So the last interview lasted about 40 minutes with just four questions:

How are your parenting styles the same?
Is there any physical or emotional abuse?
Why do you want to adopt?
Do you have worries?

Now we need to start collecting birth certificates, marriage certificates, medical papers, and our CPR certification. After hubby's interview we will receive the yellow slip of paper to move onto the fostering part of the application. We need to sign up for the fostering licensing workshop and fill out the application there. Then we will be assigned a licensing social worker.

December 21st-First Interview-hubby

So hubby's interview went basically the same as mine. Yay we are halfway to getting the licensing paper so we can move onto the fostering part of this process. We are so excited to be halfway there. We still need to finish up the doctor office visits for hubby and the kids and my doctor needs to add something to mine and then we should be good to go! Hopefully after the new year we will have a better idea of how much longer we have to go. Happy Holidays!

December 14th- Follow-up Interview-me

This next interview took 2 1/2 hours....and still not done.....15 minutes to go.....

Here are several questions from this interview:

Adolescence - did you rebel?
Adulthood - are you flexible?
When did you graduate from high school?
Where did you go to college?
How long did it take you to graduate?
What jobs did you have?
How did you pick the job you picked?
How did you two meet?
What was your courtship like?
How often do you drink?
How is your self esteem?
Describe Ian.
Describe him in one word.
One thing you would change?
Was there an adjustment to marriage?
Did you ever separate?
How will a new child affect your relationship?
What about Ian annoys you?
Are you compatible physically?
How do you manage stress?
What are your goals for now?
What is your support network?
How are you different? (me and hubby)
How are you the same?
Does hubby know about everything?
Have you ever been abused?

Getting my dates straight was the hardest part of this interview and also the amount of time it took. Phew glad its almost done. I am so looking forward to hubby starting his interviews so that we can move onto the licensing phase of our adoption.

December 9th - First Individual Interview - Me

So I was really nervous for my individual interview. My four-year old was home with me at the time and the dogs were being a little crazy but all in all it went alright....I think.

Here are the questions that I can remember:

What are your degrees?
What are the names of the members of your family: my mom, dad, sister.
Is your dad retired?
Is your mom retired?
What does your sister do? Is she married/does she have a boyfriend?
What is your relationship like with your mom/dad/sister?
Describe your young childhood - 0-12 years. Do not include school.
Describe school.
Describe your adolescence.
Where did you learn your values and morals from?
Were you sexually abused?

This interview took 1 hour and 45 minutes. It was much more stressful, especially when talking about certain relationships.

My follow-up interview is next week. It's supposed to last about 2 hours....

Dec. 2nd and Dec. 6th Joint Interview

Here are some questions from our first joint interviews. We didn't know exactly what to expect but they weren't really that hard.....I've heard the individual interview is a little harder so we'll see. So far the first interview on the 2nd took 2 1/2 hours and the second interview on the 6th took 1 hour.

Here are some of the questions. These are the only ones that I could remember.

Describe your personality.
Describe your kid's personality.
What do you do for birth control? Are you actively trying to have kids?
Describe your experience with kids.
Describe your religion from childhood on.
Describe your finances.
How do you discipline your children?
What are your goals for your children?
What are your views of people different from yourself?
Describe how you will meet your child's cultural needs?
What have you told your children about fostering.
Will you use outside support services?

First Baby Gift

Yesterday while buying books for my sister and friend's babies, I saw this little purple elephant while checking out. Right away I felt like I needed to buy it for our new baby that will hopefully be here by March 2011. Three hours after buying her/his first gift our social worker called. I was so excited. It was one of those calls you get though where you only remember half of what they said. Our first interview for our home study will be next week sometime. She said it will run probably somewhere around 2-3 hours....wow....what will they ask us? Guess we'll find out soon.

We're Expecting

To adopt, sometime soon! I just got back from the Social Services Office where I turned in our application. I have to say that I feel like I just found out that I am pregnant. It's the same sort of anticipation, waiting, trying to be patient, figuring out what/when to tell the kids, friends, etc. I am so excited.
When I talked to the adoption officer on duty he said that it will be about 2-4 weeks before the social worker contacts me. Then another 4-6months for the home study process and then a few more things and we will be ready. Its hard to believe that in 6months to a year we could be new parents again!

Weeds and Dogs

Now that we are getting closer to getting our foster care license I have been letting more people know about our plans to either foster or foster/adopt. I have been getting very mixed reactions and I have to say that I knew I would get a few negative ones, but not quite the degree that I thought. One person compared a foster child to a weed in a garden. I still cannot comprehend how that analogy came about but it saddens me to think that he/she is probably not the only one that thinks this. He/she said having a foster child would be like going up the hill to the field and picking a weed and putting it in their garden. Another person likened a foster child to a dog that just cannot be trained. Both people warned us to be careful and not to let it affect our children in a negative way. One person said that they thought it would be unfair to the foster child forever because our own biological children are smart and the foster child would never "catch up" or be "adequate" inferring it would be better if we just didn't adopt at all. I would be worried that once we actually foster/adopt this child that the comments wouldn't stop, however I know they won't so I am not worried, I am prepared. I already get many comments from friends and strangers about our children now so I know I will get them about a foster/adoptive child. I am ready and I am excited. I can't wait to be placed with such a precious gift.

What to Say?

I've been contemplating writing a blog for some time now. I spend so much time reading others blogs and commenting that I thought that I should start my own. The reason I have waited for so long is that I can't really write. You may ask, you can't write???? You are writing right now. However, after reading many many blogs there are ones that I keep coming back to because of the way the author writes, the things they write about, and the pictures they take of their kids. Well, my life is pretty average, I don't write in a way that is humorous, inspirational or insightful, and I don't really want to post pictures of my kids for everyone to see. So we will see how my blog writing goes.

For the most part, I am starting this blog to begin to document a new stage in my family's life. We are seriously considering adoption. I have always mentioned adoption to my husband, through getting married, getting degrees, working jobs, having kids, but we never really seriously considered it. Then January 12, 2010 happened. To most people it was just another day, but for me when the earthquake in Haiti happened it was like something clicked for me and I couldn't stop thinking about helping. I googled blogs in Haiti and came across the Livesays, http://livesayhaiti.blogspot.com/, a family who lives in Haiti and has helped many families there. They were there when the earthquake happened and have been back many times since and are hoping to return there soon. They inspired me to help. My first donation was to their daughter Paige who was running a marathon to help build houses in Haiti. Donating money didn't feel like enough though.
I wanted to be able to help a specific child. I then started researching orphanages in Haiti and came across God's Littlest Angels Orphanage. My nights were consumed with reading all I could get my hands on. I let everyone know about what they could do to help Haiti. I still felt helpless. A little girl named Jerrensia pulled at my heart. I wanted to adopt her. I talked to my husband. At first he said no way. Now even though this wasn't a surprise to him that I would ask, he was not ready to adopt. Then one day he came to me and said, Am I the only obstacle standing in your way? I was like, well yeah that and money. He said ok let's do it. It took a few months of research but I found out that Jerrensia has been granted a medical visa and she was going to be helped by a family in Michigan. She had been born with club feet and seemed to be paralyzed by the waist down. When adoptions finally started up again in Haiti I looked at adopting and found out it would cost about $12,000. We didn't have $12,000. I then began thinking about the children in our own county that didn't have families. Were there any? I didn't know. We live in a very affluent community and I wasn't sure. I started researching adoption in our county and found through the Livesays blog, a blog written by Kristen Howerton, http://www.rageagainsttheminivan.com/. She is local in my community and I read all I could on her blog about her fostering to adopt journey with her first child. It turned out that she was going to be at the same church the Livesays were going to be at the following weekend up here where I live. I decided that I needed to go listen to the Livesays speak. I met Tara and Troy as well as Kristen. It was a short visit but made quite and impact on me. Soon after going to the church, I went to the orientation class through the county and then went on to take the foster/adopt classes. My husband is now in the process of taking them.

I am not sure where this is going to lead us, but I am hoping it will lead us into something great that we would never have had if it weren't for fostering/adopting.