Foster to adopt

Mark and I are in the process of foster to adopt.  We have been trying to get pregnant for over a year and we decided that we didn't want to wait any longer to start our family.  For us, we feel like we don't want to wait until we are a lot older to start a family.  Plus I didn't want to have to go through a bunch of procedures to make it happen.  For me, as a nanny I knew it was possible to love a child, even if it wasn't biologically my own.  Some of the kids, I always said if anything had happened to their parents, I would take them in.  I loved them completely.  So even though we would have loved to have a child of our own, we are going to start things out a different way, and hopefully eventually God will bless us with a child of our own too.

We chose foster to adopt because an international adoption can take about a year to complete and costs a lot of money.  With foster to adopt, we will foster the child for awhile before we will be able to adopt them.  While we are fostering, the state will pay for everything, including their medical costs and even give us a monthly allowance to help with the child's expenses.  Luckily a friend of a friend had chosen to adopt her son this way, so we were able to talk to her before making a decision and find out how it worked for her.  Ours is quite different from her adoption because we are going through Milwaukee county for foster to adopt.  This was good because it helped us go through the process much quicker.

We have made it through the initial background checks.  Now we are working with our licensing agent to get through all the paperwork.  So far things are coming along really well, and the process seems to be flying by.  Luckily for us, this process takes a shorter amount of time, only 6 months,  rather then 9 months for a pregnancy.

Today I went for my TB skin test, and Mark had his physical this week as well.  We are just needing to get our bills together to show that we aren't doing fostering to make money.  Next week we get to do fingerprinting.  It's kind of crazy to go through all of this because if it was a child we had on our own, we wouldn't have to go through all of these things.  But in the end, I know it will be completely worth it.  Plus, I don't have to actually give birth.  ;)

I'm nervous because next time we meet with our licensing agent we start interviews.  She said we are going to start with the couples interview, and that seems like it should be pretty easy.  Just have to talk about how we met, how we handle disagreements, stuff like that.  Mark and I are pretty solid so I think this should go pretty well.

I'm still working through figuring out what I can get together before the child comes.  We decided on a child 0-4 years old, and either gender.  So the agency expects us to have a convertible seat, which I've already found one.  Also, we have to have a twin bed and a pack 'n play, or a convertible crib.  I think starting out we are gonna use our full size bed and hopefully borrow a pack 'n play from someone until we actually meet the child.  It's just hard because I would love to get toys and clothes and other things together, but there's such a difference between those ages to really know what to get. 

Anyways, we still have a lot to do with getting licensed.  We have some classes coming up next month, which I think will be helpful in answering some of the questions we have and helping us to get prepared for this journey.  We are set to get licensed 1/3/2014!  With the house getting done sometime before Christmas and the holidays coming up, it will be here before we know it.  We can't wait!