ANOTHER BIG DISAPPOINTMENT

Again it has been a while since I've posted here, not so much out of neglect but out of frustration. For the past few weeks my heart hasn't really been in it, and by that I mean the whole process, because of another big disappointment we suffered recently.

The last time I posted we were looking at a ten-year-old boy who seemed to be good match for us. Despite my better judgment I did allow myself to get attached to this boy we had never met. After hearing from his social worker we were under the impression that everything was a go and that all we needed to do was to set up a meeting with her to learn more about him and decide if we wanted to proceed. We waited patiently for her to contact us to set up an appointment to meet, since I had already been gently admonished for being too aggressive with the social workers (i.e. pushy). However while I was politely waiting to hear from her she set up a meeting with another family who then decided to proceed with matching. It felt like we were being strung along for weeks and were not dealt with in good faith. I don't think I would have been so upset if she had just been straightforward with us and told us from the start that we were the backup family, but instead she let us believe that the only thing standing in the way was this meeting. It took a few weeks before I was ready to talk about it and to let our own social worker Charles know we were ready to move on. Clearly I'm still upset about the whole situation, but we are ready now to get back on the horse and find out about other possible placements.

AN INTERESTING WEEKEND
Charles has recently mentioned that he has identified a few youths who might be of interest to us, so we’re interested to see what he has found out. He also contacted us yesterday about a couple of boys, ages 15 and 11, who are already in a long term foster placement but who are having a bit of a hard time with their foster family lately and need a respite break. Apparently this is pretty common in foster care. Foster parents will often help each other out by watching other families' kids for an evening or a weekend. Charles asked if we'd be able to take them next weekend and although I was hesitant at first, after talking about it with Chris we decided we would consider it. We will be seeing Charles tomorrow at a Family Builders social event so we'll be able to ask questions and decide if we want to do this. Although we’re curious about what type of problems they are having with their family, we are approaching the situation with cautious optimism. We were thinking it might be nice to drive them up to the Russian River next Saturday, but the reality is that we might not be able to take them out of county, in which case we’ll find something local to do. I guess we'll find out tomorrow!

By the way, thanks to everyone for your words of encouragement. Your support really means a lot to us. This is going to be one lucky kid - he's going to have the best aunties and uncles in the world!