We have our appointment rescheduled for Tuesday June 2nd at 3pm. I will update you all with the info we receive.

Appointment Rescheduled

The Dr was not able to make the appoinment today. There are three offices and apparently he was stuck at the San Diego office. I will call tomorrow to reschedule.

Next Appointment

We have our consultation appointment with the Sperm Bank on Wed the 20th at 4pm. This appointment will be to get acquainted with the sperm bank that we have chosen to use. They will explain to us how everything works and how we choose the donor. I'll let ya know how it goes!

Had the Consult

So we had our consultation today with the Infertility Dr. We both really liked him and felt very comfortable. The first thing he said to us as he walked in the room was... I bet you can't wait to hear that noise in your own room! He was referring to the babies heart monitor that was attached to the pregnant woman in the room next to us. Wow, what a neat sound that was.

So we have decided to move forward with the artificial insemination. It looks like at this point we need to choose a donor and make an appointment for the procedure. It could all happen within the next two months. We were told that when a couple is trying to conceive you have about a 20% chance of conception on each try. With the procedure we will be doing, we will have about a 14% chance each try. So it might take a couple of attempts, a couple of months of trying. Our fingers (and bank account) are crossed that it works on one of the first tries.

We are still waiting on our appeal date to go in front of the judge for the adoption. We still want our Foster Care license and we still want to adopt. If (WHEN) the procedure works, it will just put the adoption on the back burner for the time being.

Rescheduled

We had to reschedule our appointment for the consultaion. Well we cancelled the one we had and I need to call today to make a new appointment. So no news yet.

New News

Nope still no news from the County/ State on the appeal. We sent in the appeal request in February and are patiently waiting (that's me being sarcastic) for the state to get their heads out of their tooshes and issue a court date.

However in the mean time, we have decided to give Artificial insemination a try. We have an appointment with the Dr. for a consultation on May 11th to find out more details. I will update you as soon as I have more information.

Thanks again for all of your continuing support in our journey to become a family.

Selling the furniture

Well, it looks like my brother in law needs a place to live and we could use the extra money, so we have offered for him to move in and rent a room from us. Right now, we have a guest room/office and what was supposed to be the "kids" room. We have had the room furnished and waiting for over a year now and are still not licensed. Although I am trying to stay positive and hope we get our appeal date soon... nothing is happening right now. We have been talking more about the artificial insemination, and even if we do go that rout, we will still be waiting for our appeal, since adoption is what I really want after all....

Any way, since we are going to have my brother inlaw move in, we have decided to keep our guest room (for my parents when they visit) and clean out the "kids" room. Rather than store all the furniture, we have agreed to sell it and he promised that when we do get/have children I would get the color/bedroom set I always wanted (we bought our stuff off craigslist)... so back on craigslit it goes.

I have to admit, its hard! Its hard for me to even take it down or put the pictures up.. because in a small way, I feel like I am giving up. I know we are not giving up... I don't know, maybe it will make it easier. When I walk down my hall I will not see the empty room... with the children's furniture in there - just waiting..
Who am I kidding!?!

Foster Care

I have mentioned before that I am in a group, on Cafemom.com that offers support and advice etc.. a lady who I have come to truly admire and look up to posted this the other day and I thought her words were so encouraging and Right On.. that I wanted to share her post with you!
It is long, but trust me.. so worth reading!!!

There was a recent post in group where a family just couldn't deal with the foster system and reconsidered doing foster care. They were asking that their foster child be placed in another home because they just couldn't take the heartache. Instead of hijacking that thread, I am just going to post my own experience here. I haven't been posting much lately........not because there isn't a lot going on here in the house........but because I just haven't had much to contribute. I do read other posts, but by the time I get to them, there are numerous replies that already stated my opinion and I don't want to be some sort of parrot. :)
Okay, we started foster care to foster only. No intention of adopting whatsoever. We wanted short term placements and had this Pollyanna ideal of what we were going to do. I look back at how I viewed foster care and I cringe at how warped my vision was.
We took Chet (aka "Punky") nearly two years ago and my world turned upside down. I wrote journal after journal about what I felt needed to happen, what I thought was wrong with the system, what I wanted everyone involved to do. And then...........at some point in time I began to see this situation through his eyes. What a confusing, frightening and unstable world it was. It wasn't about ME. It wasn't about what I thought or felt or wanted. Even if I was right. :) It was about providing for this boy for as long as he was in my care.
So, long story short........I learned that foster care was NOT what I thought it would be. I learned that my pollyanna ideal was indeed that.....completely unrealistic. And I learned that I was not going to be able to do foster care without falling totally and completely in love with the little people I took into my home. So, through lots of hope and love and fears and joy and sorrow...........and a whole lot of growing on my part..........I went through a year and a half of "the system" and ended up adopting my wonderful son. He is such a blessing. I still get notes and e-mails from people who ask about Chet and want updates on him. I hope that in some small way I was able to encourage others to go into foster care. That said, I had NO intention of taking any more foster kids that were not school age. My theory was that if they were school age, then I would not be that primary bond......that mommy-baby bond would have been formed with someone else and I could survive an older kid going back home. I have not been able to test that theory..........which is probably wrong anyway. :)
I agreed to take Liya at Thanksgiving. Mom was in jail and due to be out the end of January or first part of February. She is NA (Native American) and so the case worker assured me that this would be a short term thing. "Three months, tops" is what she said. Mom was very motivated to work the plan and was going to do several of the steps while in jail. (Evaluations, counseling.....blah blah) and if, for some reason mom took longer.........then the tribe would step in and take little LIya. So I broke my own rule and took a little 9 month old baby into my house.
February came. Mom was going to get out of jail, but had refused to do any of the stuff she said she would. She refused to see the counselor, she refused to have the evaluations done. She totally refused to cooperate with HHS in any way. Mom was released from jail 3 days before the court hearing for Liya, and didn't attend it. She has had no contact with HHS, has not requested any visitations and has not seen Liya since four days after removal. So much for "highly motivated."
The "Tribe" refuses to get involved because mom isn't registered with them. So until Mom's rights are terminated or relinquished...........and Liya can be considered an "orphan" they won't take her. And we all know that the parental rights won't be dissolved until Liya has been in the system for 15 out of 22 months. And then even after that time passes, we have to wait our turn for the state to file.......and that can take several more months.
I wrote a frantic e-mail to a wonderful lady (you know who you are!) stating that I was falling so deeply in love with this baby..........and that another year or two in my home that ended in her being ripped out would surely kill me. We had shared first Christmas, first steps, first words, and a quickly approaching first birthday. She was calling me "mama" because the other kids did. We were getting bonded, and I was not willing to be hurt so deeply. Perhaps I should ask for her to be removed since this was not expected to end well? Perhaps it would be okay to spare my own feelings? I mean, the HHS worker "guaranteed" this was a short placement of three months............Why should I be torn apart, right??
Guess what? I was very gently reminded that this isn't about me. She didn't give my permission to spare my own feelings. I went through a few weeks where I just cried and wrestled with my feelings. I prayed about it, and at one point had told the caseworker she may have to move Liya. I bet you that I have read the reply to my frantically sent e-mail 100 times. And it gave me strength...........it put things back into perspective. I was able to see past the threat of my own broken heart. And I called back the caseworker and told her Liya has a home here for as long as she needs it.
Liya needs someone to love her TODAY. I can do that. She needs someone to make her feel valued and worthy and special TODAY. I can do that, too. She needs someone to hold her, care for her, comfort her, guide her and discipline her TODAY. I can do that. Liya needs to feel safe and secure enough to grow emotionally. She needs to know what trust is, and that she can depend on others. I can do that. And she needs to be accepted and loved unconditionally. I can do that TODAY.
Even if she isn't able to stay here. Even if the result of that is my heart is torn from my chest. Even if I ache for her for months and months after she is gone. None of that is happening TODAY.
So, I want to say thank you to the wonderful lady who I confided in. For making me see (once again) that it isn't about ME. For holding me accountable to the commitment I made to this little girl and to care for her until she doesn't need me anymore. It makes no difference that it wasn't the "three months tops" that HHS stated. She can trust me. She can grow safely and securely in my home. She won't be shuffled from place to place. She will be valued and put first. I will have played an important part in her life.........even if it hurts me in the end.
Liya turned one a few weeks ago. She had a party with her very own little cake to destroy, balloons, gifts and lots of frosting-faced pictures. She was surrounded by a host of aunts, uncles, grandparents, parents and siblings who adore her. My family is wonderfully supportive and accepting of our decision. They are putting their hearts on the line, too.
This morning I woke up to her grinning at me over the side of her crib........drool running down her chin and her clapping and saying , "Mama!" TODAY is a very good day, indeed.

A Year Ago ...

A year ago this month, we were just finishing our required parenting classes and were so excited to learn who our Adoptions Worker was going to be. We were so excited and felt so positive about our decision to become foster parents and adopt from our local foster care system.

Now, we are discouraged and ashamed of the way our "system" works. We still sit here, waiting for them to issue us our license so we can give a child or two a loving, happy home where they can be loved, respected and cherished!

Discouraging News

Unfortunately after talking to our Adoption Workers Supervisor over the weekend. She said she knows very little about the appeal process because once an appeal is filed it is turned over from the County to the State. She looked further into it for me and learned that it is not uncommon for the state to take any where from 3-12 months (yes a YEAR) to even issue the court date... then the actual court date can be any where from 3-6 months from then.

We are so limited on options and are not sure what to do next!