So, it took until Thursday Night to get ahold of my SW. Now, I kind of understand. With all this snow, her pipes froze and broke and had a terrible leak inside her house. She has a slab foundation and as an ex-REALTOR I don't recommend those (if you can help it). So she had to move her family into a temporary home. While doing that she got into a car accident. A "flatlander" who had never driven in the snow ran into her on the highway. All of this while fielding calls from two SWs and me. Poor thing.

On my 50th or so try calling her she answered. "How'd it go?" I said, "Did you get a call from "SW" (our stand-in SW)? She said that things don't usually go that way."

Se went on to tell me no, it doesn't. That people are usually interviewed to be considered before they go see the child/ren, blah blah blah. She asked about the kids. Whether they seemed properly attached, their behavior etc. I told her that they seemed VERY attached, they were very well behaved. In fact they could teach my current children a thing or two in that department. DH couldn't believe that the 2 yr old would say "excuse me" every time she wanted to tell him something.

I then told her that their SW wanted us to pick up the girls and have them come up for the weekend but that I wasn't sure that that was such a good idea. At their age its just too scary to drive three hours away and spend three days with virtual strangers. She agreed and said she would talk to the SW. Then we went over paperwork stuff and found out that our CPR cert just expired the day before, DH's drivers license had been renewed and they needed a copy and our TB tests needed updating. Yeesh. She asked me if we wanted to go ahead. Of course, I said yes.

She said she'd get ahold of me after she spoke with the SW. Friday morning I got an e-mail:
"After you take the CPR course again, go ahead and set up visits. The .26 is in February so legally we are where we would be in any case. You may have a visit and if the hearing is continued you will have a monthly visit in Sacramento until the .26 is settled."

So, I had already called C the Foster Mother and thanked her for letting us invade her house and had told her the SWs were talking and that I would call when I knew anything. From the above message I thought we were to have monthly visits. I waited to call until I was able to make arrangements for our CPR update.

Monday the other SW called and asked why we did not take the kids for the weekend. Ummmmm......

Well, in all this mess, we have retaken CPR, had new TB tests, are building like crazy while we've had the most snow that I can remember and trying to figure out if the two SW's are talking to each other at all. We've even looked at new vehicles (not new, I'll never buy new again) we found one we can almost trade straight across for with my truck, the one I thought I'd have for the rest of my life as it cost almost as much as my house. The car seats nine. NINE. Can you imagine what the gas will cost?

Remember when we had basically given up on this thing? We got frustrated and downhearted and left off on what we had planned to do. Now we are so sorry as we are freaked out about getting this room done as there is one more person then we planned on joining our family. 5 kids guys. 5. DH and I are so excited and freaked out all at the same time.

As Annie said, we are hoping to keep C in our circle as we would like to keep her as the girls Auntie. I hope to ask her when we go to her house to see the girls on Saturday. She seems depressed and I hope that if she is willing to stay their Auntie that this will help with the transition for her, her family and the girls.

I have been making a little photo album to stay with the girls until we can bring them home.

I've been having some issues with people that are kind of "complaining" about how large our family will be. They say that I am burdening my husband. They say that I am burdening the system by adopting from Foster Care (what?). They say that I am short changing the children already in my care. They say that I will be short changing the girls that we are so excited to bring home as our daughters. They say we will be culturally stunting the girls because we are not African American and they are. They say, they say, they say........

Personally I am not sure where this hostility is coming from. Why all of a sudden? Is it just the number of children, or that we will be a multi racial and ethnic family?

****edited to include:

Once Again Annie has basically read my mind and posted about people looking askance at the decision to adopt a NUMBER of children.


I hope this post makes sense. I'm trying to update while in the middle of a hurricane of activity and don't have time to review it. Did I mention that a puppy has arrived in the middle of this mess as well?