Adoption and Foster Care Through DCFS

Take a leap of faith.  Cast your nets wide.  Those are our two mottos when it comes to adoption.  We are still working with LDS Family Services, and attend and training class at their office once a month.

In an effort to keep all of our options open, we are also signing up with the Nevada DCFS. 

Tonight was our first class.  An introduction and overview of how things work.  Since we have 10  more three hour classes to take that Jasper can't come to, we decided to bring him tonight.  He was an angel.  He brought a book bag of Highlights Puzzle & Maze books and a Lego magazine.  He sat right up at the big table with all the adults.  The room was full, and as a white couple, I was definitely feeling like a minority.

We have 100% involved Jasper in the adoption process.  We told him that we are looking for a baby or kids who need a home and want to be a part of our family.  Tonight he said, "Do they need a mom?"  And I replied, "Yes, and a brother and a daddy too." 

Mike had to leave after class for Bishopric meeting.  Jasper and I stayed to look at the book of kids waiting for a home.  Listed are their photo, name, and a little bit about them.  Jasper LOVED going through each page as we tried to pronounce everyone's name correctly.  I would read him a little about each kid and he would say, "They like pizza.  I like pizza.  They like soccer.  I like soccer. They like to swim.  I like to swim.  Their name starts with w J.  My name starts with a J."  It was really cute to see him looking for things he had in common with each kid.

When we were done he said something that really surprised me.  And he said it loud enough that the case workers could hear.  "Mom, I don't really want to have two kids join our family."  Great, I thought to myself.  No points for us.  Then he said, just as loudly, "Mom, I want A LOT of kids.  Not just 2, how about 6."  A little ambitious.  :)
 
We just want to adopt, but we are trying to be open to foster care and foster-to-adopt.  My heart is already broken over not being able to have any more kids, and I'm not sure that I can take the additional heart break of having kids in our home, getting attached to them, and then having them leave.  I think if we were already happy with the number of kids in our family I could do it.  But since we still want more kids, I think it would be really hard.

Here's the low down:
1.  Pass background check that we applied for tonight -- takes 1 week.
2.  Get finger printed ($55 each) and clear that check -- 2 to 4 weeks.
3.  Get assigned a case worker and get assigned a class schedule.  10 consecutive weeks for classes from 6-9 PM once a week.  And yes, class is at least 30 minutes away.  So we're talking 10 weeks of needing someone to watch Jasper at a fairly inconvenient time: 5:30-9:30 PM.
4. Start our home study and get to know our case worker at class each week.

Here we go!