Here we go!

I havent posted much about our adoption journey. Mainly because I was terrified that something would happen and we wouldnt get approved. But now I feel like I can post all I want! Yesterday I got an email from our agency saying that our Foster Care License had been approved. That also means that our Homestudy was approved too! We ARE approved!!! YAY!!!!! It took a whole year! October of last year my husband made the phone call to Bethany and asked about their Special Needs/Older Child Adoption program, (Foster care adoption) and was told that the PRIDE class was going to start in just one week and would we like to sign up for it? PRIDE is the required class/training that you need to get your license. It was two weekends long and it was actually kind of fun. We worked in groups with other prospective families and problem solved and shared expiriences. Their were people there who were trying to Foster their grandchildren, who ONLY wanted to foster older kids, who only wanted babies, who ONLY wanted to adopt and people who werent sure at all if this was something they really wanted to do or NOT. We learned about bonding, typical foster child issues, imagined would we would feel like if everything we knew and loved (no matter how dysfunctional it was) was suddenly ripped away and we were put with people SOOOOO different than where we came from. It was intertesting.

Then we had to do the paper chase. Gathering all the needed documents , FBI clearances and local police clearances and state police clearances and finacial statements and dog licenses and proof of vaccines and medical clearances and statements of mental health and 3 letters from friends saying how awesome we are... or arent! The letters took the longest but they finally came through and all our friends agreed that we were AWESOME :) .

Finally in April we had our first home visit. I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned some more and my MIL helped. We installed safetly latches on cabinets and made everything look CLEAN :). Oh, and we installed extra smoke detectors too. Our worker came out and.... BARELY LOOKED AT ANY THING! :) figures! She asked us lots of questions like, nothing hard to answer. Mostly things like how was our childhood, asked about my husbands feelings about his own adoption and what type of children we were interested in adopting/fostering. Then she met with my kids. I was NERVOUS because my kids say exactly whats on their minds! She asked if they wanted siblings and both said "YES!" and chase said "if its a boy" and kylie said "if its a girl" LOL . She asked what happens when they get in trouble and chase said " I dont get in trouble" and kylie said " My mom yells at me" OH BOY!!!! The worker asked what she meant and Kylie said " When I dont listen my mom has to yell at me because I cant hear her" UGH... well she had just gotten in trouble a few minutes before the worker got their and i said " Why do I need to yell for you to listen?" LOL The worker actually laughed and said that she's glad they were so open and gets worried when kids dont want to talk to her. SOOOO, that ended that meeting :)

She came back in May for the second visit and I cleaned but not quite as much :). She went over our paperwork and had us clarify a few things and asked to see our carbon monoxide detector and she was off.

Then we waited and wait and waited and finally in August she ended me the copy of our homestudy rough draft.. i proof read it for accuracy and the next day she sent it to Lansing.

And we waited and waited and waited and October 7th I got the email from her telling us our licence was approved, we were good to go!!! We are approved for 2 kids between birth and 7 yrs old of either gender and with special needs up to what is considered "moderate need".

FINALLY, I have wanted to do this since I was little. I have bugged and bugged my husband to be on board with this and one day he just woke up and said "Ok, let do it"