Home Study

At some point during the foster/adopt process we will be having a home study. You know, the kind where they come to your house, evaluate the safety and appropriateness thereof, and you receive a pass/fail grade. Because I have spent a lot of time ignoring my house due to school (there she goes again, referencing everything to either before or after school) there are a lot of parts of my house that have gone "to pot" (as my mother says).

Yesterday I told Harold that I would be cleaning our bedroom. I like to tell Harold what I want to accomplish in a day because then I feel the pressure to perform. These mind games don't always work, but they do sometimes. I had every intention of cleaning my room but when I was in the kitchen and had to lean over to get something out of the pantry due to the amount of CRAP in there, I decided it was time to do the pantry.

I started piling stuff on top of my countertops and the table and had the kids help. They hauled stuff to the basement (a bunch of old 2 L bottles with water in them), I filled up a couple garbage bags full of old, opened boxes of cereal, chips, and crackers. I realized my canned goods are old because I rarely use them and while cleaning the shelves and reloading, my sweet daughter accidentally dropped a can on my right foot. It hurt. A lot. I had to stand there with my foot in the air, trying desperately to control my rage. Okay, rage is a little strong, but I was in serious pain and I wanted to cry out, but when I am in deep pain (think childbirth) I have to go to a quiet place inside myself to get control. I now have a bruise and swelling on the top of my foot. This in addition to the healing blistered areas of my left foot from my new walking shoes, and the chronic pain I have in my right foot which is either some sort of stress fracture or my arch is falling. By the way, how do you know if your arch is falling/has fallen? This is a weird concept, but the chronic pain is starting to get to me.

We finished up the pantry and I stood back and felt pretty good about my project for the day. I have a list of rooms/places that need my attention before I welcome anyone in my home to critique it: Laundry room, cleaning supply closet, the van, the garage, the kid's bathroom closet, the kitchen cupboards. Now I have three items checked off: My closet, Sav's room and the pantry. Not too shabby.

Now I would like to discuss foster care/adoption. Why is it that when one starts to consider fostering/adoption one starts to hear all manner of horror stories? What about when I got pregnant? Did anyone feel the need to tell me that my precious child might turn on me? That she might one day leave the faith that I hold so dear? That she could very well become addicted to drugs and live on the streets? Or she might never be able to attach to me as her mother or she might become anorexic only after hoarding food? Or my personal "positive" story about the woman who adopted a sibling set of five of which two were killed, but the mom only turned to alcohol after the second death.

Okay, obviously no one warned me like that about my biological children. Then why do people feel the need to tell me all manner of nastiness about fostering children?

Harold and I are learning all we can about this process. We have no desire to go into this blind or stupid. We want to hear the worst case scenario. We have even had people tell us that we were the perfect couple for this kind of job because we are so "good," that we would be "perfect" for foster care because we are so "amazing." How about, "You are my hero for doing this!" I DO NOT want to be anyone's hero. We are going into this for purely selfish reasons. We want to have a larger family, we always have. Apparently we were not to have more than 2 biological children. And this is the only financial options we have for adoption. We may never even get a placement that suits both us and the child/ren.

And, I do NOT want to keep hearing that nothing good can come of this. I have to believe in my faith and I have to believe that no matter the outcome in this life, that if we do our best at what our Heavenly Father wants us to do, that these children will have a chance at eternal happiness and that we were a part of that process.