Haven't been around here for awhile now, but I was in the non-ddc here at one point awhile back. At that point we were trying to get into foster care, which never really happened. (For no good reason, we were on a waiting list for the training needed, I called about it a few times to check if we were on the list, and then just stopped calling, and never heard back from anyone in DES). I t hink there's a low need for foster care here (military town, I think the military kids would go through the system on base, not regular DES. Don't know that for sure, just a though); and we weren't a very 'eligible' family if that makes sense. Lived in a 900 sq ft, 2 bedroom house, DS was 2.5 yrs old and we wanted to only foster kids younger than him...so only open to males, 0 or 1. I don't know if that affected waiting lists at all or not.
Anyway, we're now in the process of getting our homestudy completed, to adopt from Ukraine. We are going to adopt a child with special needs, open to Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, limb deformities/differences, vision or hearing loss. (And of course developmental delays & institutional behaviors on the list, those are to be expected for a kid who's lived in an overcrowded, understaffed orphanage.). Looking at boys (bigger house now, but the new child would still have to share a room with DS, who is now 5), listed 0-7 on the homestudy but we are mostly looking at ages 3-5. But want to be flexible (and also leave room for the child to get older while we work through the process).
We've had our home visit / first meeting w/ the social worker. Working on the rest of the list of what needs doing before the homestudy will be completed. I do have a blog started, only a couple posts because we're just starting (and I didn't have a blog before); but I don't know what the rules are here at MDC about sharing those links so I'll leave it off for now. (Not a money-making venture, just relating our experiences). Headed out to meet a friend shortly so I'll look into that later; but I wanted to come say "hi" again.
I definitely need to get some support from other folks who've been there / done that already. Looking forward to catching up here and 'meeting' some of you! =)
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