Updates and Holidays

This past week Aunt & Uncle went to a meeting with the social workers involved in Tiny Bit's case. Bio Mom has a lot that she needs to accomplish in order to be able to get Tiny back. That is the hard part of  legal risk....there is a chance that Tiny could go back to her mom. For now she has been placed under what they call Kinship Care which gives Aunt & Uncle guardianship over her. This actually works out to our advantage. We can babysit including overnights because AUnt & Uncle feel safe with us doing so. It is my understanding from reading that I have done is if they had declared them Foster Parents we would have had our Foster License to have her stay overnight. For this I am grateful:)

We are going to meet bio mom in the new year sometime. I would like to think that if she meets us and likes us, that maybe,just maybe, when her list of task that need to be accomplished seems to difficult that she will justsign her rights to Tiny over to us. ( Obviously this is in my perfect world where unicorns fart rainbows). When she meets us we will not be discussing our intent to adopt Tiny. For now she just knows that we will be assisting in Tiny's care when Uncle travels with work. She has seen pictures of us.
The reality is we will most likely have a bumpy road with the bio moms rights being terminated (TPR's) and the risk of completely losing her to her bio mom will be there until  she relinquishes her rights or they are TPR'd. Which can take a year. Legal Risk is difficult, but it is really the only chance Cris and I have at adopting a baby. Since we financially can not afford private adoption.

We have been able to spend a lot of time with Tiny and her sister Little. We just adore both girls. We had them for about 7 hours today. A good chunk of that Cris was not home for. I got a run for my money :) They girls are sweet though and I loved every second of it!! I am going to miss them when they are gone this week!

We got our letter from CHS that our license has been sent to the state for approval which means they gave us their stamp of approval. And I have my PPA (even though I have not gotten an official word that it has been approved). I am going to start sending that out for an older child :) We should receive our foster license by the end of February beginning of March. It takes 50 days.

We are 2 days away from Christmas and it is bittersweet. I am happy that we have grown our family with Aunt, Uncle, Tiny and Little Bit...as well as my friend Kim and her family. I am sad that Aunt, Uncle and the babies will be out of town for the holiday, but they will be here to ring in the New Year! Kim and Family are coming Christmas morning for Breakfast! I am really looking forward to this. I am hoping this is our last Christmas without children in our house. I thought the same thing last Christmas. That is the hard part.
I have other friends also going through this process right now and I know they are having these same feelings. My heart hurts for them too. The holidays are hard for anyone who is trying to expand their family either by infertility treatments or adoption. I hope that my friends find comfort that we are at least in the process of getting what our heart longs for. And I want to remind them that it is not if we are going to get children, but it is When we get them!!