Fostering/Adoption update

We did it!!!! We finally finished our classes. We started March 26th and our last class was on Thursday May 30th going twice a week from 6pm to 9pm. Let me just tell you it was pretty rough and very time consuming, on top of those classes we had homework to do after each class that would sometimes take up to two hours to do after each class. We are both really happy that they are done, we wont have to take anymore classes until next year when we renew our license and each of us have to complete 6 hours of classes. I wish I could say the classes were very interesting but.... yeah they weren't, they taught us about the law or in simple terms what we can NOT do for the last 10 weeks.  Your thinking how many laws could there possibly be when fostering children?  Oh trust me there are a lot. In the end these laws are to protect the children and the foster parents, I wish I could agree with all of them but its really sad the restrictions the children have when living with the foster family. To give you an example, the kids are not allowed to go over to another child's house without the supervision of you the foster parent being present and this law follows the child up until the age of 18, and with that being said the child is not allowed to get a job at age 16 they have to wait until they are 18 and no longer in the system. As a foster family you are their care provider and you always have to have an eye on them. With that being said, the child is suppose to go to school and you don't have to be present with the child. It all goes back to these laws are for the protection of the child, but in the end you will find that it hurts the child.  For one, the child may think they cannot be trusted and might even feel like an out cast because they cannot hang out with another child without your supervision. Your home is suppose to teach these kids all the life skills they need to know before they leave your home. Well as most of you know as parents there is only so much you can teach your child in your home, we gain experience by living life and experiencing it outside the home. Studies show that the majority of people in the prison were in foster care system. It just breaks my heart for these kids because some of them go all 18 years never being part of a "real" family or learning the life skills they will need know for life.

So you ask what is in store for the Drury's, well we are waiting for a couple of things, the State to come out and visit our home and inspect it, they still haven't called us yet and all we can do is wait for that phone call, wait for someone to do their job. Now that we have finished our classes our paper worked has been turned in to the state and it can take 4 to 6 weeks for them to approve us as being care givers, as you can tell there is a lot of waiting going around here in our home.

Our home is going to be licensed for 3 kiddos, Tom and I have been doing a lot of thinking trying to figure out what would be best for us and our future family. Because we have never had our own child, we will be brand new parents and if any of you can remember when you first had your child, all the fears and uncertainties you had, we are having those now. Nothing in life is guaranteed and you have to roll with it and keep close to the spirit and let him guide you. In the beginning we were going to try straight adoption for a couple of months and wait to see if we get any phone calls for kids up for adoption. The reason why we wanted that was because we don't have a family we have been married for 6 years and both of us want our own child not the states but our own child, one who is sealed to us as a forever family. We didn't want to go through a bunch a kids in our home, getting attached and loving them, and in the end  they leave us. But if we weren't getting any phone calls for straight adoption then we were going to go with foster to adopt. Well we decided we will take one child in our home to foster and leave the two other openings for kids that we could adopt, and maybe we might get blessed and end up adopting the one we are fostering but we feel it would be good to get our feet wet with having a child in our home.  We have to learn how to fill out all the paper work and there is a TON of paper work you are doing. And so after about a couple of months if we haven't really had any success for those two opening to adopt then will fill those open beds with some foster kiddos. The reason behind all of this, lets say all 3 beds are full in our house with foster kiddos and then there are some kids up for straight adoption we would lose our opportunity to adopt those kids because our home is full. Its just a little scary to know we might miss out on some opportunities but we know you have to give up something to get something in the end.

This is a fun adventure we are on and we are excited, scared but excited, that we are able to have the opportunity to do this. So hopefully sometime in July we will have our fist placement, girl or boy, white, black, Asian, or Hispanic, we don't know what will be coming to us, but we think we are ready!

Gun Cabinet Tom made