June 30, 2010
It has only been 6 months since we started exploring other options to growing our family and we are just weeks away from receiving our foster care license! What a unique and fulfilling experience this learning process has been. 10 weeks of remarkably thorough information on the foster care system and the tools needed to be a successful foster parent, and hopefully, adoptive parent.
We had explored foster care about 2 years ago. Having a background in Social Work and having worked with Child Protective Services, I was completely gung-ho about the idea, but my husband announced that he didn't want a "crack baby."
Moving into our 2nd year of an empty womb and my increasing distaste of fertility treatments and the "baby market," we began looking into adoption through the foster care system. Thanks to a book entitled You Can Adopt, by Susan Caughman and Isolde Motley, I diligently began researching adoption agencies. My findings were continuously discouraging.
Agencies wanted from $ 20,000 to $30,000 dollars for a baby, which did not include the $2,000 home study or medical and living expenses for the expectant birth mother. I was exploring how we would get that kind of money. Could my mom help? Could we have a fund raiser? And my animosity was growing the same way it did with IVF; why would we have to pay this ridiculous amount of money for something that comes so naturally to most women and should be priceless!? I was starting to wonder if I would end up childless.
In the book, there is a remarkable story about adoption through foster care entitled Fostering Love by Rosemary Schulman. I read this story to my husband and the idea was sold! He said "Well, we have to do that then!" A few weeks later we began the process and just 5 months after making the decision, are weeks away from possible placement with a child!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
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