Working on Me

There are some things I want to work on about myself. One of the main things is my anxiety and depression, and then my anger when I'm getting overwhelmed.

I rarely say something to someone's face, but when I get angry, I need to vent. When I do get angry and anxious it affects me and it ruins my entire day.

Basically, I want to help myself get over this. I want to work on my how my emotions affect me. I think that if I can do that, it will be better for me in the long run, especially when stress is causing migraines and makes my Psoriasis worse.

This is one of the things I want to work on. The other is my weight. A few friends and I are starting up a YouTube channel regarding this, and I'll be jumping back onto the Keto journey to hopefully lose upwards of 100 - 130 pounds. I'm tired of being tired and tired of not being able to do anything without hurting.

I know I'm the only one who can change things in my life, and I'm seriously going to try, especially moving forward with adding a kid to this crazy thing I call life.

Adoption Story (Part 2)

Now that it's been a few months there have been a few updates.

We've learned a few things over the last couple of months, such as what the next steps are, and how annoyingly difficult it is to get ahold of ANYONE in the adoption agency.

Like, seriously...no one ever answers their phone OR calls you back! It's kind of ridiculous.

Anyways, we reached out regarding about 10 individual kids, all in different counties, all different age ranges, races, and genders. Just putting our name out there and asking if they were still avaliable.

In the two weeks, I think I heard back from one person who said they weren't. Then I called back to everyone on my list, added a few more...got a hold of another person and we had just missed the next step for one of the children because they hadn't called back.

A couple others were already matched, a couple others still haven't gotten back to me.

We were able to reach one case manager regarding a 13 year old girl. In order to protect their privacy, I won't tell you their name or where they're from, but let's just say both my husband and I were in love. Thirteen was at the top of her age range, we reached out, nothing, reached out, nothing, reached out to a supervisor, and the supervisor got us in contact with the case manager. Then didn't hear anything again. Finally, we emailed the supervisor again and she said if we didn't hear back in the week to call her.

That night we got an email that they were doing a match meeting (the next step) on Monday, and they wanted to make sure we were interested.

For those that don't know, the Match Meeting is a step that the agency takes all interested parents, and compare them. They basically each rate the parents from best match to least best match (not worst, because they DO match, just not the best). They then move forward only with the best match.

We sent over our home study already, and the case manager thought we were a good match. They liked everything about us, especially that we had similar hobbies to her. We were so excited we started looking at schools in the area for middle schoolers.

Monday comes and goes, and we don't hear back. That's fine, I'll give it a day.

Tuesday comes, and by 9am I couldn't take it anymore, and called. Oops, it was the case managers cell phone, and I woke her up.

Turns out they went with another family. Their reasons made sense, logically...but we were bummed. Though they said it had nothing to do with us or our home study, just thought the other family was a better fit.

Back to square one.

It's been about a month now since then, and we matched with three other kids. All happen to be girls, between the ages of 11 and 14. One we politely turned down because of particular things mentioned in her child study that we knew we couldn't deal with. Another we weren't sold on due to the history of something that is on our "definitely no" list. The final we are absolutely in love with and think we can make a world of difference for her life.

We haven't said "no" yet to the "definitely no" list girl, only because the foster parents state she's improving lately and hasn't done it in a really long time...but we're hesitant. The disclourse step I think will help tilt us for or against.

We have minimal concerns for the final girl, there are some medical issues and developmental delays, but those are things that we can help her improve with and better her life. We're still waiting to hear back when the meeting is schedule for, to ask any final questions we have.

If we decide to move forward with either of the two girls, the next step is a supervised visitiation. We'll actually get to met our potential future daughter. I say potential because there are a few steps that can deter them or us before we legally can adopt, but I am excited to have a little girl to call my own, and teach that the world isn't complete shit.

Or even if it is, at least family can make it worth while.

Adoption Story

One thing to learn about the last 20 months at least, that has been a drastic change in my life, is that my husband and I have started the adoption journey.

When we got married, hell while we were dating, we had discussed that there was a potential inability for me to get pregnant due to my PCOS (Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndome). My husband, amazing as he is, was perfectly okay with that, and we kind of dropped the subject since I was in school and didn't want kids until after either way.

Well, I graduated in 2015, and we still waited for about a year of just trying natrually before we decided to go another route. We went to Eckerd because we learned that adoption...it's ridiculously expensive. Private routes are near impossible to pay for without saving up for years. Foster care may be the right route...and we discussed fostering to adopt being a potential possibility.

I emailed Eckerd on September 5th, 2016, and heard back three days later. I was told that they had an orientation in October and we signed up to go to hear more information.

What we learned during orientation were a few things:
1) Fostering was definitly not for us. Eckerd's biggest goal is to get the child back with the parents, even if the parents were not showing a great track record or showing they were improving. As long as they "tried" they were allowed to keep trying, and Florida gives a LOT of opportunities to keep trying.
2) Adoption, through the syetem is free.

Let me repeat that.
ADOPTION. THROUGH THE SYSTEM. IS FREE!

We were elated! We immeditally knew this was the route we needed to go, despite the growing concerns about what we would learn later in our adoption classes.

Speaking of adoption classes...that was the next step. We signed up for the soonest availabe (one class every 8 weeks), which was December 13th, 2016 - January 31st, 2017. There were a few rules to follow:
1) Be to each Tuesday 6pm - 9pm class for 8 weeks
2) Do the "homework" provided
3) Finish the requirements for the foster/adoption.

We were one of three couples/individuals in the class to go to all 8 classes (they said you had to wait until the NEXT 8-week course section to make up the one day you missed, mama don't play that!)

There were some things that were concerning, like the horror stories they tell you that may be an issue with the children and their upbringing. These aren't going to be the babies that are given up at birth, these are going to be the kids that were taken away from their parents for their safety, but the kids may not be okay with it either way.

We decided that the age range that we are focusing on is 5-12, male or female. We even moved to ensure we had the room for a child.

We went through the process,we finished the classes, did our background checks, and even got all the paperwork but two to the adoption agency. Then...we had to wait. We waited 7 months for a piece of paper from the military for my husband, then when we finally got it, we were told our background checks at expired. (Well technically they said our finger prints had expired...and that lead to questions, and they meant background checks). We had to redo our background checks which took 5 weeks, then we were told that we would have the completed home study by the 16th of March (2018).

March 16th came and went, and I was speaking to our case manager (a lovely woman), and she was trying to update a few other things to make sure there weren't any issues. We got that done, and over all we were told we would have it by April 2nd, before our case manager had to leave for for a month for medical reasons.

April 2nd came...I reached out to the supervisor (per the case manager's request), and was ignored. I reached out again two weeks later, and then another week after. Finally, on April 30th the case manager came back from her medical leave and found the completed home study (that had evidently been sitting on a desk some where waiting to be scanned in), and sent it over.

As of April 30th, 2018 we can legally adopt!

Now, I was thinking the next part has to be the easy part...right?

Let's just say that I have reached out regarding about 10 children, and have only heard back about one thus far. So...NOW is the hard part...the waiting game of case managers getting back to us to let us know if we actually match with a child.

I'll update again when I have more information or hear anything. I'll also try to start updating this blog more as we add a child to our live, and I start being a mother. This is insane and going to be so worth it.