W is for waiting

Waiting is the main theme of foster care and adoption. First you wait for them to process your initial application and wait for the fingerprints and background checks to come back. Then you wait for the next set of classes to start. The wait for you final application to process. Wait for home visits so the can put together your homestudy then wait for it to be approved. Finally you get your license in the mail and you should be done waiting right? WRONG you get to wait for a placement, we got one pretty quick. I think it was the 4th day after being official that we got a call and on the 6th day Angel and Socialite moved in. Then you wait to see what their case plan is. Both girls were fairly straight foreward cases and we've been lucky to have case workers who make pretty accurate predictions about whats going to happen. Of course there's the waiting for court, court decisions and reunification to happen. Also in the back of your mind your waiting for them to go home so you can find your forever child.

 Then adoption waiting comes. Wait for the tpr/relinquishment to go through and then wait the 30 days (or whatever it is in your state) for the appeal time to be over. Then wait for the HART matching to be done and the the adoption packet to be done. In Princess' case we get to wait for information to come back from all the tribes to see if her great grandmother was Native American or not. Wait for the information to be sent to the lawyer and wait for the lawyer to look it over and approve it. Then wait for a court date and finally the adoption is finally finalized and there's no backsies. We're mostly done with Princess' but the wait is slowly killing me.

 Also Princess' birthday is today! She is 2 and tomorrow we get to go camp and celebrate with her former foster mom, birth mom and some close friends. Can't wait!