. and wait.. and wait...
Also submitted our contract with the adoption consultant agency.. They won't match us with a Birth Mother, but they provide kind of a "college class" on how to find your Birth Mother, how to write up your profile, how to spot and avoid scams, etc.. so soon we will be starting that process, too... though, until we get the Home Study finalized, I can't actually start posting our profile anywhere or doing any actual "active" looking...
It's all very exciting, very nerve wracking, and, for me, very panic inducing.. which, for me, leads to questioning myself and, as hubby puts it, self sabotage.. But I'm trying to work on that, and to stay focused on the positives..
Meanwhile, we still have our little foster child.. she's going to be starting up with head start soon, and hopefully they can get her some of the therapies she needs. Her mom should be finding out what the "case plan" is this week, so we can better judge how long she might be staying with us, though I know she's been working very hard already to get the things done the judge told her she needed to be working on previously, so I suspect it won't be all that much longer. A few months more at most.
We would still love to adopt from foster care, but I can't put all my hopes in that one area anymore. We've decided to give this all another 2 years. If we don't have something in the works by then.. well, then I will just have to move on and try to accept that I won't be mommy in this life. It will be hard, it will be sad, and I will be a mess for a while, I'm sure.. But, if that time comes, it will be faced..
Meanwhile, I'm hoping for the best, planning for the day we get our baby, and just waiting for the next step in this process. And cleaning.. and trying to come up with fund raising ideas.. and looking for good photos for our profiles.. and...........
Please keep us in your prayers, and if you hear of anyone considering placing a child for adoption, please keep us in mind.. I'll soon be getting a dedicated email address set up, and eventually a phone line. And please, if you could forward our fund raising page along.. you never know :)
http://igg.me/at/dg6BFdr06TU
Saturday, August 8, 2015
We have a contract..
Just wanted to post a quick update..
The facilitating agency we have been talking to sent us the contract this week. It arrived Friday for us to look over and think about. We have another phone conference on Thursday for questions and everything and then it will be time to decide if we're going to sign and send it in... I'm in a bit of a panic.. part of me wants to wait until we have the home study finished. That is getting close, we just need to finish up bios, get signed forms to OCS (which has just been waiting to have everyone actually home for as they have to have witnessed signatures..) and getting one or two more bits of info for the financial section (mostly all the investment stuff that is scattered between companies.. we really need to get that consolidated..), then waiting.. Have I mentioned I hate waiting? There shouldn't be any problems with that, but, I'm a worrier.. and I just, well, worry...
And I worry about the money as well. I know I just need to let go of all this worry. Place it all in the hands of Heavenly Father, but that is such a hard thing to do right now.. But I am trying..
Please pray for us. If you can, please donate, or spread the word for us. Once the home study is complete we will begin the search for our Birth Mother, and that is just going to really drive my nerves crazy :)
The facilitating agency we have been talking to sent us the contract this week. It arrived Friday for us to look over and think about. We have another phone conference on Thursday for questions and everything and then it will be time to decide if we're going to sign and send it in... I'm in a bit of a panic.. part of me wants to wait until we have the home study finished. That is getting close, we just need to finish up bios, get signed forms to OCS (which has just been waiting to have everyone actually home for as they have to have witnessed signatures..) and getting one or two more bits of info for the financial section (mostly all the investment stuff that is scattered between companies.. we really need to get that consolidated..), then waiting.. Have I mentioned I hate waiting? There shouldn't be any problems with that, but, I'm a worrier.. and I just, well, worry...
And I worry about the money as well. I know I just need to let go of all this worry. Place it all in the hands of Heavenly Father, but that is such a hard thing to do right now.. But I am trying..
Please pray for us. If you can, please donate, or spread the word for us. Once the home study is complete we will begin the search for our Birth Mother, and that is just going to really drive my nerves crazy :)
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
First meeting..
Well, we had our first phone meeting with the folks at Lifetime
Adoptions. It's all very exciting and nerve wracking.. They are mailing
us the contract to look over and we will have another meeting next week.
Right now we're kind of debating between them and the one Agency
actually in Alaska... Pros and Cons for both, of course... Lifetime
helps us get things rolling so we can find our birth mother on our own,
from all over the country, help us get our profiles set up, etc.. the
other Agency is more of the "full service" sort and finds the
birth mother for us in state, but we wouldn't really be able to do much
with them until we could take their class in January.. so it's all do
something now, or wait until next year.. and well.. I really don't want
to wait and put things off any more... I just really want everything to
go smoothly and quickly :)
Thursday, July 30, 2015
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 :)
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 :)
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