Introducing

Introducing.....my son. Choo Choo Charlie. My family is complete.

One Year

This morning while cooking a Saturday breakfast of blueberry pancakes and bacon(Lili's favorite food in the entire world) a flower delivery man rang the doorbell.

My DP, who is always great at celebrating little things, sent us a blue and white floral arrangement to celebrate One Year Ago when CJ arrived. This has been the fastest year ever. I remember vividly the first few months of Jo's life, documenting every little milestone. Fast forward to number 3 (actually #5) and poor CJ hasn't even had his one year pictures done. Ah to be so blissfully busy right?

I am really in awe at how much this big boy brings to my life. He is such a mama's boy and I love every minute of it. He's getting such a personality and is picking up sign language sooo fast. He learns at the speed of light and is doing something new every day. He's not even looking like a baby anymore, so quickly he's become a full fledged toddler. He deserves a new name here because he really thinks it's his name in real life. Choo-Choo.

His first birthday party was a few weeks ago and we made a train cake for our little Choo Choo. It turned out so cute. Grandma and Grandpa will bring down his new Train toddler bed that we bought off of Chicago Craigslist next week. He has almost completely destroyed the crib that has made it through 5 others before him. Boys. They're so different.

One year ago I was basking in baby love, now I'm running after a giggly toddler. Wow.

So happy one year Choo-Choo. Mama loves you so very much!

I'm shocked

I'm shocked...in a good way. We went into this court hearing expecting to start from the beginning again. Instead the judge ordered Termination of Parental Rights (TPR) and adoption. AND the Children's Division lawyer has been working on the TPR paperwork for the past 4 months (we had no idea) and it will be filed on the 29th. Wow. Can I say again ...wow.

It's a possibility that his adoption might be final by the end of the fall.

Whirlwind

Our very close friends had a whirlwind match yesterday. They went into their first staffing informed, prepared and hoping for the best. They came home with two kids! They will have a weekend visit, take them back on Monday to gather their belongings and bring them home for good on Friday.

If they were chosen we thought it might be a fast transition because it's so close to the new school year...but wow. During their 2 1/2 hour drive home we dashed over to their house and straightened up the kids room and stocked up on kid friendly snacks. Our friends went to bed last night a little overwhelmed and shocked. From zero to mommies in just a few short hours.


Calling all instant families out there.....what can we do to support them through this whirlwind?

Learning more about Cerebral Palsy

With two CP special needs kiddos in the house we're super busy. Lili (and Jo) goes to her special preschool 4x a week. Both her and CJ get OT and PT 2x a week each. We're going to start going to a special CP clinic at the local children's hospital 1x a month. We'll see a lot of specialists all in one afternoon. I'm learning more and more about CP.

In the United States today, more people have cerebral palsy than any other developmental disability, including Down syndrome, epilepsy, and autism. Although children with very mild cerebral palsy occasionally recover by the time they are school-aged, cerebral palsy is usually a lifelong disability. In most cases, the movement and other problems associated with cerebral palsy affect what a child is able to learn and do to varying degrees throughout their life.

CJ has Spastic Cerebral Palsy (stiff and difficult movement)
Lili has Ataxic Cerebral Palsy (disturbed sense of balance and depth perception)

Both of their cerebral palsy may be the result of an injury to their brain before, during, or after birth. In Lili's case, as a very premature baby, bleeding into the brain (intraventricular hemorrhage) caused extensive damage. I think in CJ's case nuerological damage was caused by toxic injuries, or poisoning, from alcohol or drugs used by the mother.

June Hair

When I'm doing a long term hairstyle (anything I want to last for 3 weeks or more) I build it up and take it down. With Jo's current hairstyle the first few days I just cornrowed the front and had the back in piggy poofs. Then I did a few box braids in the back and added beads. Then the next step in the hair style I'll put it in piggies. A few days later I will change the beads. Then a few days later I will divide and rebraid the back box braids so there are more, smaller braids. This time I then put all of the braids into two buns. This is my newest favorite style. I love Jo's hair in piggy poofs but getting it to stay clean and pretty is a challenge now that her hair is so long. This new style allows me to have that look and it stays nicely for days with minimal upkeep for me. I love it. (do you see her lip scar in the picture? my poor baby)

Well isn't that neat?

A friend just emailed some pics she had taken of her kids through a generous photographer with Celebrating Adoption

If you have adopted within the past year (or if you're going to -hang on to their info) they will waive their fee and take portraits of your newly adopted family member. Check it out! I've contacted a local photographer through their site and hope to hear back soon.

Dream Home ....take 2

So this past week DP and I have been mulling over the idea of renovating a house. Why? You ask? Well, as a foster parent my family expands and contracts at a quick pace. Read A Call and add to that ....CJ has two older sisters that may come into care. I say may....but that's another post to write about.

It's only an idea that we have been lightly considering because we do love our house and there is not much on the market to entice us into action.

But it brings up the notion that we could possibly keep adding to our family unexpectedly through new sibling births. Jo's mother should be past childbirth age now and Lili's mother should be able to parent any future children....but new placement's siblings? That opens up a whole new chapter in our lives.

Sharing Info

As a foster/adoptive parent I often struggle with sharing my children's info with others. I want to be able to share my life like a typical parent, asking for advice and venting when frustrated. On the other hand I don't want to share too much info that I will regret it later (Oh, she's a drug baby...that's why she does that) or worry that I might be compromising a foster child's privacy.

I struggle with that here on the blog too. So sometimes big things are happening in my world and I'm not sure how to phrase it or how much to tell here. I want to share my experiences with the system to inform and to advocate......and to feel a sense of community. One of the hardest parts of being an "employee" of the system is not having the support and network of close "co-workers". At an office job it's often easy to relate the woes of a work day with someone over the cubicle.

So in a way having this blog and reading other foster/adoptive blogs is a lot like corporate "Knowledge Management" Knowledge management is described as “the process of capturing and sharing a community’s collective expertise to fulfill its mission.”

Thanks for stopping by my cubicle today.

Hey do you smell cake?

Racism in Foster Care & Adoption

A recent post at Baggage And Bug and a current discussion at Soul Of Adoption have me thinking about the effects of racism on minority/AA children in foster care.

My neighborhood block captain once asked me why I was placed with mostly black babies. It wasn't a question she really wanted an answer to... and one that I would never be able to explain to her anyway. As a transracial adoptive mom I've come to realize most white folks don't even realize that institutionalized racism exists or even that they are experiencing white priviledge.

Some facts about racism and foster care:

1. There is NOT a higher incidence of abuse or neglect among minority families, but there is a higher likelihood that minority children will end up in foster care.

2. Poor children are more likely to end up in foster care. Although AA families represent only about 12.9% of the population, 23.6% of African-Americans are in poverty.

3. Although white and black women were almost equally likely to test positive for drugs, physicians were 10 times more likely to report AA women to authorities after delivery.

4. African-Americans are likely to serve more prison time than whites for the same offense. Thus AA children in foster care may be separated from their families longer affecting their chances for reunification.

Excerpted from: Ruth McRoy, Expedited Permanency: Implications for African-American Children and Families, 12 Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law 475 -489. 477-481 (2005) (81 Footnotes)

Black children are overrepresented in the foster care system.

Black parents are underrepresented in the potential parent pool. You would think that this leads into transracial adoption...but it doesn't.

The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of American adults prefer to adopt children of their same race. With this trend of same race adoption, the result is that white children are often fought over while non-white children are languishing in a broken foster care system. Even private adoption agencies are likely to price adoption costs of a white baby at twice that of a AA child.

The hardest part of being a transracial adoptive mom is KNOWING that other people are prejudiced and biased against my beautiful brown curly haired daughters. They don't see Lili's infectious smile and strong spirit, they don't see Josie's hilarious mad face or her beautiful singing voice- they see black kids. Ones that they would never open their hearts or homes to, ones that they would never choose.

The Lists

I wrote previously in this post about my frustration with waiting child lists not being available to all waiting parents. We have requested our local DFS lists just so we would be able to advocate for some of our friends currently starting their journey through the system.

This week we recieved the first of these lists. Just one CW's caseload of 40 waiting children.

Today we had one profile emailed to us from our homestudy worker. A two year old girl in between the ages of my two year old girls. Perfect health, no developmental delays and good attachment to her current caregiver. They're looking for homestudies to present to committee by January 31st.

Hint. Hint.

My Foster Journey.. Chapter One: The Seed

I'm not really sure how the original seed to foster was planted. I was 24 years old and had just purchased a four bedroom house by myself. I called to get the information packet to become a foster parent. I was sort of in between relationships at the time and was ready to be a parent. I never followed through with that original call but did buy a few books and a subscription to Fostering Today and Adoptive Families magazines that year.

A year later I met my future wife. During that time I worked at a custom framing shop inside a large retail store. The president of our local foster care organization happened to come in with her two (cute and well behaved) foster children. I asked her lots of questions about fostering and she wrote her name and number on the back of one of our business cards. That was "the seed" that planted the idea. I kept that card and about a year later we called & began the process together to become foster parents.

I try to plant that seed now in others. For me- a part of being an advocate for children in foster care is often advocating for others to open their hearts and homes to foster kids/waiting children. In the aisle of the grocery store, at the park, in the check out of Home Depot...whenever people are curious about our family. Recently three (well couples...so six) friends have decided to become foster parents after we planted the seed with them. The first set have their first placement, a sweet chubby newborn that allows me to get my baby fix but still sleep through the night. The second set start classes next week. The third have their first homestudy visit this week.

Waiting Children....waiting parents.

So while reading The Open Window's blog I began thinking (again) about how utterly disorganized the US Foster/Adoption program is.

There are soooo many waiting children in this country, young (there are infants and toddlers out there -Lili was adopted as a waiting child at only 13 months) older, sibling groups, all races and ethnicities and varying abilities. But there are also waiting families out there.....how can that be you say? Because we have no system, we have no broad focused matching programs. Guatemala is considered a country ravished by poverty...yet they do more to find homes for waiting children than we are able to with all the resources and technology that we have.

Everything depends on where you live and what agency you go through. Our friends were licensed as foster parents this summer, they were very open in what they would accept and still waited months and months for a placement. Funny, I'm full and they're calling me twice a week. Our friends are licensed a private foster agency and we go through the Children's Division. We live within 15 miles of each other. My brother and SIL were waiting to be matched with an available child for almost a year....they're in a different county and their SW doesn't have access to the waiting kids 30 miles away. How sad is that?