so what's next?

The boys were only with us for the weekend, they arrived on friday and were placed with a relative monday evening. I am thrilled the boys got to go to a safe, familiar home.
I am not so thrilled that my husband doesn't know if he wants to foster any more.
I get that it was hard (we knew it would be)
I get that it was heart breaking when they left and didn't want to (we knew it would be)

I'm pretty thrown that he's so upset and making such a decision so quickly.
I'm doing what I've become accustomed to: preparing myself for the worst.
I've already mourned the fact that I may never have a biological child.
Now I feel like I need to mourn that I may never be a mother period.
You see, it's not that my husband no longer wants children. It's that now he wants biological children more than ever. He wants to start TTC again. We already did that for 2 years. 2 long, heartbreaking, tiresome, faith questioning, relationship testing years. But, those years were also hopeful and full of dreams and magical.

I'm feeling just about every emotion possible right now: sad, scared, angry, hopeful, anxious, excited... the list goes on and on.
pray for us...

1st Placement

Our first placement has happened! two boys: ''boots'' is 3 and so active! ''baby jaguar'' is 21 months and a little shy but has the sweetest smile i've ever seen.
the past two days have been rough, i'm not gonna lie. there's been lots of tears (myself included) and a huge lack of sleep for everyone. my husband has been so supportive during my lack of composure (he's been working early mornings so i've been left w/ night time duty on my own).
i've been having a lot of second thoughts about this these past two days, but i've been told that comes w/ the territory. it's not my goal to scare anyone away from fostering at all, this is just new to me and i've always tried to be honest w/ my feelings here.

happy mother's day to all the moms out there and to everyone who isn't a mother yet and struggles with today, a huge hug and a moment of recognization for how strong you really are!

I am the worst waiter ever...

and I'm not talking about the nice person who brings you your food at a restaurant.
We've been licensed for a month today. Only a month and already every time the phone rings I think this has got to be the foster agency! (also I only found out a few days ago that they could've called anytime between then and now. I thought there was a final meeting we needed to attend.)
Now, don't get me wrong I know it could still be months before a child comes into care that we'd be a good fit for. I get that. I just thought that I'd be better at waiting than I am. I am not a good waiter.

so close, but still feels so far

ok all, wednesday is FINALLY our for real for real final inspection before our file gets sent over to placement.
it was actually a miscommunication on our behalf that prolonged the meeting. oops!
wednesday has never felt so close (SO much to do!) and so far away (so much happening in between)! to be totally honest i have no idea how long it will be until a child is placed in our home, and even then we won't know what the permanency plan is right away.
but i can't stop myself from thinking "this might be the last birthday party i have to show up at without a child" or "maybe by next [insert nearest holiday] we'll have kids around" i even had to stop myself from buying a clearance toddler halloween costume the other day... it was NOT easy.
but, hopefully after wednesday we'll have some kind of concrete answer about something. i just want something to hold onto

back to waiting

i feel like were back to another waiting game. this time we're waiting for our home coordinator to contact us to do the review inspection of our home and send our info over to placement. i thought for sure she'd call this week. she didn't. BUT, i won't let it get to me! soon there will be children in our home, and even if they don't stay forever we will have made a difference in their lives! oh! and i'm waiting for something else. i won a copy of adoption nation by adam pertman over on adoptivemomma.com 's blog! i'm sure it will be good reading (as her blog is) and help pass some time in the waiting game :D have a great weekend everyone!

we're licensed!

we did it! we are officially licensed foster parents! apparently from here there is a transfer conference where they send all of our info over to the worker that will be working with us from now on, then she will contact us to set up a meeting and do a walk through of the house to make sure everything is still safe and up to par, and then our file gets sent out to "placements" meaning we could be called for a placement in our home. based on how long things have taken so far, i'm guessing this will take at least a month. but i can't even explain how excited i am! i can't wait for you all to take this next step with us! eeeek! now time to go celebrate!

still waiting

sorry to be gone so long and not have good news once i returned.
actually i kind of have no news.
we're still waiting.
in fact when we thought we were waiting before, we weren't.
at about the time i thought we were half way through the average 3 month wait to hear if we're licensed we had some more paper work to do. we got through it fairly easily and i was all oh i bet we're going to find out sooner than most people do. then the girl that's been doing our homestudy says ok, now we start the long wait.
oops thought i was already there. so now we're just hanging out waiting to see where things are heading. i'm not on here much but feel free to follow me on twitter cause most of my ideas come across in 140 characters or less anyways ;) @fireworks_hope