Relief and Roadblocks

It had only been 12hrs when we got our first piece of good news and our first panic that this would not be our adoption.

At 11am on Saturday 1/28, I got a call from the adoption agency. She said they would love to consider us, but because we are foster parents and our homestudy is through the Department of Human Services we would need their approval to adopt and use their homestudy. She said sometimes DHS does not allow families who have (foster) children in their home to adopt privately or use their Fost/Adopt homestudy. The agency needs DHS to write a letter on letterhead giving us permission to pursue adoption and fax that over with our homestudy.

At 11am on Monday 1/30, I speak to our DHS homefinding caseworker who says she can certainly send over what the adoption agency need.

Tuesday, 1/31, DHS let me know that they were sending over all of our information- like SCR clearances and fingerprints to help our process move faster.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012- I get an email from the adoption agency. DHS sent over all the right papers, but it may not mean anything. Baby has been in the hospital for a month with no family. The county wants to place her in foster care because they believe if there hasn't been a family found yet, there probably won't ever be. I am the foster care system. I know how happy a foster family would be to get that call from DFACS saying they can pick up their baby. I know they would love her, and probably adopt her eventually. I expected this kind of end, and it was over. Or so I thought...

Friday, February 3, 2012-  At 10am, I accepted the foster care placement of a 22 month boy. He was brought to our home at noon. At 7pm, I receive an email from the agency, " am so happy to report that after much advocacy, the law firm has agreed to consider adoption for this baby rather than have her go into county custody. I am hoping you and your husband are genuinely interested in being considered for Baby "...

I was so excited!! So overwhelmed!!! Still really skeptical...

Over the weekend we made plans to do a conference call with the adoption agency, our adoption agency, on Monday. We also were going to speak to the baby's Dr in California on Tuesday.

This is the start of something good.