Adoption News - moving right along

Good news on the Adoption front. We meet on Thursday to discuss our adoption subsidy and sign an Adoption Placement Agreement. The subsidy is getting the paperwork done to insure that David will continue to get state medical insurance even after our adoption and figuring a monthly stipend. The Adoption Placement Agreement is the paper we sign to take David out of foster care and place him into our home as an adoptive placement. Most importantly, this is really the last step before court. So I'm guessing we'll have an adoption date soon. This is one more huge step forward! Hooray!

Hospital Again!

D had a low fever on Friday morning, it was gone in the afternoon, but then spiked up to 103.9 at 6pm. (His hickman site was looking icky, too) :( So I took him to the ER and he was 104.4 by the time he was seen. They admitted him for fever and possible line infection. The infection was confirmed 12 hours later, and his site looks worse and worse. They were saying Saturday that it had to come out. There have been complications (on the hospital's side) in getting the correct paperwork done for some foster care issues (ugh!) but it will be removed tomorrow...

We're HOME

After spending three days and two nights at the hospital, I brought home our new foster son, D. He came along with some home nursing care. This is very nice, but it has been wierd to get used to another person in my home. Especially since their job is to take care of D, which is what *I* want to do, and I can do. I get to decide how much help I want, but everyone encouraged me to do a lot in the first couple of weeks. We'll see how that all pans out.

Things I have learned in the past week:
-how to feed through a g-tube
-how to operate a sleep apnea monitor
-how to deliver medication through a g-tube and an IV

Things I have remembered in the past week:
-having a baby in the house is fun
-having a baby in the house means you get less sleep and more laundry

Well, I'd better stop here! I'll try to update soon.

We're GO

Well, we met with our foster care worker and she took our information to put into their placement system. She did caution us that they have a lot of families open to kids in the 0-3 year old age range, so it may take some time. We'll keep you posted. :)

Update

I am SO proud of H! She had such a good day at school that her teacher sent home a certificate (and a mini bag of m&ms) saying that she had been calm, peaceful and focused all day! :) You can tell she was pretty proud, too!

Here's a picture of my blue afghan... However... My yarn went on sale, and I convinced T that I wanted yarn more than flowers. So for the cost of an arrangement of a dozen roses, I think I have enough yarn to finish the afghan. :) I'll let you know. Now I just have to remember what size hook I used!!!!

Finally, the biggest news. After much thought and prayer, we've decided to do more foster care. Or at least we'll discuss it with our foster care worker on Monday. Any kids we'll take would be 3 and under, but beyond that I don't know much. I know they have a high need for homes to take older kids, and lots of homes willing to take small ones. So, it may be that we will wait a long, long time for them to call. But we're not in a hurry. So we'll see what happens. It's been an exciting weekend, with T and I talking through what we need to get in order, and putting plans into place to get things fast when we need them. I'll keep you posted.

Oh, and one more thing... I'm taking G to kindergarten round up tomorrow! :) That should be a FUN time.

Week In Prayer

T & I have decided spend a week praying about it before we decide if we should foster again or not. From more than one source we heard about the importance of listening to God. It may have just been that time in the lectionary, but it makes sense to us. :)

Book Recommendation

I want to recommend a book I read this week. It is called One Small Boat, by Kathy Harrison. The author and her husband are foster parents in Massachusettes. This is the second book she's written about their experience doing foster care, and I really enjoyed it! I feel like this book, more than anything else I've encountered, really explains why T & I do foster care, what it's like for us, and why we keep wanting to do it. So, if you're interested, check your library and read away! It is a pretty quick read, and once I started I didn't want to put it down!
That recommendation given, T and I are considering starting to foster again. I can't say exactly why. It's just like the other times we've taken a break, and then just felt like it was time to jump in again. There will never be a perfect time for it. And I don't know if it will work out right now or not. I guess I'll be talking to our foster care worker in the next couple of weeks and discussing our family situation with her to see if we can make it work right now, or if we need to wait longer until J moves out. Who knows. In the mean time, I'll be praying for guidance!
I love to crochet, and I've enjoyed having so much time to crochet, read, surf the internet, and do *so* many things! I just want to do something that really *matters* even if that means I have to put the books and crochet away for a while! I think I can't ignore that ever louder voice in my heart! :) I'll let you know what happens!
PS - I am about half way through the rainbow afghan!!! :)

What I am Good At

I have been crocheting a LOT lately. Lots of sewing, too. I was talking about my life with some friends and came to an important realization. The crocheting and sewing is an outlet for my creativity. When I had my hands full of kids, earlier in our fostering days, this same creativity served me well.

When H came home from the hospital she needed bandage changes on her burns. The best way to get the bandages off was to soak them in warm water in the bathtub. That was probably a good solution for anyone who hadn’t been scalded in a bathtub. Clearly another solution needed to be found. So I used my creativity and drug out all of our beach towels in November. I pushed aside the kitchen table and cleared all the chairs off the linoleum floor. I lined it with beach towels and brought out some newly washed toy bins. I filled them with lukewarm water and Z, G, H and I gave some dolls baths. Then we laughed and soaked our own feet in the water, even H.

I used my creativity multiple times when caring for other kids in our home. I have been uniquely gifted by God for the work He has for me to do. And I guess, when I’m not using it as a mom it comes out in crochet. :)