Monday, October 1, 2007

We are Foster Parents!

Leave behind all your scary images and memories of horrifying newspaper articles of foster parent nightmare stories. In its place, insert a nice picture of a married couple in their mid-30's who are dying to have kids of our own. That's us! We're not mean or scary; we don't lock our foster children in their rooms and wait for the state check to come. We're just a couple of regular joes who haven't had kids yet biologically (though they can't give us any good reason why), we don' t want to try IVF and we just don't feel like waiting to love children until someone chooses us to adopt their child. We became aware of the intense need there is for good families to care for children in need (or babies, in our case) and felt like we could do well at this. So we are foster parents!

I finished out the school year with Head Start at the end of May. I spent June relaxing and enjoying my summer break, while shopping the yard sales and craigslist to get most of the baby items we would need. (Incidentally, I did quite well! Great spoils--cheap or free baby items and clothes in great shape!) I also gave notice at work, as I decided I would not be returning in August. We were officially ready to take foster babies on July 1st, but did not get our first one until August 20th. That was a long wait!

I would like to share our foster/adoption experiences through this blog. What I probably can't share, in order to remain licensed (I haven't asked but am guessing), are names and identifying photos. So the names I will use will not be the baby's true names, and while I'm dying to post photos, I'm probably going to have ensure the photos make the babies relatively unidentifiable (sooo sad!!) They are so beautiful and deserve to be identified! Maybe just not on the web. I would love to show off the babies we've had so far, so if you're interested I could probably send a photo to your email...if I know you, that is. That would not technically be making them public. If you were our next door neighbor or fellow ward member you would know their name and what they looked like anyway, right?

My next post will introduce our first foster child, who has now moved on. Waaaaah! Yes, it is even harder to say goodbye than I imagined!! But we're OK...

5 comments:

Wendy said...

Yeah, you're officially a blogger now!! Now I'm not the only one in the fam. Any stereotypical ideas about foster parents go out the window with you cause you guys are so loving with your sweet babies. And we love to have them in our family, even if only for a little while.

Deb said...

Oh, Courtney, I am so sad that you couldn't keep your little one for longer. She was blessed to have you for the short time she did. You and Ray are amazing to open your hearts to such an uncertain situation. You are putting these children before yourselves...pretty amazing. But what else could we expect from you? :) I would LOVE to see pictures if you could send them to my email!! xo

The Pick's Patch said...

courtney!
Yeah! I'm so happy for you guys!! I would LOVE to see pictures of your little ones!! How very neat...tell me all about it in my email! Or better yet, just call me! How's everything with LDS Fam. Services?

Nortorious said...

Hi Courtney,
Can I ask about the blog name, or is that classified too? Miranda is my baby's name, so if I'm missing a pop culture reference, I'd like to know!
How long do you have the baby? How old? How long did the licensing take? Can you foster Britney Spears' babies?

Celia Fae said...

And to expand upon Lenore's, can you keep any of them? Congratulations on your babies and please send me photos. And thanks for the props in your emails. I am so glad you decided to do this because now we can be BFF all over again!