Home Assessment Complete!

Last night we started and finished our home assessment with DHS! The girl who came over said it could take up to 4 hours, but it only took us 3. I think we actually finished in 3 hours last night, only because I’m an only child. Getting information on Russell's sisters took about an hour of the process! They asked a lot of repetitive question. But this girl was MUCH more helpful than the last guy who came over. She seemed to be able to answer my questions and give me suggestions of where to read more information about fostering and adoption. We had to answer questions about happy and sad memories of our childhood. If our parents "practiced what they preached". We had to determine if we would accept a child of another faith - and we said yes as long as they could be exposed to our faith too and their faith doesn't completely contradict Christianity. We had to list people in our "inner circle" and "outer circle" then they asked a lot of questions about our medical history. Any surgeries and all medications we are on. My part of that was easy too but Russell's took a while. Oh yeah and job history! That's another area where mine was so much faster than Russell's.

The next step:

We have to get fingerprinted, get physicals, and get a copy of my divorce decree from the courthouse. (I guess what I gave her before wasn't good enough). Then parenting classes start on May 12! I'm pretty excited to hear all the things we will learn from that.

Because of the age range we will be requesting, she suggested that I read up on how I can help babies form attachment with us and the bio parents. Currently I have no resources of where to look for that, so if anyone has suggestions please let me know!!!

We're doing this!

We started the process of trying to become foster parents... almost a month ago. Today DHS called me to schedule our home assessment for foster care. She told me that they have a goal of getting all the paperwork done in 30 days so they really need to schedule our assessment next week. THEN she asked if I could take off work to complete this 4 hour interview! I told her that wasn't possible with my work so it'd have to be after 6 sometime next week. THEN she drops the bomb on me that she would like us to have our physicals completed by then. I called my doctor but they cant get us in until May 1st, so she'll just have to deal with that! There has been some questions about if we needed to get our own fingerprint cards or if DHS would provide them. She told me that she would bring the fingerprint cards when she came out but that we needed to "get that done quickly" so that we could get them sent off. I know she's just doing her job. But since I'm a planner, she's starting to stress me out! At least I know we start parenting classes May 12th.
In the meantime, I'm trying to get my spare bedroom converted from a "junk room" into a kids bedroom. We have a pile of toys that were donated. We just need to separate them into toys that need to go in a bleach bath and toys that need to go in the washing machine! Then my plan is to separate them in to age specific toy bins, so depending on what age we get placed, I can have those toys out and ready. I think I have a friend who will get us a convertible crib and a changing table, then I have another friend who is getting us a car seat. I feel like we are on the right path, but I still feel like there is SO MUCH more to do.