Saturday, September 1, 2012

Mush. Mush. My Brain is Mush. *Update*

I consider myself fairly intelligent. Not super smart or anything, I'm under-educated, under-read, and under-traveled, but still, I think I have pretty good brain power most of the time...

Until I unofficially started the adoption process.

Let me tell you something... if you think "mommy brain" or "pregnancy brain" is bad, just wait. Start an adoption. I swear to you, I can't think, AT ALL. I feel paralyzed.

What is getting to me so much is that I have spoken with 2 social workers and they say completely opposite things. One of them says move before we start the homestudy. One says start the homestudy now and she'll update our homestudy for free. One of them says as long as we have enough beds for the kids, it's fine. The other says it's inappropriate for baby boys to be in the same room as baby girls... One of them costs $1700. The other costs $975.

Then, it's trying to figure out how I get the little love we want to adopt on MFFM. Is it after payment to the homestudy agency? Before? I can't seem to get an answer out of anyone.

Oh, then it's figuring out the money aspect of it all. Once we're on RR's site, we'll be fine to hold fundraisers and I'll work my fingers to the bone to bring him home once it's official. But I am kind of stuck right now with what to do. I don't want to announce to family what our plans are until it's official, but then it's also hard to do anything feeling like I'm sneaking around.

BUT, there is good news. On a whim, I wrote an email to the Sharing Down Syndrome Arizona organization asking them if they had any ideas on how to raise these beginning costs. I made sure to tell them I was NOT asking THEM to donate, just that I thought they would be good at this type of thing, since they were used to advocating.

Well, she wrote me back and said that she'd love to post a picture of our family with a little story and that she just knew that the local supporters would love to help me out. This also means that now I will have a way for people to donate towards adoption start up costs (they run about $12k before we'd have access to the RR grant) that is tax deductible! This is HUGE, you guys. HUGE. She also emailed my email out to a bunch of local advocates and we already had a donation! From a complete stranger!! Now, I have NO clue how much it's for, but that doesn't matter. I am so taken aback by these wonderful people.

So, there it is. We are officially unofficial. Nothing has happened other than I've made a bazillion phone calls, printed out a bazillion papers, written a bazillion emails, and cried. A lot. I will update more as this unfolds.

Mother Teresa, pray for us!!

*Update*

We have decided to stay here, go with the cheaper social worker, and bring this boy home! Bring on the paperwork! (After the holiday weekend, that is. lol)


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9 comments:

  1. I know our state (Ohio) has rules about the number of beds and ages/sex of children in rooms at least for foster license and I think the same rules apply for adopting. Now our county had stricter rules than the state guidelines so maybe that's why you're getting different answers. Maybe ask what/if the state has regulations on it. If I remember correctly our state rules were under 5 can share a room boys or girls so babies are fine. We had a sibling group just for a weekend and it was 2 preschool boys and their baby sister and they shared the same bedroom. Now if we were to foster again our county wouldn't allow our adopted baby boy to share with a foster baby girl since their rule was only opposite sex siblings.
    The adoption process is always complicated. For me it helped to look at it one item at a time. As in don't look at the 30 item list that needs done just think of I need to get our physicals done then our fingerprints or today I will get our cats shot records copied etc.

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    1. Thanks, Becky. The one social worker said that them sharing would be fine, and him in with us would be fine, too, so I'm assuming AZ is fine with it as well. I think the other social worker is just picky. I think we've decided to stay here until we are done bringing him home so that we don't have to even worry about it.

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  2. Saying prayers for you that things become more clear! I am wowed by your determination and faith in this. You're awesome!

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    1. Thank you, Sonja. It all comes from a place of love. I am head over heels for this baby.

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  3. Wow, are you staying in the house permanently or just for now, through the homestudy?

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    1. We're probably going to stay, at very least, until he's home.

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  4. I think that is awesome news! I worried about the upheaval of moving on top of going through the adoption process! So much work and transition and stress! I will pray to our beloved Mother Teresa as well! God has this!! CLEARLY!

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  5. I missed the update and I've been scarce lately. YAY!!!! So excited for you!

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