Our last foster to adopt class has been completed today! Next weekend we have to be trained in Infant/Child and Adult CPR and then the waiting for our homestudy and profile to be completed begins. We've been told that it will take anywhere from 1-2 months. The homestudy consists of making sure that we live in suitable living arrangements with enough bedrooms, facilities and safety features (smoke alarms, fire extinguishers etc...). Our profile will be used to match us with available children who are looking for forever homes. We are awaiting all of our clearances (FBI, PA and county) to come in and they will be contacting our references list.
During this time we are also in the hunt for a new home to rent. Our house in Vermont is still on the market. We are hoping that it will sell soon but we can't really put our lives on hold anymore. We are tired of our place in Pittsburgh that we rented with a short term lease sight unseen (We will never do this again!). We are tired of sharing walls with neighbors. We have found a few places to might meet our qualifications but the rental market here is brutal. We are going to look at another place tomorrow with our checkbook in hand. On paper it looks great and we'll be able to have the pugs come live with us!
We started this journey in PA on Dec 13, 2013 by contacting agencies. That night I decided to write a letter to our soon to be child. I thought I would share:
Dear Child of Mine,
Today I spent much of the day calling foster and adoption agencies. You may be already born, you may be growing in your mother's belly or your may be waiting to be created. No matter what, I love you. You have been dreamt of, waited for and wished for by your dad and I for years. Never forget that you have always been wanted! There is place in my heart growing for you already. I can't wait to meet you.
Love,
Your soon to be mom!
Hugs,
Becky
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Monday, February 3, 2014
Welcome to our blog!
As many of you know, we are now living in the state of Pennsylvania. Shilo (my husband) and I had lived in Vermont our entire lives except for our time in college (which was only in New Hampshire). When Shilo was laid off from IBM in July of 2013 our whole world was rocked. At the time we were foster parents hoping to adopt at some point. By the Fall of 2013 we had remodeled our home in VT and placed it on the market, said goodbye to our foster children, sold most of our furniture and packed up what was left and headed to PA.
I will not make light of the pain our hearts have endured over the last 6+ months. We miss friends and family and we especially miss our 5 year old foster daughter but, with all that loss we are ready to begin our process again to have children.
Shilo and I have been together for almost 16 years and this fall we will be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary. Impressive for us both being in our early 30's. Unfortunately, all of our love has not given us children. We've miscarried once and it was traumatic for me. After that we decided that adoption was what we wanted to do.
We want to help children locally. We have nothing against overseas adoption we just decided that since there are roughly 400,000 children in foster care that we wanted to start there. We loved being foster parents in VT. We worked with some of the best professionals in the business. Social Workers are overloaded but the good ones will sit down and build a fort with a child. Foster Parent Resources Coordinators are overloaded with children landing in there door every day and managing to find them loving foster homes to go to. We had children as young as 36 hours old and as old as 13 enter our home from 1 night to 10 months. We loved them all with all of our hearts. We treated them as our own children. With that many children coming and going we had a lot of heart ache. We would never trade a moment of time we spent with any of the kids ( even the puke and poop).
In PA, the state doesn't qualify foster parents anymore. They go through third party agencies. In Allegheny County alone there are 22 to choose from. We decided to go with Three Rivers Adoption Council as they offer a foster to adopt program. Foster to adopt is looking for children in PA that are freed for adoption or on the verge of being freed. Three Rivers Adoption Council also works with other states to find families and children.
On Saturday we attended our first class here. Most of the information we are hearing for the second time around since we've been through this in VT. It's actually nice to hear the information again as the first time, Shilo and I were overwhelmed.
So right now we are in the process of filling out paperwork, getting background checks, and physicals. To make our life more complicated, we are trying to sell our home in VT and our lease in PA runs out at the end of March. We are looking for a new home to rent as well. Never a dull moment.
We have lots of love and support from friends and family. I can't wait to meet others going through the process.
Hugs,
Becky
I will not make light of the pain our hearts have endured over the last 6+ months. We miss friends and family and we especially miss our 5 year old foster daughter but, with all that loss we are ready to begin our process again to have children.
Shilo and I have been together for almost 16 years and this fall we will be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary. Impressive for us both being in our early 30's. Unfortunately, all of our love has not given us children. We've miscarried once and it was traumatic for me. After that we decided that adoption was what we wanted to do.
We want to help children locally. We have nothing against overseas adoption we just decided that since there are roughly 400,000 children in foster care that we wanted to start there. We loved being foster parents in VT. We worked with some of the best professionals in the business. Social Workers are overloaded but the good ones will sit down and build a fort with a child. Foster Parent Resources Coordinators are overloaded with children landing in there door every day and managing to find them loving foster homes to go to. We had children as young as 36 hours old and as old as 13 enter our home from 1 night to 10 months. We loved them all with all of our hearts. We treated them as our own children. With that many children coming and going we had a lot of heart ache. We would never trade a moment of time we spent with any of the kids ( even the puke and poop).
In PA, the state doesn't qualify foster parents anymore. They go through third party agencies. In Allegheny County alone there are 22 to choose from. We decided to go with Three Rivers Adoption Council as they offer a foster to adopt program. Foster to adopt is looking for children in PA that are freed for adoption or on the verge of being freed. Three Rivers Adoption Council also works with other states to find families and children.
On Saturday we attended our first class here. Most of the information we are hearing for the second time around since we've been through this in VT. It's actually nice to hear the information again as the first time, Shilo and I were overwhelmed.
So right now we are in the process of filling out paperwork, getting background checks, and physicals. To make our life more complicated, we are trying to sell our home in VT and our lease in PA runs out at the end of March. We are looking for a new home to rent as well. Never a dull moment.
We have lots of love and support from friends and family. I can't wait to meet others going through the process.
Hugs,
Becky
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