As I go back and read through my blogs I am worried that all the jumping around in our timeline is really getting confusing. Maybe if I do a general history of our family and how we got where we are and start from there it will be easier to follow. One of the things I love most about reading other blogs is starting at the beginning and following the story as it unfolds, I try not to jump ahead and find out how things end without knowing how they got there. Foster care in general is full of so many twists and turns that the road to the end is as valuable to the story as the outcome.
I am in my early 40's, raised mainly in a small southern town, married to my high school sweetheart for almost 21 years. Sounds a little like the beginning of a fairy tale maybe, but we have definitely had our ups and downs. No white picket fence I promise! We have no biological children of our own. I was not shocked that fertility would be an issue for us, as it runs in my family. I like to tell people I am a miracle baby, they usually reply with a sarcastic snort. Up until my mid 30's I had almost convinced myself that while I would love to have kids, I could be happy without them. I enjoyed my nephews and the children in the nursery at church, and told myself it was enough.
At 34 I was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma, after 6 months of chemo and 20 radiation treatments I was in remission. It was, of course, life changing. After things got to a new normal for us I realized it wasn't enough to enjoy other peoples children and started exploring options. In just about all options I found I would have to wait to be in remission for 5 years, which is when you are generally considered to be cured. I could totally understand that...I didn't want to bring a child into our family if we weren't as sure as possible that my cancer wouldn't return. We pursued some new infertility treatments, but it became clear that unless we had a LOT of money to devote to this (we don't), that adopting was going to be our best choice. My brother had been adopted from foster care, so I wasn't the least bit reluctant to adopt. I knew that we would love an adopted child just as much as we would have a biological one. We thought about domestic and international adoption, but ultimately felt that adoption from foster care was the best option for us. But did we want to foster, or only adopt?? In the end we felt that by fostering we could help other children until our forever child came into our lives. Selfishly, I wanted to be parenting while we waited for the child/children that would be ours forever.
In April 2010 we went to our first foster parent orientation, we then went through 10 weeks of MAPP classes. Followed by 7 weeks of additional parenting classes. While going through MAPP we were also going through the home study process. Tons of paperwork, home visits, inspections and background checks. A little overwhelming at times, but we were determined. By doing MAPP and the home study at the same time, our home study was almost ready to send to the state for approval by the end of our classes. We were actually licensed before we were finished with our parenting classes.
We were licensed in July 2010. Our MAPP instructor/home study lady called on a Thursday to let us know that we had been approved. The next day we were called with our first placement, and three days later we added our second. Married 19 years with no children, and suddenly we had two children in three days! I will introduce you to these sweet little girls in a later post.
I will end by saying that while we went into foster parenting as a way to build our family through adoption, we love fostering, and will continue to foster if/when we do adopt. It is the hardest most wonderful thing we have ever done.
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