Wow, a few months ago weeks would go by without a word to report, so I really didn't need to be very attentive at keeping up my blog, but just in the past couple of weeks things have really moved along. I haven't been keeping up not because there isn't anything to write about but because things are moving so fast I haven't had a minute to write it all down. As it is, I'm writing this on my BlackBerry on the train on the way to work... which is about the most multitasking that I do.
The big news is that everything is proceeding quickly with Caesar and we are now on the fast track to having him move in on Friday, December 4. For anyone who hasn't read my last few blog posts, Caesar is the 16-year-old boy we have been getting to know and who we are bringing into our family with the ultimate goal being adoption. In my last post I wrote about how we had spent our first day together with his social worker there to help ease the transition. Since then we have spent a lot of time alone with Caesar and he has had the chance to stay over several times and see what our daily life is like. It's not all dining out and taking day trips to walk around the city. Chris has taken him grocery shopping, he's been helping us with taking out the garbage and other chores and we've spent Sunday mornings reading the paper and watching videos. Of course, once in a while we do get to do fun things. He knows we like to travel and he's excited to think about where we might go for our first trip together.
GETTING TO KNOW CAESAR
Caesar is a very special and wonderful kid. He seems to really enjoy just hanging out with us talking, playing board games, cooking or whatever. Unlike most 16-year-olds I know, which is admittedly not many, he seems to thrive on attention from adults, which is great for us because we said from the beginning that we want someone who wants to participate and be part of the family. He's very much into music, and Chris and I have been getting a crash course in all the popular singers and songs on the charts these days. As someone who hasn't bought a top 40 album in years (is it ok to still call them albums?) and who is only familiar with names of popular singers based on reading in the news about who dissed whom at the XYZ Awards Show, I've been surprised at how much I enjoy the music he listens to. Here we were thinking we were going to turn him onto show tunes (which could still happen) and now I'm ready to get tickets to see Lady Gaga when she comes to San Francisco!
We can tell that Caesar is starting to feel more comfortable with us because he is able to share more parts of his personality. We've seen the quiet pensive side of him as well as the goofy fun side. Sometimes he'll behave very maturely and responsibly and sometimes we're reminded that it wasn't so long ago that he was a child and that he's still learning how to be a young adult.
We are fortunate to live in a district with great schools, but considering all the changes with home and family, we assumed that Caesar would want to continue at the same school he's been going to so that at least he could stay with his friends there. We were surprised and a little glad to learn that he is actually looking forward to transferring to the local high school, hopefully for next semester. I think this will help us stay more involved and connected to what's going on with school, which will be helpful. As it is, I think he's going to be receiving more attention and support regarding academics now than he has been getting in foster care, so that is definitely a good thing.
We are thrilled that Caesar has chosen to spend Thanksgiving with us and that he will get a chance to meet much of Chris's side of the family then. Our family is pretty big though so it will probably take several visits to meet eveyone! For now we're just thankful that Caesar is excited about joining our family and will be spending Thanksgiving with us in his new home.
More updates soon!
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
OUR SECOND DATE
Things are really starting to happen now! We had our second meeting with Caesar this week; since Caesar and I both had Veteran’s Day off and Chris was able to schedule his work for later in the day, we all spent Wednesday together in San Francisco.
CHINATOWN
We met Caesar with his social worker, Tricia, at the BART (commuter rail) station and took the train into the city. We decided to go to Chinatown, since there is so much to see and do, and because he had never been there. The crowds weren’t too bad… Chinatown is always crowded, but it wasn’t as insane as I’ve seen it on weekends, so it seemed like a good time to be there. We started off walking up Grant Avenue, which is one of the main streets and is mostly tourist shops selling flip flops and mini license plates with names on them (one place actually had a “Troy” license plate, but Caesar came to terms long ago with the reality that he can never find his name on souvenir license plates, keychains or refrigerator magnets). He was really taken by all the sights and sounds: the red lanterns hanging on buildings and in the street, the stores with huge ivory sculptures in the windows (boo, ivory!), the old man playing a traditional Chinese instrument in front of a church. We did a lot of window shopping and people watching, which is one of the best things to do anywhere in San Francisco!
It was about noon at that time and we were getting hungry, so we stopped for lunch. We decided to go to Brandy Ho’s , which is a chain restaurant that I’ve seen in several places now. I was hoping to go to a traditional dim sum restaurant where they roll carts around the restaurant with many small appetizer-sized plates (like Chinese tapas?) and you pick the items you like and everything gets tallied up at the end. However it turned out to be a good choice to go to Brandy Ho’s since Caesar is a bit of a picky eater… he does like a number of foods but he hasn’t had a lot of experience with various cuisines so it was good to go with something he was familiar with at first. We got pot stickers and pork chow mein, which he knew he would like, but we also tried some new things too. We got a vegetable dish that had carrots (which he knows he likes), bok choy (which he had never tried but is similar to things he likes), and tofu (which he had never tried and is probably nothing like anything he had ever eaten before). We had a few other dishes and were pretty stuffed by the time we finished.
After lunch we started walking back toward the train but walked down Stockton Street this time. While Grant Avenue is more of the touristy side of Chinatown, Stockton Street caters to the Chinese residents of the city. Most of the signs on the stores are all in Chinese with no English. Instead of souvenir and electronics stores, there are produce and fish markets and stores that sell Chinese herbs and medicines. We also ventured into some of the alleys between the main streets. I have lived in the Bay Area for 16 years and had never known they existed, so it’s no wonder that there were very few tourists in the alleys. There were some smaller stores and shops, and people living in the floors above had their laundry hanging out to dry on the fire escapes. In one of the alleys was a fortune cookie factory and we decided to go in to check it out. Basically it was a big room with a couple of machines cranking out the big, flat, round cookies and two women who sat next to the machines and folded them into the fortune cookie shape one after the other. We bought a couple of bags of fortune cookies and headed back toward the train.
SHOPPING!
Before we got back on BART we decided to stop in at some of the big department stores – Macy’s, Bloomingdales and Nordstrom – just to take a look around and maybe get an idea of some things he might like for Christmas. He had never been to Bloomingdales (I know, right?) so it was neat to see his reaction as we went from department to department. When we finally left Nordstrom we were dumped out into the Westfield Mall, so we went to Hot Topic, which is a store that caters to teens and which Caesar is a big fan of. So now the tables were turned and he got to show us around someplace we had never been. The two things that caught me off guard were the cases (yes multiple cases) of body jewelry – nipple rings, belly button rings, etc., as well as the fact that the music they were playing sounded a lot like the music I listened to in high school. Ah well, le plus ca change…
MOVING RIGHT ALONG
All in all, it was a successful visit. Yeah, there were times when we were just hanging out and not saying much, but when we had something to talk about, Caesar would participate in the conversation and had no problem giving his opinion on things. We definitely want him to like us, so we’re nervous about saying and doing the right things, but we realize it’s just going to take time for us to get to know each other. That said, the next step is going to be us bringing him over to our house. And this time without his social worker! We’re planning to pick him up on Sunday morning and take him out to breakfast, maybe see a movie, and then just hang out at our house. Basically a typical Sunday afternoon for us. At some point in the afternoon we’ll all go food shopping for the week and then make dinner together. I think it will be nice to just sort of hang out together, since life is not all trips to the city or one big adventure after another. I think this will let Caesar start to see what life with us might be like.
CHINATOWN
We met Caesar with his social worker, Tricia, at the BART (commuter rail) station and took the train into the city. We decided to go to Chinatown, since there is so much to see and do, and because he had never been there. The crowds weren’t too bad… Chinatown is always crowded, but it wasn’t as insane as I’ve seen it on weekends, so it seemed like a good time to be there. We started off walking up Grant Avenue, which is one of the main streets and is mostly tourist shops selling flip flops and mini license plates with names on them (one place actually had a “Troy” license plate, but Caesar came to terms long ago with the reality that he can never find his name on souvenir license plates, keychains or refrigerator magnets). He was really taken by all the sights and sounds: the red lanterns hanging on buildings and in the street, the stores with huge ivory sculptures in the windows (boo, ivory!), the old man playing a traditional Chinese instrument in front of a church. We did a lot of window shopping and people watching, which is one of the best things to do anywhere in San Francisco!
It was about noon at that time and we were getting hungry, so we stopped for lunch. We decided to go to Brandy Ho’s , which is a chain restaurant that I’ve seen in several places now. I was hoping to go to a traditional dim sum restaurant where they roll carts around the restaurant with many small appetizer-sized plates (like Chinese tapas?) and you pick the items you like and everything gets tallied up at the end. However it turned out to be a good choice to go to Brandy Ho’s since Caesar is a bit of a picky eater… he does like a number of foods but he hasn’t had a lot of experience with various cuisines so it was good to go with something he was familiar with at first. We got pot stickers and pork chow mein, which he knew he would like, but we also tried some new things too. We got a vegetable dish that had carrots (which he knows he likes), bok choy (which he had never tried but is similar to things he likes), and tofu (which he had never tried and is probably nothing like anything he had ever eaten before). We had a few other dishes and were pretty stuffed by the time we finished.
After lunch we started walking back toward the train but walked down Stockton Street this time. While Grant Avenue is more of the touristy side of Chinatown, Stockton Street caters to the Chinese residents of the city. Most of the signs on the stores are all in Chinese with no English. Instead of souvenir and electronics stores, there are produce and fish markets and stores that sell Chinese herbs and medicines. We also ventured into some of the alleys between the main streets. I have lived in the Bay Area for 16 years and had never known they existed, so it’s no wonder that there were very few tourists in the alleys. There were some smaller stores and shops, and people living in the floors above had their laundry hanging out to dry on the fire escapes. In one of the alleys was a fortune cookie factory and we decided to go in to check it out. Basically it was a big room with a couple of machines cranking out the big, flat, round cookies and two women who sat next to the machines and folded them into the fortune cookie shape one after the other. We bought a couple of bags of fortune cookies and headed back toward the train.
SHOPPING!
Before we got back on BART we decided to stop in at some of the big department stores – Macy’s, Bloomingdales and Nordstrom – just to take a look around and maybe get an idea of some things he might like for Christmas. He had never been to Bloomingdales (I know, right?) so it was neat to see his reaction as we went from department to department. When we finally left Nordstrom we were dumped out into the Westfield Mall, so we went to Hot Topic, which is a store that caters to teens and which Caesar is a big fan of. So now the tables were turned and he got to show us around someplace we had never been. The two things that caught me off guard were the cases (yes multiple cases) of body jewelry – nipple rings, belly button rings, etc., as well as the fact that the music they were playing sounded a lot like the music I listened to in high school. Ah well, le plus ca change…
MOVING RIGHT ALONG
All in all, it was a successful visit. Yeah, there were times when we were just hanging out and not saying much, but when we had something to talk about, Caesar would participate in the conversation and had no problem giving his opinion on things. We definitely want him to like us, so we’re nervous about saying and doing the right things, but we realize it’s just going to take time for us to get to know each other. That said, the next step is going to be us bringing him over to our house. And this time without his social worker! We’re planning to pick him up on Sunday morning and take him out to breakfast, maybe see a movie, and then just hang out at our house. Basically a typical Sunday afternoon for us. At some point in the afternoon we’ll all go food shopping for the week and then make dinner together. I think it will be nice to just sort of hang out together, since life is not all trips to the city or one big adventure after another. I think this will let Caesar start to see what life with us might be like.
Friday, November 6, 2009
AT LONG LAST, WE MEET
Great news! We finally got to meet the 16-year-old that we’ve been learning about these past few weeks. Since things went so well and it looks like we’re all going to try to proceed with the placement, I think it’s ok for me to finally reveal that his name is Caesar.
DISCLOSURE
We started the disclosure process last week. This is where we met with Caesar’s social workers and a representative from the county to discuss his current situation, family and medical history, his strengths and any areas where he’s having challenges, etc. As it turns out, Caesar’s child welfare worker attended, but he is new to the agency and was recently assigned to him, so he didn’t realize that he was responsible for bringing all of Caesar’s past records and reports with him to the meeting. Also, since he had only met him once, he didn’t have much that he could add other than his initial impressions of Caesar. Fortunately, Caesar’s placement social worker, Tricia, has known him for years and she was able to tell us a lot about him. It was still frustrating though not to have all the documents available since we had been waiting for this appointment for a month. I could feel myself getting a little angry when the county worker suggested that we reschedule. I had had to bump a whole day’s worth of patients just to schedule this one meeting, and most of them had been waiting weeks or months to be seen, so I was not excited to have to do it again. Fortunately, we were able to complete the meeting over the phone in a conference call on Monday. We had all the documents faxed to us, and once Chris and I had a chance to review everything and get all of our questions answered, we decided we were ready to move forward.
MEETING CAESAR
At this point, no one had told Caesar yet that there was a couple interested in adopting him. They wanted to wait until we had all the documents and had “full disclosure” before they told him about us. How awful would that be to have to tell a kid, “You remember that couple that was interested in adopting you? Well, once they read your file and found out what you’re really like they changed their mind and don’t want to meet you after all.” Of course, that wasn’t the case, and once we decided to go ahead, Tricia was quick to let Caesar know. We set up our first meeting for last night (Thursday).
A day or two before, I did a Google search using the keywords “teen” “activities” “downtown” and “Walnut Creek”. I soon learned that there are absolutely NO teen activities in downtown Walnut Creek. Basically we have restaurants and stores. No bowling, no miniature golf, no arcades. Nothing. That’s ok though, we met Caesar and Tricia at California Pizza Kitchen for dinner and had time to talk and get to know each other. He was impressed at how pretty the downtown area is… most of the trees have strings of white lights on them at night all year round, not only at Christmastime. We had a great conversation that went from favorite foods (both favorite to eat and favorite to cook), to what we all did on Halloween, to our favorite rides at Great America Amusement Park, to our favorite scary movies. We were both expecting Caesar to be somewhat shy, and he was a little at first, but he loosened up really quickly and it wasn’t long before he was in the middle of the conversation sharing his opinions and laughing at our jokes and making some of his own.
After we ate we took a short walk around the Downtown Plaza, window shopping outside the Crate and Barrel and all the clothing stores. Caesar was free with his opinions on some of the fashions (“Oh my god, I LOVE those shoes!”) and having a parallel activity actually helped the conversation to flow even better. However, it was getting late and Tricia had to take Caesar home, so we took a few pictures (I’ll post them if/when the adoptive placement goes through) and made plans for our next visit. We all have the day off from work/school next Wednesday, which is Veterans’ Day, so we are going to plan some activity where we can spend a few hours together during the day. This visit will also be with both Caesar and Tricia, and if things go well, we may take Caesar out next Saturday by ourselves. We admitted as we were saying goodbye that Chris and I had both been nervous and excited to meet him but that we had a great time and liked him a lot, and we were looking forward to seeing him again. He agreed that he had been nervous too but that he also had a lot of fun.
About a half hour after we got home, we got a call from Tricia. She had just dropped Caesar off and wanted to call to let us know how excited he was on the car ride back. She told us that he’s really looking forward to next Wednesday, and we were glad because we are too!
More updates as they happen!
DISCLOSURE
We started the disclosure process last week. This is where we met with Caesar’s social workers and a representative from the county to discuss his current situation, family and medical history, his strengths and any areas where he’s having challenges, etc. As it turns out, Caesar’s child welfare worker attended, but he is new to the agency and was recently assigned to him, so he didn’t realize that he was responsible for bringing all of Caesar’s past records and reports with him to the meeting. Also, since he had only met him once, he didn’t have much that he could add other than his initial impressions of Caesar. Fortunately, Caesar’s placement social worker, Tricia, has known him for years and she was able to tell us a lot about him. It was still frustrating though not to have all the documents available since we had been waiting for this appointment for a month. I could feel myself getting a little angry when the county worker suggested that we reschedule. I had had to bump a whole day’s worth of patients just to schedule this one meeting, and most of them had been waiting weeks or months to be seen, so I was not excited to have to do it again. Fortunately, we were able to complete the meeting over the phone in a conference call on Monday. We had all the documents faxed to us, and once Chris and I had a chance to review everything and get all of our questions answered, we decided we were ready to move forward.
MEETING CAESAR
At this point, no one had told Caesar yet that there was a couple interested in adopting him. They wanted to wait until we had all the documents and had “full disclosure” before they told him about us. How awful would that be to have to tell a kid, “You remember that couple that was interested in adopting you? Well, once they read your file and found out what you’re really like they changed their mind and don’t want to meet you after all.” Of course, that wasn’t the case, and once we decided to go ahead, Tricia was quick to let Caesar know. We set up our first meeting for last night (Thursday).
A day or two before, I did a Google search using the keywords “teen” “activities” “downtown” and “Walnut Creek”. I soon learned that there are absolutely NO teen activities in downtown Walnut Creek. Basically we have restaurants and stores. No bowling, no miniature golf, no arcades. Nothing. That’s ok though, we met Caesar and Tricia at California Pizza Kitchen for dinner and had time to talk and get to know each other. He was impressed at how pretty the downtown area is… most of the trees have strings of white lights on them at night all year round, not only at Christmastime. We had a great conversation that went from favorite foods (both favorite to eat and favorite to cook), to what we all did on Halloween, to our favorite rides at Great America Amusement Park, to our favorite scary movies. We were both expecting Caesar to be somewhat shy, and he was a little at first, but he loosened up really quickly and it wasn’t long before he was in the middle of the conversation sharing his opinions and laughing at our jokes and making some of his own.
After we ate we took a short walk around the Downtown Plaza, window shopping outside the Crate and Barrel and all the clothing stores. Caesar was free with his opinions on some of the fashions (“Oh my god, I LOVE those shoes!”) and having a parallel activity actually helped the conversation to flow even better. However, it was getting late and Tricia had to take Caesar home, so we took a few pictures (I’ll post them if/when the adoptive placement goes through) and made plans for our next visit. We all have the day off from work/school next Wednesday, which is Veterans’ Day, so we are going to plan some activity where we can spend a few hours together during the day. This visit will also be with both Caesar and Tricia, and if things go well, we may take Caesar out next Saturday by ourselves. We admitted as we were saying goodbye that Chris and I had both been nervous and excited to meet him but that we had a great time and liked him a lot, and we were looking forward to seeing him again. He agreed that he had been nervous too but that he also had a lot of fun.
About a half hour after we got home, we got a call from Tricia. She had just dropped Caesar off and wanted to call to let us know how excited he was on the car ride back. She told us that he’s really looking forward to next Wednesday, and we were glad because we are too!
More updates as they happen!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
DISCLOSURE MEETING IS FINALLY SCHEDULED
We still have not had our disclosure meeting yet to learn more about “C”, but at least it is finally scheduled! We’re planning a meeting with everyone on the team in about a week, on October 28. Once that is completed, if we decide to proceed, they will tell C about us and he can decide if he wants to meet us. You never know, a 16 year old might not even want to be adopted, but from his social worker it sounds like he probably does. Anyway, if he wants to meet us we'll arrange a few visits and if all goes well he could be living with us in a few weeks.
We’re also hearing from our friends who we met in our training classes, and most of us are at some stage in the matching process. Some of us are waiting for our disclosure meetings, one couple has been visiting with the child they want to adopt, and another couple already has their child living with them. This is a really exciting time for everyone and I love hearing about the fun stuff but also the challenges and seeing some of the creative ways they are handling things as they come up. One of our friends is still waiting for a match, and she actually went through the training classes before us so she has been waiting for a while. She has come close in the past but things fell through, which is definitely frustrating. Chris and I know how that feels since we’ve had some disappointments too, so although we’re hoping that things will move ahead with C, we aren’t going to count this chicken until it’s hatched.
We’re also hearing from our friends who we met in our training classes, and most of us are at some stage in the matching process. Some of us are waiting for our disclosure meetings, one couple has been visiting with the child they want to adopt, and another couple already has their child living with them. This is a really exciting time for everyone and I love hearing about the fun stuff but also the challenges and seeing some of the creative ways they are handling things as they come up. One of our friends is still waiting for a match, and she actually went through the training classes before us so she has been waiting for a while. She has come close in the past but things fell through, which is definitely frustrating. Chris and I know how that feels since we’ve had some disappointments too, so although we’re hoping that things will move ahead with C, we aren’t going to count this chicken until it’s hatched.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
AN INFORMATIONAL MEETING
We did have our meeting last week regarding the 16 year old boy (“C”) who we were contacted about for matching. It was not a true disclosure meeting, which will come later and will be much more complete, but rather it was just a meeting with me and Chris, our social worker Gloria, and C’s social worker Tricia to give us a little more information to let us know more about him so we could decide if we want to proceed to disclosure. Usually they will only have a disclosure meeting if you are pretty sure you want to move ahead with a particular child. At disclosure you learn everything about the child including their medical and mental health history, family history, legal/custody issues, academic performance, and any behavioral concerns. If it turns out there are issues that you are not prepared to deal with, the disclosure meeting is your chance to back out before they inform the child of your existence (understandably they don’t want the child to know that someone changed their mind and decided they didn’t want them after all), so this is the time to ask ALL your questions.
The informational meeting we had went very well. We had been a little unsure about things because C is a little older than we were planning on, but Tricia helped to settle any doubts. He really does sound like a great match for our family! She described him as being a little shy, but is just now starting to come out of his shell. He’s an easy-going kid and not a typical rebellious teen (yet?), he’s respectful of adults including his teachers and his current foster parents, and he works hard at school. We also have a lot of the same interests as him, including singing, music, and cooking. It was funny because Tricia mentioned that C is interested in learning to decorate cakes and maybe doing it as a profession someday… and we told her about our website (www.troyandchris.com) where we posted a picture of a cake I decorated for a friend’s birthday. Oy! Such a perfect match! We could take classes together! But I think the best part of our meeting was seeing how much Tricia genuinely likes him. He’s a good kid and she really wants good things for him. She noted that there had been a match that had fallen through a while back, and she was hoping that it meant that he would be available for an even better match that would come along later. After our meeting we are all thinking that better match might be us.
MOVING AHEAD
So of course, we decided to move ahead with disclosure. It is going to involve coordinating the schedules of many busy people, and it always seems that at any given time one or two of these people are on vacation. But hopefully the disclosure meeting will happen this week or next. If all goes well with disclosure, the next step would be to meet C. We first would hang out for the day with him and Tricia and get to know each other. We would then have a few longer visits with just the three of us, maybe have him stay at our house for the weekend, and we can all decide if we want to make it permanent. If all goes well, we’re hoping that the process might be done by Thanksgiving, which would definitely give us a lot to be thankful for.
The informational meeting we had went very well. We had been a little unsure about things because C is a little older than we were planning on, but Tricia helped to settle any doubts. He really does sound like a great match for our family! She described him as being a little shy, but is just now starting to come out of his shell. He’s an easy-going kid and not a typical rebellious teen (yet?), he’s respectful of adults including his teachers and his current foster parents, and he works hard at school. We also have a lot of the same interests as him, including singing, music, and cooking. It was funny because Tricia mentioned that C is interested in learning to decorate cakes and maybe doing it as a profession someday… and we told her about our website (www.troyandchris.com) where we posted a picture of a cake I decorated for a friend’s birthday. Oy! Such a perfect match! We could take classes together! But I think the best part of our meeting was seeing how much Tricia genuinely likes him. He’s a good kid and she really wants good things for him. She noted that there had been a match that had fallen through a while back, and she was hoping that it meant that he would be available for an even better match that would come along later. After our meeting we are all thinking that better match might be us.
MOVING AHEAD
So of course, we decided to move ahead with disclosure. It is going to involve coordinating the schedules of many busy people, and it always seems that at any given time one or two of these people are on vacation. But hopefully the disclosure meeting will happen this week or next. If all goes well with disclosure, the next step would be to meet C. We first would hang out for the day with him and Tricia and get to know each other. We would then have a few longer visits with just the three of us, maybe have him stay at our house for the weekend, and we can all decide if we want to make it permanent. If all goes well, we’re hoping that the process might be done by Thanksgiving, which would definitely give us a lot to be thankful for.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
THE PLIGHT OF THE BACKUP FAMILY
It has now been about 8 weeks since we first took our names off the matching list. If you recall, we originally agreed to postpone our matching process for six weeks until the county could decide if they were going to remove N and R from their current foster care placement. Gloria told us that they weren’t quite at the point where they had made a decision yet, so we decided to extend our availability as a back up family for an additional two weeks. But now that those two extra weeks are up, Chris and I are ready to say that we are tired of being a back up family. We had already missed out on a child we were expecting to move forward with because we were the second family in line and the child went to the family ahead of us. As it turns out, Gloria did get back to us about a week ago to report that it looks like the county is going to push for permanency (i.e. adoption) with N and R’s current foster family, but that they’d like us to hang on for a little longer to see how it’s going.
ANOTHER PROSPECTIVE MATCH
At this point we were considering being a little pushier with Gloria and telling her that since it looks like the county will likely proceed with adoption for N and R, we would like to start the matching process now rather than waiting until all the papers were signed. But it turned out we didn’t need to do that, since we got a call from Gloria on Tuesday with the news that she has identified another youth that she thinks would be a good match for us. I won’t use his name until we know if he will be placed with us, so I’ll just call him “C”. All I will say for now is that he’s 16 years old and based on what Gloria has told us about his interests and his personality, he sounds like he would fit well with our family. We have a disclosure meeting scheduled for this Monday where we will learn a lot more about him and we can decide if we want to move forward. Details on how that turns out in my next post!
ANOTHER PROSPECTIVE MATCH
At this point we were considering being a little pushier with Gloria and telling her that since it looks like the county will likely proceed with adoption for N and R, we would like to start the matching process now rather than waiting until all the papers were signed. But it turned out we didn’t need to do that, since we got a call from Gloria on Tuesday with the news that she has identified another youth that she thinks would be a good match for us. I won’t use his name until we know if he will be placed with us, so I’ll just call him “C”. All I will say for now is that he’s 16 years old and based on what Gloria has told us about his interests and his personality, he sounds like he would fit well with our family. We have a disclosure meeting scheduled for this Monday where we will learn a lot more about him and we can decide if we want to move forward. Details on how that turns out in my next post!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
UPDATE WITHOUT MUCH TO SAY
It has been about a month since we took our names off the list for child matching while Social Services decides if they are going to remove N and R from their current foster placement and place them with us. There really hasn't been any progress on this front, but people have been asking us about it so I thought I'd post something so everyone would know we're still in a holding pattern. We did hear from Gloria (after a gentle reminder) who said that things have been pretty quiet at the kids' current foster home but they expect more conflict once school starts, which it just did. Maybe because with school comes nagging about homework, bedtime, etc.? We decided we will wait for another two or three weeks to see how things are coming along but if there's no progress we'll put our names back in for matching with another child - or children. This is really turning into quite a ride, and we don't even have kids yet!
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